I hope “Tawana Brawley II” does not turn into “Freddy’s Fashion Mart II.”

The Martin/Zimmerman fracas has many of the same actors and overtones of both the Tawana Brawley hoax and the Freddy’s Fashion Mart killings. If anyone can turn a racially charged killing into a national tragedy, notorious tax cheat and racial huckster Al Sharpton is the man. But he can’t do it by himself, he needs that active participation of the news media, other black race hustlers, and some political cover. He’s getting that … and more.

UPDATE:  Flopping Aces reminded me of Al Sharpton's path of death and destruction. A few years after making his bones in 1987 with the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax he incites a race riot and the murder of Jews.

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin’s funeral he rails against the “diamond merchants” — code for Jews — with “the blood of innocent babies” on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, “No justice, no peace.” A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting “Kill the Jews!” and stabbed to death.

And of course his biggest death toll so far, Freddy's Fashion Mart (mentioned earlier):

Sharpton’s National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy’s are spat on and cursed as “traitors” and “Uncle Toms.” Some protesters shout, “Burn down the Jew store!” and simulate striking a match. “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers,” says Sharpton’s colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy’s, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

The White community shuns the KKK and it's admireres, but the Black version of the leader of the KKK, Al Sharpton, is welcomed by Liberals of all hues.

If Sharpton were a white skinhead, he would be a political leper, spurned everywhere but the fringe. But far from being spurned, he is shown much deference. Democrats embrace him. Politicians court him. And journalists report on his comings and goings while politely sidestepping his career as a hatemongering racial hustler.

Barack Obama embraces Al Sharpton

And MSNBC gives him his own show.