You know a celebrity has jumped the shark when they’re more famous for their political statements than whatever they did as an actual career (acting, singing, dancing, extreme pantomime, whatever).
A prime example is Harry Belafonte. I don’t remember what he sang decades ago. But I do remember that for the past decade he makes headlines for obviously-leftist political statements.
In his acceptance speech for an NAACP award, he brings up a talking point that is oft-repeated but rarely addressed: “America has the largest prison population in the world, and the over two million men, women and children who make up the incarcerated, the overwhelming majority of them is black. African Americans are the most unemployed, the most caught in the unjust systems of justice. And in the gun game, they are the most hunted. The rivers of blood that wash the streets of our nation flow mostly from the bodies of our black children. Yet, as the great debate emerges on the question of the gun, white America discusses the constitutional issues of ownership, while no one speaks to the consequences of our racial carnage.”
What is “White America”? Why do leftists insist on dividing America by color? Do Caucasians have passports from “White America” while African-Americans have passports from “Black America”? Or is it just another wedge used to divide people down racial lines?
And since when were there constitutional “issues” to gun ownership? “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. It’s probably the most clearly-crafted line in the Constitution, yet one of the most hotly-debated.
Belafonte asserts that “in the gun game, they are the most hunted”, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of shooters of African-Americans are…African-Americans. The hunters are the hunted.
Also, in referring to the prison population that “the overwhelming majority of them is black”, ignores the statistic: 40% of the prison population is of an ethnicity that is around 11-13% of the population. A plurality is not a majority.
The canard that America has the largest prison population in the world is ignorant of the fact that American justice is the most fair and effective in the world. Our motto is “innocent until proven guilty”. You try that in other developed and “progressive” countries like Singapore or even the UK and you’d get laughed out of the courtroom.
Belafonte’s argument for radical thought concludes, “the citizens of the nation have not only the obligation, but the right, to challenge the state and those who run it. And he said, if we fail to do that, if we fail to meet that moral criteria, then we, the citizens, should be charged with patriotic treason.”
The state is currently run by a man who, like Belafonte, is extremely-leftist and African-American. Radical change cannot happen until the man is, by Belafonte’s own definition, challenged. Neglect to do so is “patriotic treason”.
