The grandmaster of race-baiting got a slap down on his own program on MSNBC on Sunday.

The Reverend Al Sharpton invited Republican U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart of Virginia on the program to debase him for remarks he made a year ago in opposition to ripping down historic statues in the South and elsewhere because they had a connection to the slave era. Sharpton, whose own Democratic party championed the KKK for years, suggested that Stewart was defending racists and not attempting to preserve a part of American history.

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Stewart, who is attempting to unseat Democrat Tim Kaine, attempted several times to steer the conversation back to the present and the issues that citizens of all races are concerned about, but Reverend Al would have none of it, insisting that iron likenesses of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are more important to the voters of Virginia. That's when Stewart let him have it:

"There are Americans of every single race, of every single religion of every single ethnicity that are struggling with the same things. As long as we continue to divide Americans by race– and you’ve made a career out of dividing people by race, you’ve been a race hustler your entire career. You’ve made a lot of money at it, you haven’t even bothered to pay your taxes, and all you do is divide Americans by race.”

OUCH!

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Stewart is right to fight back against race-baiters like Al Sharpton. People like Sharpton have controlled the debate for too long now. Americans are sick of these foolish games and want real solutions to the problems we all face. There are those among us like Sharpton who benefit from racial divide and for that reason, that's all they see. If we let them they will destroy us. If we ignore them they will eventually go away.

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.