Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [63]
“I am Al Sharpton’s daughter, Dog, and I haven’t answered this phone in years,” she said.
“Thank you, Lord!” I screamed.
“I heard the tape and I think it’s all been taken out of context.”
To hear Al Sharpton’s daughter say she understood my situation meant so much to me. Now all I had to do was convince her to relay my message to her dad. Relief washed over me when she gave me a private number to call her back on the next day.
I phoned her as planned, but there was no answer. I called again. Still no answer. The third time I called she picked up.
“Hi, this is Dog.”
“Hi.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“About what?” My heart was in my throat. I had hoped she was going to give me good news. On the contrary she started to explain that her father had decided to stay out of my situation.
I had no plan B. Everyone had told me how stupid it was to think I could pick up the phone and get Al Sharpton to back me. They said he’d hang me from the highest tree before joining forces. But I didn’t see it that way. If I could somehow get his support, I believed everyone else would have to follow. I hesitated before I opened my mouth, but I thought this was my last shot at finding a way to her dad.
“I’ve got to resolve this,” I told her. “Your father is one of the most courageous and fearless leaders in the black community. He’s never backed down from controversy.” I began rambling as fast as I could. She had me so nervous I was fumbling over my words and thinking I ought to go hang myself since that was what her father was about to do to me anyway. But then she interrupted me.
“I’m just teasing you, Dog. Dad said he is not going to say anything about the incident if you take care of a couple of things for him.”
She said Reverend Sharpton wanted me to attend a rally against guns, which I was all too happy to be a part of. She also mentioned Dr. Phil was going to be there too.
“That Great White Dope? What a peckerwood!” I said. She started laughing on the other end of the line. “I’ll go to the rally, but I’m not getting anywhere near that arrogant jerk.”
To this day, Reverend Sharpton has kept his word. He never said a negative thing about me. And though there were several people I met along the way who offered me their support, it wasn’t until a chance meeting in January 2008 that I thought I might actually be welcomed back into the African-American community.
Despite his efforts to get A&E to pull my show, I also reached out to Roy Innis and CORE to see if there was some way to make amends. Mr. Innis was resistant at first, but we were eventually able to set up a meeting to get to know each other. I knew I could turn him around if I spent some face time with him. His son also attended the meeting, and for whatever reason, he was wearing a name tag that read, “Niger Innis.” After spotting it, I looked at Roy in total disbelief.
“Now, listen,” I told him. “This is my life I’m trying to defend. You mean to tell me you named your son the ‘N’ word?”
They both broke out in uproarious laughter. “Duane, his name is Niger, as in the river,” Roy said.
I was a little embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know how to spell the word I’d uttered that brought us together that day. Roy was stunned by my innocence. He looked at his son and said, “He doesn’t even know how to spell it, how could he be a racist?” Perhaps that moment helped him to understand how naïve I really was. Whatever the reasons, Roy got to know me that day.
“You don’t fit any criteria for a racist, Dog,” he told me.
Thank God I found an ally. I was looking for a leader to help me and found a friend. I began crying tears of joy and screaming “Hallelujah” at the top of my lungs. I wanted to shout from the highest mountaintop that I had been forgiven. I turned to Roy and Niger and said, “The Lord is on the mountain,” quoting the great Martin Luther King. All they could say was “Amen!”
After hearing my side of the story, Roy realized that the controversy had unjustly spiraled out of control after the tapes were released out of context.