The Al Sharpton radio show always gets even stranger when radical Syracuse professor Boyce Watkins is a guest. (Last year, he suggested Limbaugh listeners and Fox watchers easily become violent.) On Monday, Professor Watkins told Sharpton that Herman Cain should run for president like Colin Powell, and never mind that Powell actually endorsed Obama in 2008. If he's like a Tea Partier, then Cain's a racist:
What I will say though is that I hope he does not make this into a black man’s circus, by basically building votes within the right wing by constantly attacking the President in unfair ways. It’s one thing to say that the President’s policies are inadequate or incorrect, but it’s another thing to start acting like a Tea Partier or one of the birthers in terms of building a campaign on a basis of nonsense.
So, I will respect Herman Cain a lot more if he approaches this election the way say Colin Powell would approach the election. Colin Powell is a Republican and he wouldn’t agree with President Obama on a lot of issues, but he would advocate from a position of love and respect for his constituency, as opposed to simply trying to bash away at another black man and to gain points by being a racist with a black face.
Watkins also told Sharpton that the present level of black unemployment (17 percent) constitutes a "depression." Or as he wrote, "The grave concern with the “stop snitching on Obama” argument is that it tells black Americans that they are politically irrelevant and must rely solely on self-sufficiency to solve their problems, instead of asking the federal government to reinvest their tax dollars to help alleviate the crises that are affecting them."
Bonus wackiness: Professor Watkins complaining that when Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall was dropped by Champion athletic products for 9/11 trutherism, he was "not crazy " and "being punished for thinking too much."
