Sociopath alert: Al Sharpton

Al Sharpton has led a life characterized by shamelessness, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and self-promotion. He doesn't even seem to make an effort to hide these traits, which makes him something of a rarity among sociopaths.

Sharpton first gained national attention with the Tawana Brawley "rape" case. Since then he has managed to insert himself into practically every major racial flareup in the country.

His history of race-baiting is generally well known, so there's no need to go into detail about all the incidents he has involved himself in: the Jena Six, the Trayvon Martin case, the Michael Brown case, and so on.

People have often ended up dying after Sharpton has inflamed passions, as happened in the Freddie's Fashion Mart fire, the Crown Heights riots, and the Ismaiiyl Brinsley killings. Sharpton has always  subsequently distanced himself from the killers. But in all of these cases he did his best to stir up resentment, whether or not it was justified.

Sharpton's credibility and point of view might best be summed up by this quote, from 1994: "White folks was in caves while we was building empires.... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it."

Sharpton and his for-profit corporations currently owe the IRS a total of $4.5 million in back taxes; he has been taking his time about paying the money back. On two separate occasions when the IRS was supposed to collect documentation from him, those documents were destroyed by suspicious fires.

Sharpton has never been able to fully account for how contributions to his National Action Network have been spent, either.

In any case, his hypocrisy in all of these instances has been amply documented elsewhere. What's far more interesting are the things that get much less publicity: his being an FBI informant, his early years as James Brown's manager, his even earlier years as a child preacher, and his family background.

Sharpton was born on October 3, 1954. He graduated from high school in 1972, and attended Brooklyn College for two years, dropping out in 1975.

In 1972, he became the national youth director for Shirley Chisholm's Presidential campaign. It's hard not to wonder what sort of 17-year-old has the nerve to apply for that job? What kind of fast talking and self-promotion did that entail?

Between 1973 and 1980, Sharpton served as singer James Brown's tour manager. He was still a teen-ager when he got that position as well. What kind of teen-ager thinks he's qualified to serve in that capacity, and actually manages to finagle that job? What kind of nerve and fast talking did that entail?

The fact is, no teenager really has either the knowledge or experience to take on these jobs. In order to get them, a teenager would have to pretty much dissemble about his qualifications. So not only did Sharpton exhibit tremendous nerve to get hired, he must have been something of a con artist as well.

And if you scratch a con artist, you'll almost always find a sociopath.

Even more revealing is Sharpton's history as an informant for the US government, though much of the information on a topic like this by its nature tends to remain shrouded in secrecy.

According to a 1988 NY Times report:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a Brooklyn minister who has organized civil disobedience demonstrations and has frequently criticized the city's predominantly white political leadership, assisted law-enforcement officials in at least one recent criminal investigation of black community groups, Government sources said.

He also allowed investigators to wiretap a telephone in his home, the sources said.

But Mr. Sharpton disputed much of an account published yesterday in New York Newsday that said he had cooperated in several Federal investigations….

''I think the idea of this setup is either killing me or scaring me into running out of town,'' the 33-year Pentecostal minister said on a program on radio station WLIB. ''But I won't back down. When God made me, he forgot to put reverse in my transmission.''

As a young man, Sharpton managed to insinuate himself into the inner circles of Shirley Chisholm, James Brown, Don King, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Jesse Jackson. If he did want to further himself by informing on prominent blacks, he had plenty of opportunity.

Disloyalty, of course, is another hallmark of sociopathy.

Note Sharpton's own words: [God] "forgot to put reverse in my transmission." In other words, there is no room in his personality for qualms, shame, acknowledgment of error, or apologies.

But how did he become this way?

Sharpton evidently preached his first sermon at age four, and was ordained as a Pentecostal minister at age nine. (Smell a stage parent?) If you're preaching at an age when you're not old enough for kindergarten, what sort of narcissism does that encourage?

When Sharpton was nine, his father left his mother to have a relationship with Sharpton's 18-year-old half-sister (they had a baby together). What standard of loyalty must that have instilled in the young Sharpton? What level of ill will must that have fomented in that household?

It seems to have set a precedent in Sharpton's life which he has repeated over and over again, instigating discord wherever he goes.

One side note: Both of the two (white) sociopaths I knew best had a habit of over enunciating each of their words, as if every single thing that came out of their mouths deserved special emphasis. It's a weird sociopathic tic, reflective of feelings of self righteousness, narcissism, and a bullying nature. Think of the way Sharpton often bellows, not only overemphasizing every word, but sometimes even every syllable. It's the same tic.

Easy verdict: Sharpton is a sociopath.