Obama vs. Cambridge police

[Berzerker]

then she needs to mind her own ****ing business before i put my foot in her ass

she was calling on behalf of an elderly neighbor who saw the break in and brought it to her attention asking her to call.

and I agree this was not about race, or profiling...

[Felch]

Arrian, when the first words out of your mouth when asked about a contraversial incident are "I don't have all the facts" one would think that a smart pol would stop talking. Rather than inserting himself and his opinion without having any facts to shield him.

Having all the facts and having any facts are two different things.

Admitting you don't have all the facts is simply acknowledging that you don't have perfect information. You can still have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. People do it all the time. And they're usually correct.

[DinoDoc]

You can still have enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion. People do it all the time. And they're usually correct.

He drew an emotional conclusion based on the fact Gates was a friend of his and got burned for it.

[DaShi]

Arrian, when the first words out of your mouth when asked about a contraversial incident are "I don't have all the facts" one would think that a smart pol would stop talking. Rather than inserting himself and his opinion without having any facts to shield him.

But you do that all the time. In fact, that's about all you do here.

[Arrian]

It had nothing to do with race.

I'm discussing the President's charge of stupidity on the part of the cop. I don't recall him claiming racism. So, as usual, what are you talking about?

Just like a Democrat. Cut and Run.

Well played.

and why exactly is that oh ye that is enlightened?

Because, at the time I posted that, the others viewing the thread were all right-wingers, Republicans or both, all with rather authoritarian views wrt to "law 'n order" type issues. All of whom tend to be rather unsympathetic to claims of discrimination (either b/c of race, class, whatever), and all of whom dislike Obama. I looked at the "currently viewing" list as I was signing off and thought "yeah, my post will go over like a lead balloon with this crew."

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

Which says nothing about the fact that Gates claims are retarded.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Because, at the time I posted that, the others viewing the thread were all right-wingers, Republicans or both, all with rather authoritarian views wrt to "law 'n order" type issues. All of whom tend to be rather unsympathetic to claims of discrimination (either b/c of race, class, whatever), and all of whom dislike Obama. I looked at the "currently viewing" list as I was signing off and thought "yeah, my post will go over like a lead balloon with this crew."

-Arrian

Don't know/don't care if the above was aimed at me. But perhaps there is yet another rationale for the antipathy you observe. A palpable resentment of the entitlement attitude of the 'inteligentsia'. To wit:

Dear Skip,

My first thought on hearing of your arrest was for your welfare, so I was relieved to learn that the case against you had been dropped and you were off to join your family on Martha's Vineyard. From what I can piece together, you must have been exhausted after a long flight, exasperated to have your front door jammed, and then dumbfounded to find yourself suspected of breaking and entering your own home. To that point, you have my sympathy.

But thereafter your case becomes disturbing, and while the president's unwise comments turned a local episode into a national referendum, it's the local issue that troubles me. Like you, I live in Cambridge, commonly known as the "People's Republic of Cambridge" for its left-leaning political correctness. Our congressional district has not sent a Republican to Washington since 1955. Not surprisingly, the officers who came to your door—a rainbow of black, Hispanic, and white—were led by a man hand-picked to provide training on the avoidance of bias in policing. To accuse the Cambridge police of racial profiling, as you did, is about as credible as charging Barack Obama with favoring Republicans.

What puzzles me most in the report of your actions—or reactions—on July 16 is why you would have chosen, as I've heard you put it elsewhere, to "talk Black" to Officer Crowley instead of "talking White" as you so eloquently and regularly do? These are distinctions I've heard you expound—how educated African Americans switch their register of speech depending on what part of themselves they want to get across. Many of us do something similar inside and outside our particular communities, but you make it sound like a sport that is also for African Americans a tool of survival. So why didn't you address the policemen as fellow Cantabrigians? What was that "yo' mama" talk instead of saying simply, in the same register your interlocutor was using, "Look, officer, I'm sorry for your trouble. Thanks for checking on my house when you thought I was being burgled, but this is my home, and if you give me a minute, I'll find the piece of mail or license that proves it to you." It seems it wasn't the policeman doing the profiling, it was you. You played him for a racist cop and treated him disrespectfully. Had you truly feared bias, you would surely have behaved in a more controlled, rather than a less controlled, way.

Do you really think anyone in this country has reached adulthood without having undergone the humiliation of self-justification to police? As it happens, a few days prior to your arrest, I was pulled over on the highway near Saranac Lake, New York. My husband and I had driven into town for dinner and were on our way back to our camp in the Adirondacks. When I saw that I was being stopped, I said, "I don't get it. I'm going under 55 mph." Nonetheless, when the officer approached the car, I quickly rolled down the window, reached for my driver's license as my husband got the registration out of the glove compartment, and said to the officer as gently as I could, "Excuse me officer, have I done anything wrong?" (I had not noticed that one of our headlights was out: We were told to repair it at the next gas station.) It would not have occurred to this gray-haired Caucasian female to count on a policeman's sympathy; the last time I tried joking with a policeman, some 40 years ago, my quip cost me an extra $15 on my fine.

Rather than taking offense at being racially profiled, weren't you instead insulted that someone as prominent as you was being subjected to a regular police routine? A Harvard professor and public figure—should you have to be treated like an ordinary citizen? But that's the greatness of this country: Enforcers of the law are expected to treat all alike, to protect the house of a black man no less carefully than that of white neighbors. You and I entrust our protection to these police, and we also entrust to them the protection of Harvard students. These are the police who were called in on May 18 to deal with the shooting of Justin Cosby, 21, inside one of the Harvard dorms by suspects who, like him, were African Americans. Has any case ever been dealt with more discreetly—likely at least in part because it involved African Americans? Should we not be encouraging all students to live within the law and to consider ourselves on the side of the law unless clearly and manifestly demonstrated otherwise? Is it not for faculty to set an example of politeness, civility, responsibility, and cool temper?

The ironies of progress can hardly be lost on you. When I came to Harvard in 1993, you had just published in the New York Times an op-ed urging black intellectuals to face up to their own racist attitudes. Invoking the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., you wrote, "While anti-Semitism is generally on the wane in this country, it has been on the rise among black Americans. A recent survey finds not only that blacks are twice as likely as whites to hold anti-Semitic views but—significantly—that it is among younger and more educated blacks that anti-Semitism is most pronounced." You argued then that owning up to such internal racism was the key to self-respect. Now that America has a black president, Massachusetts a black governor, and Cambridge a black mayor, you appear to have adopted the posture of racial victim. Are you trying to keep alive the politically potent appeal to liberal guilt?

I'm concerned for you, but would not like to see the authority of our police diminished, their effectiveness reduced, or their reputation unfairly tarnished. Since, inadvertently I assume, you have made the work of our police force more difficult than it already is, I wish that you would help set the record straight. You are the man to do it.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528630

[Dis]

I thought about this some more at the gym today. I was thinking that I'm not black, and I have no idea what it means to be black. I think perhaps black people have a right to have a chip on their shoulder after all the injustices they've suffered over the years. But at what point do they actually have to take responsibility for their actions?

[Grandpa Troll]

I thought about this some more at the gym today. I was thinking that I'm not black, and I have no idea what it means to be black. I think perhaps black people have a right to have a chip on their shoulder after all the injustices they've suffered over the years. But at what point do they actually have to take responsibility for their actions?

Im white, proud of it.

I dont hate people of other races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual choice, religious choice, vegetable eaters or what have you.

I also dont owe anyone a damned thing

I get tired of hearing all the time the black man is oppressed and the white mnan owes him for all the injustices over the years.

I employ many people, black, white hispanic, male and female, southerner and northerner, good,bad and indifferent.

I grew up abused and no one stuck a freaking silver spoon in my mouth and paved any road for me.

If I dont get my 50 year old butt out of bed I wont get paid.

I have dug ditches and toted sheet rock for a living.

I have been in law enforcement, bouncer and disc jockey.

I am from a working class family that taught me to go out and eak a living from the sweat of my brow.


If I speak my mind I am labeled insensitive or predjudice.

If a black man does speak out its because he was oppressed.

This whole issue about Gates and Crowley, amazing, Gates disobeyed a lawful order.

If he had been an older white fella and a black officer did this, would anything have been said? Would the white man have been accused of being a cracker and the black officer militant in his actions?

Gramps

[Imran Siddiqui]

[DinoDoc]

[DinoDoc]

All of whom tend to be rather unsympathetic to claims of discrimination (either b/c of race, class, whatever), and all of whom dislike Obama. I looked at the "currently viewing" list as I was signing off and thought "yeah, my post will go over like a lead balloon with this crew."

If you are going to bring up claims of racial discrimination of the part of law enforcement in this case, shouldn't there actually be evidence of racial animus on the part of law enforcement in this case before we take those claims seriously?

[Guynemer]

As a leading Poly Liberal, American Division, I too think it a bit of a leap to assign this confrontation to racism, on either part.

I think it more likely that a couple of alpha males were both having a bad day and things got out of control. There's certainly no evidence to the contrary.

[DinoDoc]

As a leading Poly Liberal, American Division, I too think it a bit of a leap to assign this confrontation to racism, on either part.

Let's see we have the sterotyping on the part of Gates wrt the fact Crowley is an Irish cop, so of course he's obviously a racist and deserving of open contempt. This is evidenced by how quickly he made the leap to playing the race card in his confrontation with the officer and his rather odd whitey comments in the past.

[Zkribbler]

Just like a Democrat. Cut and Run.

The Democratic President didn't cut and run in WWI.
The Democratic President didn't cut and run in WWII.
The Democratic President didn't cut and run in Korea.
The Democratic Presidents didn't cut and run in Vietnam. (It was the Republican President.)
The Democratic President didn't cut and run in the Balkans.
The Democratic President hasn't cut and run in Iraq.
The Democratic President hasn't cut and run in Afghanistan.

So just what "cutting and running" are you talking about??