On Sunday's PoliticsNation on MSNBC, host Al Sharpton slammed President Donald Trump for recently using the term "paddy wagon," calling it an "anti-Irish ethnic slur." He then went on to absolve himself of his own long history of using ethnic slurs by vaguely admitting to doing so in the past, but by lumping himself in with everyone else as "we," as he claimed he already "corrected" his offensive comments. Sharpton: "It's against decency to use ethnic slurs. We've all used them, and we've all corrected them."
But, as recently as three years ago, Sharpton was caught on tape actually defending his infamous use of the word "white interloper" to refer to a Jewish business owner in the 1990s.
On Sunday's show, Sharpton devoted a short segment to President Trump's recent speech before a group of police officers in which the President made jokes about being rough to criminals. A clip of the President was shown:
When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in. Rough. I said, "Please don't be too nice." Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over them, like, don't hit their head -- and they've just killed somebody -- don't hit their head. I said, "You can take the hand away, okay?"
The MSNBC host then responded:
So when we go from Rodney King being beat by police to all the way to Freddie Gray, who was killed by police in a rough ride in Baltimore, some of the studies show, "Don't be too nice"? "Be rough"? And, oh, by the way, President Trump, "paddy wagon"? An ethnic slur. "Paddy wagon"? An anti-Irish ethnic slur. So let me get this right -- you're not sitting up in Trump Tower arguing with me in the office anymore. You're in the White House making ethnic slurs in jest to police to be more rough, violate more of people's human civil rights? Violating the law -- it's against the law, Mr. President.
Sharpton then added:
It's against the law for police to mishandle people that they're arresting. It's against the law to go beyond the presumption of innocence, and it's against decency to use ethnic slurs. We've all used them, and we've all corrected them. I thought as President you would at least know better than to repeat them.
As recalled by The Daily Surge, it is far from clear that Sharpton has done anything to "correct" his past use of racial slurs since he actually defended his use of a racial slur in a videotaped encounter from three years ago.
