DeletedUser
Wow, I'm amazed that after all I wrote up, you folks are hung up on the college ID.
Hellstromm, what you're basically saying is that you're amazed that the same group of people who never learn anything or don't become any more informed after these discussions didn't become any smarter or more informed than they were before.Wow, I'm amazed that after all I wrote up, you folks are hung up on the college ID.
Eugene Robinson said:Pique And the Professor
If race were the only issue, there would be much less hyperventilation about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s unpleasant run-in with the criminal justice system. After all, it would hardly be the first time a black man had unjustly been hauled to jail by a white police officer. The debate -- really more of a shouting match -- is also about power and entitlement.
This is a new twist. Since the triumph of the civil rights movement, minorities have been moving up the ladder in politics, business, academia, just about every field. Only in the past decade, however, has a sizable cohort of African Americans and Latinos broken through to the tiny upper echelons where real power is exercised.
I'm talking about President Obama, obviously, but also Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons, entertainment mogul Oprah Winfrey, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and many others -- a growing number of minorities with the kind of serious power that used to be reserved for whites only. In academia, the list begins with "Skip" Gates.
He's a superstar, one of the best-known and most highly acclaimed faculty members at the nation's most prestigious university. A few years ago, when he made noises about leaving, Harvard moved heaven and earth to keep him. The incident that led to his arrest occurred as he was coming home from the airport after a trip to China for his latest PBS documentary. Following the traumatic encounter, he repaired to Martha's Vineyard to recuperate. This is how the man rolls.
Obama's choice of words might not have been politic, but he was merely stating the obvious when he said the police behaved "stupidly." Gates is 58, stands maybe 5-feet-7 and weighs about 150 pounds. He has a disability and walks with a cane. By the time Sgt. James Crowley made the arrest, he had already assured himself that Gates was in his own home. Crowley could see that the professor posed no threat to anybody.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume that Crowley's version of the incident is true -- that Gates, from the outset, was accusatory, aggressive and even obnoxious, addressing the officer with an air of highhanded superiority. Let's assume he really recited the Big Cheese mantra: "You have no idea who you're messing with."
I lived in Cambridge for a year, and I can attest that meeting a famous Harvard professor who happens to be arrogant is like meeting a famous basketball player who happens to be tall. It's not exactly a surprise. Crowley wouldn't have lasted a week on the force, much less made sergeant, if he had tried to arrest every member of the Harvard community who treated him as if he belonged to an inferior species. Yet instead of walking away, Crowley arrested Gates as he stepped onto the front porch of his own house.
Apparently, there was something about the power relationship involved -- uppity, jet-setting black professor vs. regular-guy, working-class white cop -- that Crowley couldn't abide. Judging by the overheated commentary that followed, that same something, whatever it might be, also makes conservatives forget that they believe in individual rights and oppose intrusive state power.
There was a similar case of collective amnesia at the Sotomayor hearings. Republican senators, faced with a judge who follows precedent and eschews making new law from the bench, forgot that this is the judicial philosophy they advocate. The odd and inappropriate line of questioning by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about Sotomayor's temperament was widely seen as sexist, and indeed it was. But I suspect the racial or ethnic power equation was also a factor -- the idea of a sharp-tongued "wise Latina" making nervous attorneys, some of them white male attorneys, fumble and squirm.
Is a man of Gates's station entitled to puff himself up and remind a police officer that he's dealing with someone who has juice? Is a woman of Sotomayor's accomplishment entitled to humiliate a lawyer who came to court unprepared? No more and no less entitled, surely, than all the Big Cheeses who came before them.
Yet Gates's fit of pique somehow became cause for arrest. I can't prove that if the Big Cheese in question had been a famous, brilliant Harvard professor who happened to be white -- say, presidential adviser Larry Summers, who's on leave from the university -- the outcome would have been different. I'd put money on it, though. Anybody wanna bet?
The guy probably did have an attitude...but then, he had cops showing up and accusing him of breaking into his own house.
He was then ARRESTED for showing attitude towards the cops...in his own house.
I find it telling that the charges were dismissed so quickly.
The guy should never have been arrested in the first place. Yes, the cops had a right to be there to investigate the original call, but for them to lose control of the situation so badly that they have to arrest someone whom they have already confirmed did not commit a crime and is on his own property, is a little sad...
What's idiotic is to believe the police report, because this report was filed by the offending officer himself.Right. It's not the professor's indignant self-empowered attitude that caused the friction, no. It wasn't a simple misunderstanding that escalated into something more, no. It was the cops that screwed up completely. What an idiot, man.
There was nothing in the police report or stated afterward to indicate that Officer Crowley had been drinking.To me, this whole thing just reeks of an indignant plush who has a racial chip on his shoulder.
That's your guess. Mine is that the attitude of the cop may have triggered the situation. Had he simply seen the ID and gone the hell away, it might not even have become an issue.Something tells me that this wouldn't have happened if the professor had just cooperated and didn't have a horrible attitude about the whole situation
Yet it is not annoying for you, who also was not there, to also comment on the situation without all the information. The only difference is, after briefly reading an article, you conclude the professor acted stupidly.To add more annoyance to the situation, Obama originally made the comment that he couldn't comment on the situation because he didn't have all the information -- because he wasn't there. After a brief phone conversation with the professor, Obama stated that the cops acted stupidly.
Racism is a huge problem, and it shouldn't matter. However, using a handy phrase like "playing the race card" doesn't lessen how awful it feels to have someone dislike, mistrust, and even wish you dead for being what you never chose and cannot ever change.People scream that racism is such a huge problem and that race shouldn't matter but those very same people need to STOP PULLING THE GODDAMNED RACE CARD.
i dont believe the artcle.
written to hype the people. and its one sided.........ps i know about this ,he came home after the pub and couldnt find his keys....
i 100% dislike racism....but this man is a malcom x learned fanatic....racist himself. not only is he getting the book thrown at him...but being questioned by the unaversity board.....for several acts of misconduct
this is cambridge........not your local deli taco salad bar. the ongoing investigation is into weather he is fit enough to teach after the bad stigma he has conducted apon the unaversaty vs oxford.
the guy does not teach anymore. that answer the question? he is now in a lawsuit against the state for giving himself a bad name in the press
Wikipedia said:U.S. President Barack Obama was asked a question about the incident at a July 22 news conference on health care reform and replied "Now, I've – I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."[2][3] Obama's apparent siding with Gates,[4] without having all the facts of the incident, drew criticism from members of law enforcement across the country.[5][6] Two days later, Obama stated that he regretted that his comments exacerbated the situation, and hoped that the situation could become a "teachable moment". He also gave his opinion that both the officer and Gates "overreacted" to the situation.[7][8] On July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with Crowley and Gates at the White House for a conversation over beers.[9]
read this...knew there was booze
so..as we all say..wrong from both sides..no need for overeacting