James O’Keefe’s latest undercover operation unveils what many of us have suspected about Al Sharpton—he’s not really in this for equality’s sake.
In a new video released by Project Veritas, the daughter of Eric Gardner sounds off on Al Sharpton’s monetization of the race-based movement-building that occurred in the wake of her father’s police-related death. She also openly complains about National Action Network, Sharpton’s advocacy group, and their tendency to hijack homegrown demonstrations and social movements.
Watch:
From the New York Post:“You think Al Sharpton is kind of like a crook in a sense?” the investigator is heard asking Garner’s oldest daughter.“He’s about this,” Snipes replies, rubbing her fingers together.“He’s about money with you?” the undercover asks.“Yeah,” Snipes responds.Snipes, 24, also complained that the Staten Island director of Sharpton’s National Action Network, Cynthia Davis, scolded her for handing out street fliers about her father’s case that did not include NAN’s logo.“She started attacking me. ‘Oh, I see that you got this flier out, how come you didn’t add the logo?’ ’’ Snipes said.The undercover then asks, “They want their logo on your fliers?”“Instead of me, he wants his face in front,” Snipes says, referring to Sharpton“But it’s not about them, it’s about your dad,” the undercover says.“Exactly,” Snipes responds.“Al Sharpton paid for the funeral. She’s trying to make me feel like I owe them,” she adds.
In a follow up interview with the Post, Erica denied accusing Sharpton of being a money grubber.
Sharpton hasn’t taken the criticism lying down:
“It is very interesting that they, when they reached the people in the video, the people contradicted what was in the video,” Sharpton told CBS News. “My response is it’s a headline of a story that they contradict in their own article.”“Not only do I think the video was taken out of context, there is nobody in that video that said I did anything with money,” he added. “The New York Post has more explaining to do than I do in this case.”
He also called out Project Veritas for releasing footage of the investigator’s Q&A with Erica:
Sharpton on Monday night accused Project Veritas of “exploiting” Snipes and a dispute within the Garner family.“They’re splicing and dicing stuff together. It was a distortion. Erica is a sincere victim. She was not trying to infer anything with me,” Sharpton said of the secret recording.Sharpton said the premise of the criticism is flat wrong. He said NAN helps families, including paying for funerals, and does not take money from them. He said Snipes’ sister, Emerald, now works for NAN.Moreover, he said, NAN organizes rallies after receiving legal permits from the city and therefore requests that its logo be put on fliers for events it sponsors.
This is an important development in the context of the slow unraveling of the race-based social justice movement. Even if Erica Garner and other participants clarify what they said about Sharpton, there’s still so much here that can’t be explained away. Sharpton banks on his activists being united; it makes for an easy media pitch, and an easy narrative to defend.
Here, we see the cracks in the facade getting bigger and bigger.
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