Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Bev Smith's Hissy Fit

Pittsburgh-based syndicated talk show host Bev Smith ("The Queen of Late Night Talk" for American Urban Radio Networks)  is mystified that local Jews would protest her invitation to the Rev. Louis Farrakhan to appear at a local Town Hall meeting. In an open letter to what she calls "outside forces," she gives these presumptuous Jews a good tongue lashing:
...On March 11th, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we will go inside the black community, to look at our responsibilities for some of those social problems, like an increasingly escalating high school dropout rate coupled with a high teenage pregnancy rate.

To undertake this challenging responsibility I've invited leaders and experts in the fields of community development, and political achievement. I asked the founder of the Million Man March, The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, along with Assistant Minority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), and Melanie Campbell, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation participate in this event.

All agree that this conversation about our community is long overdue and they are excited to be a part of the discussion and would like to helpfind solutions to the problems plaguing our community. Simply, the discussion is aimed at Black People only.

This is why I was somewhat perplexed and later outraged at the suggestion from the Jewish Chronicle that our efforts to talk to people we feel are relevant to our community, is an offense against the Jewish community.

For years I have enjoyed a relationship with the Jewish community and cannot understand why a community who has suffered discrimination as my community has would suggest that we should not have the ability to meet and discuss with anyone we want to regarding the black community.

This town hall meeting, is not about the Jewish community, Egypt, the current problems in Afghanistan or anything else, except, its sole purpose is to discuss the state of the black community in 2011.

I resent those outside forces that are trying to highjack this town hall meeting by making their concerns the center of our discussion. This is not a meeting to discuss anti-Semitism...
So there. That said, if you ever want to discuss the above-mentioned topic, the "Honorable" Farrakhan is a good person to discuss it with, since he happens to be an unrepentant and whole-hearted Jew-hater.

Once could be easily be "outraged" by and "resentful" of a tone-deaf individual who admires a bollocksy Jew-hater like Farrakhan, but, really, why waste the angst?

1 comment:

rasp said...

With people like this (an NPR fan) it is always about the 'discussions" and "conversation" but only on their terms, with their people otherwise forget it because your being divisive, etc.