In 2001, as Sharpton contemplated a run for president in the 2004 election, he made a trip to Sudan to verify reports of the ongoing enslavement of Christian blacks there by Arab Muslims. Reports were emerging of Arabs from northern Sudan raiding black Christian villages in the south of Africa’s then-largest country, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. (Full disclosure: At the time, I headed a movement to educate the public about modern-day slavery. We worked with the human rights organization Christian Solidarity International, which over the years redeemed tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan who were returned to their villages.)
To be fair, Sharpton’s 2001 trip to Sudan required courage. He flew with CSI leaders into a war zone on one of CSI’s regular slave redemption missions to see and talk to the slaves. The mission was protected by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a black militia defending southern villages against an onslaught that had over the years killed millions and enslaved tens of thousands, an onslaught that the Islamist rulers in Khartoum designated a jihad. Sharpton was appalled. He said it was “outrageous that no nationally known civil rights group has gone over to Africa to criticize what is happening there.†He met with slave women, who showed him their scars from being beaten and raped. One asked him if the world knew of her people’s suffering; Sharpton replied, “They don’t know now, but they will soon.â€
When Sharpton returned from Sudan he met with senior members of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had been vigorously denying that Arabs were enslaving blacks. ...
Indeed, the mounting reports of Arab Muslims owning, breeding, and torturing black Muslims with impunity may have pushed Farrakhan into an unforced error: As reported by the New York Times, when he was cornered at a televised press conference and pressed by a reporter about his silence on the current enslavement of blacks, Louis Farrakhan grew visibly angry and challenged the gathered reporters. “If slavery exists,†he shouted, “why don’t you go, as a member of the press?! And you look inside of the Sudan, and if you find it, then you come back, and tell the American people what you have found!†The editors of the Baltimore Sun took him up on his challenge and sent two reporters to Sudan, where the reporters personally purchased the freedom of two black Christian slave boys. ...
One can imagine Sharpton, upon his return from the slave liberation trip in Sudan, being read the riot act by the Farrakhaners: “You want to divide the black community?!†In any event, Sharpton reneged on his promise to the freed slave woman that he would make sure black Americans learned about the plight of her people. ...
A bit of contextual info:
* At the time of
Sharp Al's trip, US MSM and US black "leaders" had for
20 years been largely ignoring the genocide of the Muslim Arab Sudan government leaders against the black Christians and animists in southern Sudan.
* Basically due to GWB's diplomacy and US military presence in nearby Iraq (= GWB was willing to use military power) the Muslim Arab Sudan government leaders ceased their genocide in 2005, and South Sudan's 2011 independence was set in motion.
* Contrast the MSM's near-non-coverage of Sudan's ~25 years of genocide against black Christians and animists with the blanket coverage of Sudan's genocide against black Muslims in Darfur.
* Then consider the MSM's non-coverage of Myanmar's years of oppressing the country's Christian ethnic minorities with the MSM's blanket coverage of the oppression of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority.
* Seen much coverage of Iran's persecution of Iranian Christians and Baha'i?
