A perspective on Professor Gates' arrest

by SixofNine 29 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Gregor

  careful Avi, I think Gregor adjudged that incident (the policeman delaying the man in the hospital parking lot) as completely free of racial bias too. I never commented on it here but I told mywife the cop should be fired. Had nothing to do with race.

  We must not question gregors judgements on these matters. You can't go wrong.

  You lost me here...It's sort of like when I grew a beard as a witness, and the brothers told me that worldly people would judge me as not worthy of respect, comparative to being clean shaven. When after a while, I told them that it seemed that if anything, worldly people gave me more respect, the brothers let me know that I was to biased in favor of the beard that I loved to really make a personal judgement about how people around me treated me.???
• 

  SixofNine

  What I don't understand is what I, as a non-racist individual, am supposed to do about it.

  But the people of other races have had to live with so much crap that they're constantly on the defensive and won't let us let it go.

  Here is my take on it: I'm never personally on the defensive (why should I be?), and since I reject all racism but am painfully aware that it's both a problem even now and a nightmare from the past, I'm never on the defensive for "my group" (white people). And thus I can joke around with Snowbird the way I do. She of course, may have a group of black panthers on their way to my house (fortunately I thought to give her JD's address as my own).

  Gregor, above, is definitely on the defensive. And the more he is, the more reason he has to be. After all, even if he isn't a racist scum-bag, he's still a person who does everything he can to deny his fellow black humans a simple validation of their negative experiences.

  And it's frustrating when you feel like you can't have an open, honest discussion because anything you say can and will be used against you to prove that all white people are just racist.

  Hmmm, I think you might be surprised by your black friends, and black people in general on this one. They aren't looking to blame you or call you racist, and they aren't looking for you to see them as just-like-me.... because they aren't, they have a different experience...that's the whole point. I imagine they just want you to understand as best you can. I know I would if I was in their shoes.

  What you can do for your black friends, is not try to act as if there is no difference, because there is; color, culture, and most of all the way they are looked at and treated in small, subtle ways every single day of their lives. You can make an honest effort to see things from their point of view when you read about things like what happened to professor Gates.... after all, even w/o racism (which whether real or imagined, he certainly felt and had every right to feel), it's a pretty sad sack of abuse that has a 58 y/o man arrested on his own property for no crime other than being outraged.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  The Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his union are slamming President Obama for saying they reacted “stupidly” to the incident at Gates house last week.

  Obama was “was dead wrong to malign this police officer specifically and the department in general,” Alan McDonald, the lawyer for the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, told ABC News today.

  Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Gates for disorderly conduct also chimed in today, saying Obama’s characterization was “way off base… I acted appropriately,” Crowley told WBZ Radio in Boston Thursday.

  “There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother,” he added, “something you wouldn’t expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor.”..........

  Police disputed the extent of Gates’ cooperation, saying he didn’t initially provide identification when asked, and berated the police.

  One of Crowley’s neighbors supported the sergeant’s story, saying that the police report that said Gates was belligerent was not completely off the mark.

  http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8153681&page=1
• 

  BurnTheShips

  [Crowley] says “Can you prove that you’re a Harvard professor?” I said yes, I turned and closed the front door to the kitchen where I’d left my wallet, and I got out my Harvard ID and my Massachusetts driver’s license which includes my address and I handed them to him. And he’s sitting there looking at them.

  Now it’s clear that he had a narrative in his head: A black man was inside someone’s house, probably a white person’s house, and this black man had broken and entered, and this black man was me.

  In truth, Gates had no way of knowing what “narrative” was “in [Crowley’s] head.” What we can ascertain from this account is that there

  was a narrative in Gates’s head. Crowley might have stereotyped Gates, but Gates definitely stereotyped Crowley.

  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574306162620043236.html#mod=rss_opinion_main

  Crowley's stereotyping meant he saw a white cop, and automatically thought he was evil
• 

  BizzyBee

  Hmmmm....you say deferential, I say cooperation. Perspective and semantics at work. Knowledge of human nature combined with common sense tells me that Gates most likely was belligerent. Why? He is clearly hyper-sensitive, perhaps with good reason, perhaps not, but law enforcement cannot be expected to weigh his historical sensitivities when following up on a report of a crime in progress. Color-blind/equal treatment would demand that Gates be handled in the same manner as anyone else under the circumstances.

  Sounds like we all have had the experience of breaking into our own home or car at some time. For me, it was always in the back of my mind, "I wonder if it looks like I'm breaking and entering?" Had nothing to do with getting a pass because of my gender or color. At those times, I know that if I had been challenged by police, I would have comprehended and cooperated without a fuss, because it was already in my consciousness - I was forcing entry.

  I believe that many whites are ready for a new dialogue about race in this country - but many blacks (and whites) are still stuck in the old dialogue. Which means nothing will change.
• 

  SixofNine

  but law enforcement cannot be expected to weigh his historical sensitivities when following up on a report of a crime in progress.

  that's the most fucking ridiculous thing anyone has ever said in the history of people saying things.
• 

  John Doe

  Sixer, whenever you start whining and namecalling, it's a good indication you've lost your argument.
• 

  BizzyBee

  E'splain?

  Are you saying that police should say to themselves (or each other) on their way to a B&E report, "Hmmmm....this involves black people, therefore we should be cognizant of the pain and suffering of a people who have been marginalized, subjected to prejudice and bigotry beginning with their great-great grandparent's possibly slavery 150 years ago and the racial profiling of black criminals who may or may not be guilty, so if there is belligerent, threatening behavior exhibited we'd better be sure we extra gentle and deferential."

  Horsefeathers.

  Knee-jerk horsefeathers.
• 

  SixofNine

  Are you saying that police should say to themselves (or each other) on their way to a B&E report, "Hmmmm....this involves black people, therefore we should be cognizant of the pain and suffering of a people who have been marginalized, subjected to prejudice and bigotry beginning with their great-great grandparent's possibly slavery 150 years ago and the racial profiling of black criminals who may or may not be guilty, so if there is belligerent, threatening behavior exhibited we'd better be sure we extra gentle and deferential."

  Yes essentially, except it should be so deeply ingrained in them that the don't need to say it to themselves on the way to any calls. Cops should be sensitive, to the extent possible (and this is more than possible, it's imperitive), to the perspectives of the people in the communities they serve.

  Your paragraph, sarcasm aside, is probably very similar to what Officer Crowly teaches when he conducts courses on racial sensitivity.
• 

  SixofNine

  Sixer, whenever you start whining and namecalling, it's a good indication you've lost your argument.

  Really? Because most people can see that when you start whining about my namecalling, you aren't responding to the issues I raised. It's as if you look for any excuse to run from an argument when your own argument has been deconstructed. whah! mommy, he's calling names!