In his sermonic remarks at Michael’s funeral Monday, Sharpton tried to assume the mantle of Black America’s spiritual leader, the one with the moral and rhetorical force to move us toward thinking of Mike’s death as the beginning of a movement, rather than merely a moment.
Al Sharpton, however, does not have the ear of this generation, and it is not his leadership that any of us who will live on the planet for the next half-century or so really needs. To be clear, I do not believe in the slaying of elders. Black cultural traditions hold within them a serious reverence for the authority and wisdom of elder people.
This is not about Sharpton’s age, but rather about how he has positioned himself in relationship to Black politics. My issue with him resides squarely within the limitations of his moral and political vision for who and how Black people get to be within the American body politic.