Al Sharpton veered into unintended hilarity on his radio show yesterday when he unveiled what he surely considers clever framing for the current state of race relations in America.
Too many African-Americans, the Rev. Sharpton informs us, are afflicted with a pernicious form of "battered race syndrome" comparable to that suffered by victims of domestic abuse.
Lest anyone miss his point, Sharpton repeated the phrase like a mantra (h/t for audio, Brian Maloney, mrctv.org) --
Some of us have battered race syndrome. We've developed, so many of us, a loser's complex. It's almost like the battered syndrome when people battered by their mate, they just automatically get ready for being battered, never occurring to them that they are full human beings and shouldn't be submitting and subjecting themselves to that. But once you create the mentality that you supposed to tolerate a whipping, a beating, abuse, that you don't even complain about it or report it 'cause you think you deserve it. Well, some of us have battered race syndrome. We can't win, ain't gonna win, that ain't gonna work, nothing's gonna work, duh duh duh, because we have battered race syndrome. We've beaten ourself into defeatism. So they don't have to beat us, we beat ourselves with our own battered syndrome of we can't win. I don't know what marching gonna do. Well then, why's everybody else marching and getting their stuff through? Because they know if they go out there and raise the temperature somebody gonna have to deal with them, but you don't think you qualify for that 'cause they beat you down. Well, those that don't have that syndrome, meet me in Washington Aug. 24 (to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom) and let's do what's gotta be done.
Suffice it to say, Sharpton is the antithesis of those hobbled by this horrible affliction. Whereas some people will tolerate whippings and other forms of assault and not "complain about it or report it," Sharpton is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He's quite willing to allege abuse motivated by racism even when it doesn't exist.
