Dear Rev. Sharpton

Op-Ed

Rev. Al Sharpton
c/o National Action Network

February 9, 2019

Dear Rev. Sharpton,

This wonderful CNN article entitled "This Is Why Blackface Is Offensive" hit all the right notes. ("Blackface isn't just about painting one's skin darker or putting on a costume. It invokes a racist and painful history.")

I saw you on TV apparently trying to make Virginia's embattled governor a deep-seated racist by saying that you had seen students impersonating Michael Jackson without darkening their skin. It was not as though you were without a point with this particular example, because the late singer took pains to lighten his skin, and any white person who impersonated Mr. Jackson certainly did not have to bother with shoe polish.

Yet I see a distinction between the kind of blackface described in the CNN article, and times when a specific individual is conveyed. In our opinion, Billy Crystal was not being racist when he darkened his skin to play Sammy Davis. We looked up "Michael Jackson impersonators," and someone named "Earnest Valentino" came up; making himself look as closely as possible to Jackson is the whole idea, and anyone who claims "racism" is at work becomes at risk of being the true racist, where everything has to be about race. (This Valentino fellow may not have served as the best example to make our point, as it is hard to tell what he was to begin with. A bad photo of him without makeup.)

When everything becomes racist, real racism becomes diluted. In addition, over-righteousness and/or over-zealousness is not a good thing for society, because then everyone becomes fearful, and extreme censorship takes place. We are Caucasian, yet we cannot imagine how anyone, save for the most hypersensitive, would have an issue with "white trash." In 2017, Yale University unfairly fired a Chinese-American dean for off-handedly using that term not in a classroom, but in a Yelp restaurant review. The poor woman has since been crucified in "moral" hate-watch sites.

I do not like false morality, and we especially do not like false "liberals," the ones who pride themselves (most of the time, correctly) on being more compassionate and fact-oriented than "conservatives." Yale University, for example, is one of the nation's most racist universities, for having operated a "genocide studies program" for over twenty years.

There is no evidence for an "Armenian genocide"; there is instead much evidence for its infeasibility. (Example: forty-eight gendarmes died while defending Armenians.) The charge is made for reasons of politics, and prejudice. The Armenians had traitorously rebelled, they got temporarily relocated, and once 1970s-90s Armenian terrorists and the "genocide scholars" got rid of historians (through violence and smear campaigns, respectively), added to centuries-old Western "Terrible Turk" prejudice, their propagandistic "genocide" claim has come to be told without opposition.

No one challenges the powerful genocide industry because they have painted themselves as being for "human rights." "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." (Matthew 7:15)

The most immoral double standards on the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family (as worded by the U.N.'s 1948 "Universal Declaration of Human Rights") are being applied. Once one member of the human family is treated as better or worse than another member of the human family, "human rights" becomes a farce.

The Armenians conducted not one, but two systematic extermination campaigns (against Tatars, and against Ottoman Turks, Muslims and Jews, killing 529,000 of the latter). The genocide world is not just about politics, it is all about racism. They never mention the countless other episodes of historical inhumanities that are off their political agenda.

President Obama removed Churchill's bust from the Oval Office because of horrendous 1950s British actions in Kenya. (Comparative video with the Armenian story.) If tears are to be shed over any episode, logic dictates cases where peoples have been made practically extinct should take precedence, as with what Australians (under British rule) perpetrated against Tasmanians. When the genocide-exploiters keep stressing an example where no evidence exists, they make Armenians more precious than Kenyans and Tasmanians, while making the British and Australians more humane than bloodthirsty Turks. What they are blatantly engaged in is making one "race" better or worse than another "race," and as you well know, there is an unflattering word to describe that form of behavior.

To help you understand how this unproven charge provides reason to target present-day Turks, and not the Ottoman variety, visit the comments section of any "Armenian genocide" article, as this; e.g., "The Turks are the worst and lowest people on earth… Turks are nothing but monstrous and sadistic people." Right below, "I can't live with Turkish animals." You may be familiar with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, who prides herself on anti-racism; here she is, doing her share of spreading the worst hatred in the name of "morality," as may be read from among her page's comments: "I always knew Turks were racists!" and "The Turks being the ballsless, gutless turds they are … how could they call themselves human." This topic serves as a lynch mob, inviting fellow haters to spout their venom.

Another way in which the charge leads to racial hatred is when those of Turkish descent attempt to explain the truth, the ad hominem "denier" term is hurled in order to stop discussion, trying to make those telling the truth the equivalent of delusional Holocaust deniers, that is, those who are perceived as neo-Nazis. The Turks back then were Nazis, and the Turks of today are Nazis. (An L.A. councilman, Paul Koretz, recently compared the Turkish flag to a Swastika,)

The well-written CNN article regarding the offensiveness of blackface becomes somewhat ironic, because CNN has affirmed an "Armenian genocide" for years. We are including for you a letter written to Anderson Cooper who went on and on about the yearbook photo, yet has paid no mind to letters he and his CNN colleagues have received on this matter in the past. Also provided is a letter to your more familiar terrain of MSNBC; Rachel Maddow was first contacted in January 2017. Ms. Maddow, another avowed "anti-racist," has ignored our request to stop featuring Rep. Adam Schiff, who is frankly worse than David Duke; no one takes David Duke seriously, except for a fringe element of society; when Adam Schiff expresses his racism, everyone takes him seriously, because he is "respectable."

If any of us publicly defames another and better information surfaces proving we were wrong, what would we do? Those of us who are principled would correct the record, and apologize. Not doing so would be dishonorable. When former Chief of Staff John Kelly falsely accused a congresswoman and refused to make amends, he was described by The Chicago Tribune as "disgraceful and frightening." Kelly sought to harm the reputation of only one individual for alleged corruption, while the charge in question is designed to impugn the reputation of an entire nation and people, and for an incalculably graver offense.

We have regarded Prof. Cornel West very highly, but we have written him several letters asking him to correct his record, since he signed his name to a 1998 "Armenian genocide" declaration, in a rush to appear "moral," and yet without conducting any objective investigation, allowing him to make a devastating criminal charge that bears no evidence. If someone were to make a false criminal accusation against any of us, we would think of the accuser as the most immoral person on earth. It would have been one thing for Dr. West to make his terrible decision because of his ignorance and personal racial prejudices, but for him to refuse to correct his record now puts him in a different category. What are we to now think of Dr. West when he appears on TV, preaching about the evils of racism?

(Naturally, it is possible Dr. West has refused to correct the record because his belief in an "Armenian genocide" is immovable. As psychologists are aware, once an inaccuracy gets ingrained, it can be difficult to dislodge; people will not just remain steadfast, but sometimes actually become more resolute with their incorrect beliefs. Sadly, those expected to maintain open minds, such as professors, are not immune to the phenomenon. Facts become irrelevant.)

Rev. Sharpton, we see the idea behind your National Action Network is to "fight for one standard of justice, decency … for all people regardless of race, religion, ethnicity…" We hope you'll feel it becomes your duty to look into this matter.

The matter goes well beyond the "Armenian-Turkish" issue; it is the genocide world itself that calls to be exposed.

Think of the stereotype about the people who love liquor. Or the one about those who love watermelons, or the one about those who love money. All are offensive, and many would bristle when we run into such remarks designed to dehumanize. Yet hardly any would hold a candle to the especially cruel stereotype relating to those who love to kill.

Now think about how those other stereotypes would be allowed and encouraged reinforcement in our public schools!

The genocide world has corrupt politicians bending over backwards (see the letter to former Congressman Barney Frank; it will give you an idea of how the "Armenian genocide" resolutions are written by the Armenian lobbies, and those as Frank sign whatever is written, without any willingness to fact check), because the politicians are not only bigoted and not only benefit by Armenian wealth, but supporting "genocide" is a way to score easy "morality" points.

One of the allowances politicians make in order to appease the genocide world is to allow for "genocide education" to contaminate public schools. Prof. Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry, has correctly stated: "Holocaust studies are a nonsense. It has nothing to do with scholarship and everything to do with politics." The Holocaust is a real genocide — we know that to be the case, because unlike the "Armenian genocide," we have the all important "evidence" for the Holocaust — but it has been politicized as well.

We were recently contacted by a Turkish-American family from Long Island whose members were devastated by a homework assignment about the "Armenian genocide" portraying Turkish people as the spawns of Satan. We met with the principal and social studies head of Brentwood High School, and fortunately they were very reasonable, and understood the realities. Yet this is a case that has been going on in the nation's schools too often, and for years.

This "genocide" has been described in a Sept. 3, 2004 article of The Nation as "the fetish-culture of diasporan Armenians," too many of whom are "reared to hate Turkey with a fervor that seems completely at odds with their daily lives as typical — even liberal — American citizens." There is nothing like the driving force of hatred to keep a cause thriving, as you are well aware. Yet it's not enough for these particular haters to hate among themselves; their hatred is so intense, they have to actively get as many "outsiders" as possible to share their hatred.

A devious way to do so is to infiltrate the schools and to indoctrinate impressionable and vulnerable schoolchildren (beginning with the elementary level, say, with eight-year-olds) with propaganda (the cyanide to education; that is, falsehoods taught in schools would in itself be reason enough to serve as cause for concern) and with racial hatred.

Even with a real genocide, this is unacceptable. (Years ago, the book Hitler's Willing Executioners painted German people as being more predisposed toward inhumanity.) Every American should be outraged. You might be stepping on some "liberal" toes, Rev. Sharpton, but we hope you will agree this is not an area that should be overlooked.

Sincerely,

Ibrahim Kurtulus