Report: Wife Scratched Tiger Woods' Face, Chased His SUV; Update: Police Unable To Interview Couple Today
GMA: Adam Lambert, No; Chris Brown, Yes
Street Artist Proposes on Subway Signage
SLA Raids Bar for Selling Wisconsin Beer
Two Doors Fall Off AirTrain At JFK
After yesterday's "shocking" revelation that his ancestors were slaves owned by ancestors of Senator Strom Thurmond, the Reverend Al Sharpton held a press conference to discuss the news. It turns out that a Daily News reporter asked Sharpton if he'd like research his family history with genealogy website Ancestry.com - the NY Times reports that Ancestry.com "approached the Daily News seeking to publicize its African-American ancestry database" and the ball got rolling from there. At the Daily News offices, Sharpton told reporters:
"It's important for America, because in the story of the Thurmonds and the Sharptons, there's the story of the shame and the glory of America. The shame is that people were owned as property, and the shame is that every time I write my name now, I will think about how I got that name. The shame is that I am the heir of those who were property to the Thurmond family.He also told the Daily News he'd be willing to test his DNA to see if it matched a white Thurmond or Sharpton. Ancestry.com genealogist Megan Smolenyak said, though, that it was doubtful there would be a match, "There is no particular evidence to suggest that there is a direct relationship between the two [black and white] Sharpton families to suggest they share a common ancestry. But, given the legacy of plantation society, you can't rule it out.""But the glory is that Strom Thurmond ran for President in 1948 on a segregationist ticket. I ran in '04 on a ticket of racial justice. I got 10% of the vote in South Carolina. I beat [former Vermont Gov.] Howard Dean and [retired Army Gen.] Wesley Clark in South Carolina.
"I wonder what my great-grandfather would have thought about that."
And when the Daily News spoke to white Sharptons in Florida and told them they were descended from slave owners, they were shocked as well.
Photograph of Reverend Al Sharpton at a press conference yesterday by Seth Wenig/AP
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
So if Sharpton winds up being genetically and not just genealogically related to Thurmond via slavery, would he have to demand reparations from himself?
wait, so sharpton's white?
i knew he was a big phony bologna.
Let's take this one step further...
If the Southern plantation owners of the 1700's and 1800's didn't buy slaves from Africa, then they would have never been captured and sold by their own people (but that's another story that Al forgets). Had Al Sharpton's great-grandfather not been a slave, he would have remained in Africa, as would his descendants. It is a fact that very few Africans immigrated to the US during that time period. The majority of Africans came here via the slave trade.
So... had great-grandpa Sharpton stayed in Africa, then Al Sharpton would never have been born here in The Land of Opportunity. He, along with the rest of his family would still be in Africa, with a sliver of a percentage of the opportunity he and his family now have, quite possibly living in third-world conditions, or still among the bush.
Stop whining and count your blessings. Make something of yourself with the opportunities laid before you. all of our ancestors, black AND white, made sacrifices back in the day so that this generation might have things better than they did. I believe we're all better off than our great-grandfathers.
God Bless America.
I am a black man and have connections with Robert Byrd. No big deal.
Who the F cares? What possible difference does it make except to give that fat blowhard a chance to call a press conference?
This is kinda like that episode of Family Guy..
Does anyone realize how much sharpton is getting paid for this? How much better advertising can you get.
wow, i can't believe this guy had a press conference with that ridiculous ancestry.com ad/poster board in the background to discuss something as insignificant as this. WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO, AL SHARPTON, JR.? high-five? tissue?
why don't you move on to more pressuring issues of 2007 (not last century) instead of belaboring some moot point and playing the martyr here.
ancestry.com is makin moves...that's all you need to know
[3] Posted by: BrianK | February 26, 2007 12:44 PM
And BrianK, by the time your ancestors arrived, America was up and running from three hundred years of free labor, of which you are enjoying the fruits of that right now, since your peeps, didn't labor in a cotton field. I'm sure your daddy was "Freedom Rider"-KKK-just to make sure you got a little extra start, since Euro-ethnics such as your self are terrified at the thought of true meritocracy, a real level playing field.
If black people didn't exsist BRIAN K, then you'd have to invent them, because white isn't a race, it's just a bunch of Euro-ethnics trying to figure out how to be white, and your not doing a very good job. A real WASP has high self esteem, Euro-ethnics such as yourself do not. Your trying desperately to be part of the WASP fraternity, that doesn't want you, never wanted you, only if you come through the back door. Question for you BRIANK; if slavery didn't exsist, what would America or Europe really look like? Bosnia? Albania? Have you ever been to Ireland? They're living like they are still in the 19th Century, same with Poland, Hungary, Romania and all these countries had to deal with was a couple of wars. Unlike Africa, Three Hundred Years of Slavery, natural resources plundered by Euro and American consortiums. Blacks were picked to come here, to build this country and the economy's of Europe. The reason why people of color can't stand ignorant Euro ethnics-or so called white people-is that we're tired of your fear-of being dominated-for superiority.
So Brian K and all the other petty scared wannabeee Klansmen, take off your hoods, take off your robes, the Civil War is over, you lost. Grow some balls, get a life, and compete fairly with we people of color, and for God's sake, stop calling yourselves White, White isn't race.
you're funny, squidfly. but was there a point or are you just splattering your hate and absurd generalizations? this is as close as you'll get in this world to a true meritocracy, but unfortunately for you, lack of logic leaves you whining at the bottom. you see, 'merit' implies that you have something of value to contribute to society.
The edge called it.
Hurumph! Hurumph!
Who gives a damn who he was related to? God forbid, I might be related to squidfly. Yikes!
squidfly- "black" isn't a race either.
squidfly:
So I'm a "Euro-ethnic." Good one. My husband's side of the family lived in the South, had no slaves, and SLAVED in their own cotton fields. My own ancestors, and I date these back to 1651, had no slaves, and worked their own fields. We are both of white, European descent, consider ourselves "white", and quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn for your "Euro-ethnic" designation.
So this is it huh? Sharpton gets a boner because his greatgreatgreatgrandmother was sharing the bed of a white man...
Yea, i guess that's it.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!!!! Don't you understand it is because of this type of BS that this country is ridiculed throughout the world? Don't you understand that the past is called the past because it HAS PAST!!! It's gone, it's dead, it's done with. Yea, there were plenty of lessons to be learned from it, but as the common american a.k.a. Al Bundy said "I'll be damned if I know what they are"
So here's a lesson for you. Whatever's buried is buried for a reason. Digging up old wounds won't heal anybody. In fact, it's when the wound starts to bleed again, makes a big mess, adds up the hospital bill and then you look at yourself in the mirror with the expression: "I should have kept my F-ing mouth SHUT!"
That's the lesson.
Want more? Well guess what... there ain't no more.
We're all monkeys, in looks, in behaviour and in thinking. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else we tell ourselves is just sugarcoating.
Yea, and I don't hate anybody, black white purple green brown pink yellow, whatever. I hate the BS that comes along with the color of one's skin.
Does this mean that Al Sharpton might be sweet little Danielynn's father?
i love his new ponytail.
Hmmm White, Susan so, so touchy. Euro-ethnics are so touchy. OK, maybe you'll feel more comfortable with this term, Americans who call themselves white, enjoy pontificating on the problems of the"Other" however when the finger is pointed at them, OH DEAR! HOW DARE YOUSAY THAT ABOUT US!!! "My Ancestors slaved away in the cotton fields and he was an Irish immigrant, married to my Polish Great ga'ma..."Please Susan you big baby!!
The first Africans to arrive came here in 1619, after a period of time they freed people, you wanna play the dating game Susan go ahead, but stop the "So Called American White Girl Whining" It's so old, old, DixieCrat old school. You need to check your bloodline.
Susan what's wrong with being called a Euro-ethnic? Your scared of losing your "White" skin priveleges?
White Americans such as yourself, love to pontificate about minorities and such.
So why didn't you protest the other comments especially Brian's flagrant racist comment that nutjob, slavery racist denier's use, that Africans were better off in Slavery than in Africa?
You, WHite, Brian and all the other posters are closet KLANSMEN/WOMEN. I mean that's ok if that's your thing. But please admit it your a Euro ethnic all of you, your not white. I mean whiteness has beeb taught from watching too many movies. That's why Europeans can come here and learn how to be white, by watching TV.