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After Ziman received her award, Reverend Lee, who is the President/CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, began his keynote speech. In the midst of this, after praising Malcolm X, he started staring directly at Ziman, according to an email she sent.The diatribe against Jews got so bad the Ziman got up and walked out in tears. But the Reverend Lee's shocking public display of anti-Semitism raises a troubling question; since the Reverend Wright controversy has faded into the background with apparently little damage to the candidate, has this been a liberating factor in giving African American preachers carte blanche to spout their hateful rhetoric with little concern that they would face any consequences for their vile speech?
Ziman’s email states “[Lee] started talking about the African American children who are suffering because of the Jews that have featured them as rapists and murderers. He spoke of a Jewish Rabbi, and then corrected himself to say ‘What other kind of Rabbis are there, but Jews.’ He told how this Rabbi came to him to say that he would like to bring the AA [African-American] community and the Jewish community together. ‘NO, NO, NO!!!!’ he shouted into the crowd, ‘we are not going to come together. The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us.’”