Al Sharpton: Right Wing ‘Act[s] As Though Some Wiping Out Of People Is All Right’

Al Sharpton‘s radio show, Keepin’ It Real, got into some muddy waters last week talking about the American right. In response to a caller upset at Sean Hannity for “talking about the President like he’s nobody” and for “talk[ing] about Hitler” when “you massacred millions of Indians,” Sharpton accused the “right wing” of “acting like… some wiping out of people is okay.”

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A caller on Friday’s edition of Keeping It Real with Al Sharpton called in with two comments for the MSNBC host– the first about “this Hannity character” who is “out of control” and other similar figures. “They talk about Hitler, Mr. Sharpton. Who are you to talk? You massacred millions of Indians and millions of slaves? Who are you to talk about Hitler like Hitler was such a– yes, he was a terrible man,” the caller tells Sharpton. His second comment is a recommendation to Sharpton to hire a bodyguard and keep safe.

In response to the caller, Sharpton tried to clarify the caller’s comments. “I think what the caller was saying, if I understood right, is that you can’t choose one massacre of people or mass destruction or mass murder of people over others,” he explained. “What Hitler did, as you said, was horrific, but what was done to Native Americans was horrific, and to others was horrific.” He clarified that “I don’t think we have to compare the two” and he did not think the caller was “comparing Hannity and Hitler,” but the message was, “how are you going to talk about some and excuse others? You have to condemn it all because mass murder is wrong.”

“It seems like they act as though, some wiping out of people– some of the right-wing– is all right,” Sharpton continues, asserting that “it’s not all right to do to any innocent people… what was done in Hitler’s Germany or what was done to Native Americans is not justifiable.” What follows is a pronoun minefield, where the comparisons are held prisoner by grammar. His guest for the day, New York Amsterdam News publisher Elinor Tatum then chimes in, saying that “what is similar to Hitler’s Germany is that Hitler did not believe those people to be human.” She is clearly comparing Hitler’s Germany to something. To what? Her next sentence is:

“They believed them to be subhuman and that’s, I think, the same thing we think people are thinking here is that you know why would they even care about them because they’re not human. And that’s how we’re being looked at and that’s what the scariest part of this whole thing is.”

Those who have tried to make sense of the segment have given it a noble effort, but to little avail. For one, most posts referring to the statements exclude the comments of the caller, which are pivotal to understanding the conversation (you can listen to the caller in the clip below). Some assert that Sharpton says in this clip that “Republicans are ready to kill African-Americans.” That’s not quite right, as he himself does not say anything about African-Americans. What Sharpton says in response to the caller is that he does believe that some on the right are comfortable with “some wiping out of people”– or at least speak like it when the uphold the Holocaust as worse than the killing of people in the Americans. He states they are equally unjustifiable. What Tatum is talking about is anyone’s guess, though the pronoun “we’re” in “that’s how we’re being looked at” (ie “not human) could reasonably be interpreted as “African-Americans.” But Sharpton says nothing in this vein.

Then there is the interpretation: “Republicans See Blacks Like Hitler Saw Jews.” This is closer, in that it seems to be the most reasonable interpretation of what Tatum is saying. But those comments came out of left field in the context of the commenter and Sharpton’s comments.

It appears that the clearest interpretation of what Sharpton is saying here is that people like Hannity tacitly approve of the massacre of slaves and Native Americans by upholding the Holocaust as something more heinous– a completely insane and irresponsible implication to make, prompted by a completely insane and irresponsible set of comments from a commenter. There is no justifying that implication. But it is a completely different point than the one many are trying to pin on Sharpton: that right-wingers are essentially Nazis in spirit. He says nothing of the sort (whether Tatum does is certainly debatable). In fact, he seems to be accusing the right of quite the opposite: bashing Hitler too much at the expense of other victimized peoples.

A difficult clip to parse, but an uncomfortable one nonetheless. Listen to the audio below:

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.