Man! I didn’t know it got that bad
Black Commenter, Criticizing Obama, Causes Firestorm
By Darryl Fears
washingtonpost.com
Tavis Smiley, the bestselling author of the “Covenant With Black America,” is in a world turned upside down. He said he’s being “hammered,” “barbecued,” and is “catching hell” from black Americans for suggesting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a major mistake by declining to speak at the State of the Black Union event that Smiley plans to host next week in New Orleans.
“There’s all this talk of hater, sellout and traitor,” Smiley said to me in a telephone interview. Smiley even mentioned getting death threats, but wouldn’t elaborate. He said his office has been flooded with angry e-mails. “I have family in Indianapolis. They are harassing my momma, harassing my brother. It’s getting to be crazy,” Smiley said.
Smiley’s problems started early this month after he invited Obama to speak at the State of the Black Union, an event Smiley founded nine years ago. Held annually during Black History Month and broadcast by C-Span, the event gathers a Who’s Who of black intellectuals, pundits, activists, entertainers and politicians to discuss and brainstorm about where black America is and where it is headed. This year’s topic is “Reclaiming Our Democracy, Deciding Our Future.” (more…)
Found via Mo’ Kelly
Speaking of Mo’, here is what he had to say on this mess.
THE MO’KELLY REPORT: Black ‘Kings’ and ‘Queens’ - We Are Hilarious
eurweb.com
Boy, Black folks (my people) are a funny bunch. That’s “funny” as in ‘ha ha.’ Yep, Mo’Kelly said it. Mo’Kelly loves you all, but he knows y’all too.
Only in the United States of Black America can Black folks send death threats to Tavis Smiley and his family because he asks Black folks to be informed before they go to the polls (if we go at all) and for arguing that Senator Barack Obama SHOULD put us on a pedestal. (more…)
As I said recently, Tavis is the only one that has been consistent through this whole mess. When he was calling out the GOP, he was getting amen’d out of the building. When he began to put the pressure on Obama for the same thing, he became defined as a “crab in the barrel” and part of the old school of the same stripe as the NAACP.
But death threats?
