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DesireG “gets” Gates

By LisaB on July 24, 2009 at 7:01 PM in Current Affairs

CNN ireport has a great retort to the Professor Gates brouhaha. Someone named DesireG posted a video outlining her opinion of the incident and why it doesn’t merit the outrage Gates thinks he’s due.

DesireG mainly blames the neighbor for racial profiling, but she may be off the mark on that one if the “neighbor” wasn’t really a next-door type of neighbor but only someone who lived within a few miles. Hard to know your neighbors if you’re talking about a 5 mile radius. Anyway, DesireG makes some points only an AA woman could legitimately make, and she’s right.

But if I said the same, I’d be a racist.

DesireG is onto something here.

Interestingly enough, other AA writers are threading the needle in a similar way. Generally, I’m seeing commentary that Gates was profiled by either the “neighbor” and/or police but that Gates himself should have known better than to run his mouth at police officers. Some even say that anyone – even whites (gasp!) – get in trouble for this.

Mansfield Frazier at the Daily Beast had this to say:

So, was Gates right in asking the officer if race played a role in how he was being treated, even after he had proved he was indeed the homeowner? Of course he was, but in the real world, you get to mouth off to an officer only once. He had made his point and his statement; his continued aggravation, and the venting of it, was sure to end with him being handcuffed—and I believe race played no role in that outcome.

However, Frazier clearly thinks police, by and large, are the problem.

When Gates was in his domicile, he was protecting his turf; when he got loud with the officer on the porch, the officer was protecting his. Had he not arrested Gates, he would have caught hell from his fellow officers after the incident. They would have talked about him as if he had a tail, and would perhaps begin to doubt out loud his fitness to wear a badge. Peer pressure among police officers, I am told, is a bitch. They simply are never going to lose face.

Lose face? THAT’S what it’s all about? Harsh. However, “a Phantom Negro” at Salon says Gates is angry more for class reasons than racial reasons.

Which brings me to Skip Gates. He isn’t outraged because he feels he was the victim of racial profiling by the police (that dubious honor goes to his foolish neighbor) [in fact, the woman who called the police is not a neighbor, but works nearby]. He’s outraged because he was the victim of class profiling. He didn’t resent being identified as black; he resented being identified as that kind of black, the kind of black that can be hassled and pushed around by simpleton cops. How dare you hassle me? I’m Skip Gates: Harvard professor!
———-

Skip Gates thought that he’d worked hard enough, achieved enough, become Harvard enough that this sort of treatment did not apply to him. And now, rather than channel that outrage in a way that is subtle but effective, he’s very publicly suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, having “joined the ranks of the million incarcerated black men in America.” That’s laughable. He does not see those million men as kin and he doesn’t, by and large, give a damn about those guys. He’s merely annoyed that such an irritation as police misconduct found its way into his home. If he read about this story happening to a plumber in Roxbury, he’d shake his head in disappointment and then go on with his life.

So before we heed the call of racism, let’s be mindful of the tower from which that call came. This has something to do with race. But it has a lot more to do with messing with Skip Gates.

The Ivy League Effect, people. The Ivy League Effect.

Interesting stuff. During the 2008 election, I thought the biggest fault line was actually the class line rather than the racial one. However, that just wasn’t going to fly during the “historic” election where hope and change were “making a comeback.” I don’t have anything against hope and change, but I resented seeing class warfare relabeled as race warfare at every turn.

So, here we are. A man who benefits from nearly every advantage our society has to offer in terms of education, standing and influence still chooses to call himself a victim rather than putting into context a bad day against all he has. That doesn’t make Gates a “black man in America.” That makes Gates a “black poser in America.”

That is, unless Obama promised to provide ivy league educations, prestigious jobs and a high profile for every AA in America.

I wouldn’t mind that myself.

pm317

Excellent video — more power to her!

Shainzona

She’s GREAT! We need more of her sanity.

HARP

Would it surprise you to know that Gates is a member of Harvard’s African and African American Studies Department and that he is the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois)
writer, teacher
Born: 2/23/1868

African-American author and teacher who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A recipient of the World Peace Council Prize (1952) and the Soviet Lenin Peace Prize (1959), Du Bois became a member of the Communist party in 1961 and a citizen of Ghana, where he served as director of the Encyclopedia Africana.

JozefAL

Oh, drop it you reactionary twit.
From Wikipedia on duBois:

Just forty days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at an event marking the hundredth anniversary of Du Bois’ birth, at Carnegie Hall in New York City:

We cannot talk of Dr. Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life, the English speaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist, or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking. …Dr. Du Bois’ greatest virtue was his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice.

Note especially the bolded parts about Lincoln’s “communist” connection and Dr King’s comments about America’s irrational obsession with Communism. It’s absolutely asinine that, 20 fucking years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nearly 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are still people in this country who obsess about the Communist “boogeyman”.
You might have noted, from your own little “biography” of duBois, that he only became a full-fledged member of the Communist Party at the tender age of 93. (And, he died just two years later. Oooh.) That’s obviously more than enough to render all the work he did on behalf of civil rights completely moot. Well, to SOME people it is. (Mainly reactionary jerks who think that Jesse Helms was too liberal and that the John Birch Society was too soft on Communism.)
You might be interested to know that duBois was also an ardent Zionist and, while he appreciated the better treatment that he received from Nazi academics than he recieved from white Americans but he was still able to condemn the Nazi treatment of the Jews as being on par with the Spanish Inquisition and slavery. But, I suppose in your little (outdated) anti-Communist world, none of that is as important as his 2-year membership in the CPUSA.

Claudy

The Soviet Union fell. Communism, totalitarianism and dictatorships have not. Communism is an idealogy that stands in opposition to what American democracy and other countries who live in democracy stand for.

I don’t know why you can’t make your point without name-calling, put-downs and smears.

We may not be in a Cold War — but we are dealing with foreign nations such as North Korea, Venezuela, China to name a few — that operate under some form of communism.

As an idealogy, communism is well understood by Americans and our leaders as a threat to our liberties and our way of life under the Constitution.

And in varying degrees they all come with military and economic threats.

It’s easy to reach for easy comparisons – in your examples above such as slavery and the Spanish Inquisition — but it doesn’t advance this particular discussion.

America was founded in “liberalism” – both parties are essentially “liberal” in this country. We rebelled against a monarchy and created the greatest political system the world has ever seen. American “exceptionalism” stands head and shoulders above other political systems because of its brilliant founders and because the American people have had the wisdom to preserve our constitution.

No other political system has produced the kind of success we call America.

Communism — is fine — if you will — as an ‘idea’. It hasn’t worked for people living under communism.

We may well invent a better constitution, a better country may emerge on this Earth in time. But for now, America is still the greatest country the world has ever seen.

http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

I don’t know why you can’t make your point without name-calling, put-downs and smears.

Because when someone makes a spectacularly ignorant comment and engages in brazen McCarthyism that person is unworthy of respect. It seems the commenters whose opinions are driven by bias, bigotry and paranoia are the ones who start crying about “name-calling.” Larry Johnson, being fully ego-formed as an adult human being, doesn’t give a damn if you insult him – but if you come out with some stupid uninformed horseshit he’ll be the first to let you know. I respect that.

NomNomNom

lol, the Dalai lama recently called himself a “Marxist monk” in an interview.
http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

Thank you JozefAL.

ConfusedAmerican

Looks like many Blacks do not like what Gates is doing or what Obama said.
That must be hurting Obama.

lilytoo

The ridiculous media tour Gates is doing is souring many who would usually give him the benifit of doubt. He seems to be loving every minute of it

barry bums a ciggie

LOVE this!
Donna Brazile

That One used his typical MO and invited Crowley and Gates to the WH for a beer. This in an effort to diffuse the fire storm.

Is the special olympics bowler still waiting for That One to set a date for his visit?

BlueTopaz

Crowley should decline explaining that taxpayer money could be better spent elsewhere.

Now, if this little get-together would come out of BO’s pocket…………

http://deleted BuzzisbackLatte

While there’s a big hint of a chip on DesireG’s shoulder I do applaud her bringing up the reality of the Al Sharptons and Henry Gates of this world…

Racial Pimping

In another time, Harvard would have gently shown Mr. Gates the door for his behavior.

I heard it tonight on Fox…it’s time to move past the racism and catch up to the world and that is exactly what Gates needs to do.
Cahil

I don’t know about the woman who called this in, but it sounds to me that people are expecting her to first go up and ask a man she saw “picking a lock” and “trying to break into a home” if he was a burglar so as not to be racially insensitive.

Do we only call in possible crimes if the perpetrators are of the same race as we are?

Shouldn’t one be glad that the police are checking up on a report of a burglary in case it actually is one?

I was recently given a speeding ticket by a white cop while I was driving the same speed as the black person in front of me. Was I racially profiled because the cop didn’t want to seem racist by pulling over a black person so he pulled over a white one instead?

I hardly think so, but where were Al and Jesse when I needed to beat that ticket?

jbjd

What is interesting is, one of the ways to establish a prima facie case that racial profiling exists, is to have police note the race of every driver stopped; and every driver ticketed. That’s where the disparity shows up. Because the ratios of stopping-to-ticketing should be the same. But, if a disproportionate number of drivers of color were stopped and not ticketed then, the question is, on what basis did police stop them?

tzada

It is whoever is driving the red car.

http://liberalrapture.com/ John (from Liberal Rapture)

This woman is great. I do not agree with the assumption that the neighbor profiled. When calling 9-1-1 one is asked to describe those one is reporting on. Of course, she said they were black….because they were.
Otherwise this woman is on to some deep truth. This is a class issue. gates is pissed because he thinks he is elite and above the law.

Tuppence411

I can understand how someone not familar with Cambridge and the Professor’s neighborhood may jump to the assumption the neighbor was racially profiling. But Cambridge is so racially and culturally diverse. People from every walk of life live, work, and go to school there. Success is abundant there and it truly is color-blind. And the city is liberal. Liberal. Liberal. Liberal.

The common denominator in Cambridge is WEALTH, not race.

Tuppence411

Forgot to add…. Wealth: the haves and the have-nots. Gates is PISSED because he was initially taken for a “have-not”. Some random guy from Boston’s inner city who preys upon Cambridge’s diverse but wealthy neighborhoods instead of the rich Harvard professor he is. The person expecting profiling is Gates. He expects everyone from the passerby on the street to the cop on the beat to just look at him and know he is wealthy and highly educated.

char

good comment GDesire. Common sense and on-the-ground analysis.
char

good comment DesireG. Common sense and on-the-ground analysis.
ahs

Seems like a generally fair take. What I especially like is that it focuses on the only real issue of public debate here — racial profiling.

Whether or not anybody profiled anybody else in the Gates affair, the situation seems to point to some of the underlying tensions around police treatment of African Americans. That’s a major public issue, or should be.

All the other he-said, but-he-said stuff seems like wasted energy over the details of a minor dustup between a cop on the beat and a ticked-off black homeowner.

jwrjr

The problem in this matter is that there is only one person who got racially profiled – Officer Crowley. Hw was automatically assumed to be racist.

Peggy Sue

Thanks so much for posting this vid, Lisa. What this does is blow apart the idea that AA’s think alike and circle the wagons on all and every issue. And this young woman is insightful–this wasn’t race, it was about class. She even had the guts to take a swipe at Gates and other intellectuals who are so quick to enter this theater of the absurd: racial whoring. Whites do it, too. The Far Left is obsessed with race; they can find a racist and racial guilt around every corner.

Wisewoman made a comment on another thread about the cops standing together. I, too, found it inspiring that we saw white, black and hispanic officers standing together and speaking out for Crowley. Some have remarked on other blogs that this is simply bunker mentality. But I saw it as more. In the same way I find something very positive in DesireG’s vid and commentary. She’s honest and blunt.

Critical thinking is a very good thing. We need more of it.

mary

Agreed with Peggy!

And if I may say another very important video is by renowned African-American scholar Dr. BOYCE WATKINS who posted his incredible opinion on bvBLACKSPIN:

“OBAMA’S BIG MISTAKE IN SUPPORTING GATES”–one of best videos-together with above phenomenal DesireG vid.

It must be seen as Dr. Watkins brings issue of INVESTIGATING DOMESTIC ABUSE. It’s not enough to ask if suspect lives there, but Officer should investigate if he is supposed to be there.

suspect may have a RESTRAINING ORDER against him. And according to statistics one-third of crimes of domestic abuse by intimates are by husbands-boyfriends returning ‘home’ to MURDER THEIR WIVES!
The police and the neihbour acted RESPONSIBLY.

Obama speaks from the bully pulpit and apparently he did not have the facts. How can he make an uninformed accusation like this? Especially with possibility of a lawsuit by one of the two parties?

Obviously Obams had not attended LEGAL ETHICS lectures at Harvard.

Or he didn’t have a SCOLDING MOTHER like the rest of us who taught us that we should not open up our mouths and say something stupid, unless we know what we’re talking about!…

how presidential, eh?

candymarl

I wonder where all of this outrage was, by either Gates or Obama, when an unarmed, prone, young black man was shot to death, by a white officer, on a train platform? This young man begged for his life.

The same for the black paramedic who was man-handled by a white officer during delivery of a patient to the hospital. He even told the officer to feel free to arrest him after they transported the patient to the hospital.

To paraphrase Bush – Nope, no outrage under here.

ahs

Was Obama ever asked about those incidents?

Frankly, I think if the President chose to bring up stories like that, without a reporter asking a question first, he’d be criticized for politicizing tragedies. And rightly so. Here, he got asked a question in a news conference, and chose not to duck it (should have ducked, but still — somebody asked).

Not asking about those other cases may be a failing of the news media, though.

candymarl

As we know from Helen Thomas the Obama WH is tightly controlling the press corps. Reporters and questions are sometimes planted to bring the desired results.

If Obama was truly concerned with injustice based on race or other criteria, real or perceived, it shouldn’t take a reporter to point it out. The race, creed, ethnic origin, religion, or sexual orientation of those involved shouldn’t matter. That’s what leaders do.

I believe Obama is more concerned with popularity and shoring his base than standing up for anyone, AA’s included.

NomNomNom

Or it’s a deliberate distraction from the health care debacle.

foxx

I am outraged at the number of people and bloggers who, knowing nothing about the woman who called the police, make all kinds of sexist, racist assumptions about her.

SHE is the real problem they say. SHE is the real racist. She wanted this black man out of her neighborhood. We all know how frightened white women are of black men, etc. etc. Looking for someone to blame? Hey a white woman! That’s safe.

Why didn’t she recognize her neighbor they say (bc he wasn’t), why didn’t she question them, why didn’t she ask the neighbors who they were. Ridiculous!!! People don’t break in your front door in the middle of the day, they say. Oh really? They do where I have lived. She wouldn’t have called the cops if the men were white. Oh really?

This is a passing woman who tries to do someone a good turn and gets abuse heaped on her. What else is new.

Would she be suffering this abuse if she was a man?

sandi78

I completely agree. I would not now call in a possible robbery in progress, or anything else really, if it involved non-whites. I’m all for helping others, but I have no intention of setting myself up for abuse for doing so. I wonder if this was the outcome Ozero had in mind? Probably not, but that’s what is going to happen. We’ll all learn a lesson from this “teachable moment”.
betty

I am glad you are pointing this out. Another facet of this outrage is Gates screaming “are you going to believe a white woman over a black man?”

What’s up with that?

NoBamaNoWay

i know; where the heck did that come from??!! is there some epidemic of white women falsely accusing black men of crimes in america?
mountainaires

There’s a very good reason we have the RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. ROFL.

Professor Gates should have remembered that instead of screaming, yelling, threatening, bullying, and stereotyping the police officer responding to a call about a robbery at his home.

Gates screams at an officer that the officer is RACIST, is warned twice that his behavior is out of control, and continues to follow the officer out onto the porch and yard, screaming and yelling and berating him?!

Gates lost his temper and he is responsible for what occurred. He was warned–and right or wrong–at that moment, the authority has the upper hand, so if you decide to fight that authority, you should be well aware that you can be arrested.

Any moron knows that when the police come to your door to ask questions, you don’t start flinging epithets at them! This whole thing is ridiculous.

Now, Gates says he wants to have a beer at the White House with Sgt. Crowley and, uh, his “friend” the President?

Gimme a break. If I were Sgt. Crowley I’d plead professional ethics violations on that one.

Claudy

I was outraged reading Gates’ quote, “You believe a white woman before you believe a black man.”

This incident can be sliced six ways from Sunday.

But of course, sexism takes a back seat to race. Yet again.

candymarl

If I were Obama I might be tad upset by this comment. After all, his deceased mother is white.

verminme

Come on. How insulting is it to black men in America to be told that they are the perenial victims? Class matters in America and by all accounts Prof. Gates is from a rarified class. This man has had all of the advantages. Harvard education. Fifty honorary degrees. Beutiful house in Cambridge. Trip to China with driver on return. The Einstein grant (whatever that is but it sounds like a good piece of money) Black tie dinners at the White House where the President calls him by his first name (“you don’t know what you’re messing with”) and the President comes out with scant information that this person from the POWER ELITE is a victim? Is it just possible that Prof. Grant was BULLYING this blue collar cop?
Someone is lying in these two very different narratives. I want to hear the police tapes.

jbjd

It is called the MacArthur Award.
BlueTopaz

I want to hear the police tapes

Me, too, but you know BO let that happen.

HARP

It would appear Barky has taken “foot in mouth” lessons from Biden. Quite a tag team. At what point do you bots admit you got the okie doke. What a bunch of suckers.
verminme

Whatever. Poor him.
KZnextzone

I’ve never owned a slave and you’ve never been one.
Seems simple enough to me…
verminme

Excuse me. What does that mean?
http://www.historynet.com/peter-francisco-american-revolutionary-war-hero.htm Port Rev War Hero PFrancisco

Time to GET OF this RACISM FANATICISM.

BTW it was not the neighbor that called the cops it was a lady from a town 5-10 miles away.

If 2 people broke into Gates house and the cops cmae and talked to them and left them there to rob the house thinking they were the occupants, Gates would be accusing the police of being racists and allowing the robbers to rob a black man. If there was a robber in the house prior to Gates entered and teh cops showed up and left because Gates was being a RACIST ASSH0LE and Gates ended up being attacked, etc he would be charging the police with being racist and derilict in the ir duty.

Get off this racism IGNORANT BEHAVIRO ALREADY. Study Bill Cosby and Booker T and avoid LIE-beral Generational Plantation Victimhood. Erosionist LIE-beral don’t give a sh!t about you they want you where you are addicted to Welfare so you vote for them for life but have NO LIFE.

Wake up, self-responsibility the ONLY 2 Racists in this incident were Gates and the Half-White PONZI PREZ FRAUD.

The Cops did their job UNTIL they showed prefential treatment and dropped the CHARGES if it was a poor black or white they would be going to court. An Investigation needs to be done to see if the last 12 months the cops EVER dropped charges on similar circumstances for anyone else NOT RACIALLY CONNECTED to the RACE PIMPS Mayor of Cambrdge, Deval Patrick and the Racial FRAUD in the District of Criminals.
Political Pigs all of them and the RACIST that CRY RACISM way too often.

NoBamaNoWay

correct.

KZnextzone

It means that I have no guilt about past injustices done over 100 years ago. I was not complicit, I did not participate and neither did the people that are seeking social and monetary reparations now. If Obama can’t be held responsible for things that occured when he was a few months old, Why am I responsible for things that happened before I was born. My life experience has shown me that everyone had an equal shot, the kids that sat next to me in elementary school may have done better than me and I hope they did. Whether they were of mexican, black or oriental descent…I couldn’t tell you. I never paid attention.
Someone it seems, not only did, but continues to.

tzada

Follow the money. Or who benefits in some way?

Babs

I was home from work today, this was all over TV, and if I hear one more pundit claim that this incident is a positive thing because it will start a “national conversation” on race-baiting, I am going to scream. You cannot start a “national conversation” on race-baiting on the back of an innocent white cop who was just doing his job.

You know, I never heard a racial slur at my parents’ table, my children never heard one at mine. I cried when the CRA was passed, as I really believed in the life and lessons of MLK. At this point in my life I find a numbness setting in that both astounds and saddens me. Cries of “racism” leave me unmoved, I have become cynical beyond belief. That’s the legacy of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and folks like Skip Gates.

Scout

Babs, I know exactly what you’re talking about. These kind of trumped up accusations are numbing people to the real effects of racism. I think many are suppressing anger about this and are turning their backs on the ones who are crying wolf. B0 tried to make this about race, and it’s mostly aobut class.

Obama is not the great uniter. He is the great divider and will ultimately make race relations worse, not better, imho.

mountainaires

I’m becoming more than “numb.” I’m becoming angry.

I wasn’t raised to hate people for their color, race, religion or ethnicity; in fact, I lived all over the world, as a military dependent. Racial epithets were never heard in our home either, and to this day, I cannot stand to hear them from others, and I say so.

But, this whole episode has really made me quite angry. Barack Obama exploited his African American roots to imply that he would bridge the divide in this country; that he alone, because of his roots, could bring people together.

Now, Obama says the Gates incident is, or could be, a “teachable” moment.

Well, here’s the lesson Obama wants you to learn: WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACISTS.

It’s a sickening thing to see a President of the United States use his bully pulpit to assert his own racial preferences–i.e., his own racism!–in a public statement.

ConfusedAmerican

Too many have cried wolf so our ears no longer hear. It is sad for there are actually some true inncidents still happening all over the world and in our Country.

Is Professor Gates one? NO

I mentioned that Gates might be trying for his 15 mins of fame, on another site. A poster came back with Professor Gates is a Very busy man with too many lectures already. Well I took a look at Professor Gates site and found he had Very Few on the next year or so coming up. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/gates/

mimi

This was a good video.

It’s frustrating to weigh in on one of these kinds of situations when everyone is fired up one way or the other. My first response was that Gates had let his ego get the best of him and simply wasn’t able to channel his more intellectual mindset. And of course, policemen do not like being spoken to in an untoward manner. It’s too bad that Gates didn’t know when to STFU.

But that being said. I’ve read enough comments in response to various blogs from whites who were treated similarly or worse by the cops. And having witnessed firsthand cop attitude, I have to say that I tire of their kneejerk response whether it is racially motivated or not. Last month, a cop in Texas, I believe, roughed up a 70+ grandmother over a traffic violation. He actually pushed her to the ground. A lot of comments online upheld the cops actions, but I was like, come on, over a ticket? He could have seriously hurt her. Couldn’t a more rational approach have been taken, like simply coming to her home with a warrant and arresting her? This was a small town. Is there no consideration for things like, maybe she was suffering from dementia?

But this is the ugly route law enforcement has taken, and ultimately they don’t realize that it offers no incentive to being a law-abiding citizen. At the point when law abiding citizens are treated like perps with rap sheets a mile long, it creates the kind of chaos that is growing in this society.

The police may have the power to do what they please, but their own personal pettiness often undermines the good they are doing on a daily basis.

Ultimately, I feel like this: why arrest someone for disorderly conduct in their own home? In a public place, yes. Absolutely! No matter who they are. Because in a public place, citizens don’t have the right to be disruptive because it affects other people sharing this public place. But in the Gates situation, to me it really smacks of a police officer who simply didn’t like the way he was spoken to. It boiled down to, I can arrest you because I can. And now the police are being a bit self-righteous about the whole thing even though stories abound which prove that policeman often abuse their position. It’s become an opportunistic situation to get their bitch off. Especially if politics is an underlying motivation.

Here’s my favorite ugly anecdote posted on a blog about police misconduct: a white man had a traffic accident with an Hispanic driver; an Hispanic officer arrived at the scene. During the course of the investigation, the officer spoke to the hispanic driver in Spanish on the scene. When the white motorist asked that the dialogue be translated, the officer told him that it was none of his business and threatened to arrest him. Huh??? Excuse me, but that is clearly an abuse of power and unnecessary attitutde. Unlike Prof Gates, this driver kept his cool and dealt with it after the fact. Which is what Gates should have done.

Gates acted like an asshole. An asshole in his own home. But the truth is, and believe me, this makes me angrier more times than not, the Constitution upholds our right to be assholes and I would think especially in our own homes.

I learned ages ago that when dealing with cops to be perfunctory. I expect nothing and accept that there is nothing I can do with regard to my civil rights at that given moment. I don’t feel good about that, but realize that is not just the smart approach but the only option available to me. After watching that press conference when one of the police spokesman actually got downright snippy with the press, I pretty much rest my case.

Is this about racism? Maybe… maybe not. But it’s definitely a commentary on police behavior in our country.

BTW, Obama was wrong to make a comment about this especially when prefacing said comment that he didn’t have all the facts. However, I do agree with his opinion, the police acted stupidly. Obama should have kept his opinion to himself, which is what I would have done. Am I surprised that Obama never knows when to keep his mouth shut? Of course not. And sadly, I don’t think he’ll ever learn. Which is why I didn’t support him in the first place.

lisa mathis

I believe that I read that witnesses said that the professor followed the policeman outside the house onto the porch and was continuing the “harangue” as the policeman was leaving. He was told to go back inside his home and refused, accusing the policeman of racism and profiling, while a small crowd of spectators was gathering. He was warned that he should go back inside his house again and refused and that is when he was arrested. If he had stayed inside his house, this whole incident probably would not have happened no matter what he said to the policeman.

TexasMirth

DesireG could teach the professor a lesson or two…and the president, too. Great video.

jwrjr

My pet rock could teach Obama “a lesson or two”.

jwrjr

I am referring to relative IQs, not about Assault and Battery.

http://firefox AnnieCollier

Common sense woman. Gates has none.
http://www.historynet.com/peter-francisco-american-revolutionary-war-hero.htm Port Rev War Hero PFrancisco

MIMI,

Who acted more STUPIDLY? The Policemen doing his JOB or the Edcuated Black Man trying to Harassa and Stick it to the MAN?

Did you rea the Police Reports? I would suggest EVERYONE do that before making a comment that cop followed Proper Police Protocol and to tell you further he teaches a class to other officers on Race Relations and Profiling.

The only Profiling done here is by the Educate Racist Professor, who needs to take classes on respecting law enforcement and needs ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASSES.
Babs

I think that all Americans who have nothing good to say about the police should paint an “X” on both their foreheads and their places of residence. Then if they are ever in need of help, the police will be able to identify those citizens who think they are all worthless and racists and “rogue” and avoid the hassle of risking their lives for nothing.
tzada

So……..If we see what looks like a crime in progress, we should not call 911 if the perps are black or Latino? Or if we do call, we should not report what the men look like if they are black or Latino? Or are all men exempt from being called in?

Naw, silly me. Call only if it is whitey. Especially if you can then call him a white supremest, domestic terrorist. Perfect!

Gates may be jumping on the racial bandwagon, but I think I heard him say he was 65% white. Hey there Mr Gates you whitey you?
mountainaires

Patterico Nails it.

The Officer Didn’t Stereotype Henry Louis Gates — Henry Louis Gates Stereotyped the Officer

http://patterico.com/2009/07/24/the-officer-didnt-stereotype-henry-louis-gates-henry-louis-gates-stereotyped-the-officer/

Racism is simply a form of stereotyping. Stereotyping occurs when one says: because of my past experiences with people from your group, as well as things I have heard about people from your group, I am forming a firm opinion about you.

Racism is simply one form of that attitude, in which “people from your group” means “black people.”

Oddly, however, many black people feel perfectly comfortable engaging in a similar form of stereotyping, in which “people from your group” means “police officers” or “white people” — or, best of all, “white police officers.” Apparently, stereotyping those groups is a laudable pursuit.

The Henry Louis Gates arrest is yet another reminder of how quick some black people are to leap to unflattering conclusions about others based on scant evidence.

[...]

Henry Louis Gates stereotyped Sgt. Crowley. He formed an opinion about Sgt. Crowley based on evidence that was far too limited to justify the conclusion. He formed that opinion based on prejudices he had collected over the course of his life about the group to which Sgt. Crowley belonged. That opinion — that Sgt. Crowley was a racist who needed to be educated about racial profiling — turned out to be wrong.

Gates’s mental process was the same mental process that a racist uses to decide that someone like Gates is less than human. It’s an ignorant way of looking at the world, hardly befitting a Harvard professor. Liberals ought not applaud such stereotyping. They should fight it.

Read the whole blogpost. It’s good; a well-reasoned argument that makes clear where the racism was coming from in this instance.
Carmen

I just want to know, is there ANY communist radical in the country that the Obama’s are NOT friends with?
Our media has led us to the edge of the cliff and Obama is trying to push us off. There is NO WAY Americans would have voted for this marxist radical if the media would have told the truth!

——————————————————————————–

——————————————————————————–
MINORITY REPORT
Meet the man at center of Obama’s race controversy
Gates immortalized communist, linked to radical black activists

——————————————————————————–
Posted: July 24, 2009
2:49 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

JERUSALEM – Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of the current national race controversy, has recruited radical black activists to his university department, is a prominent supporter of reparations for the descendents of slaves and has immortalized a communist and socialist activist.

Since 1991, Gates has been teaching African American studies

at Harvard, where he serves as the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. De Bois, an American civil rights activist, sociologist, historian and author, was an avowed communist and also a socialist sympathizer.

Du Bois was for a brief time a member of the Socialist Party. In 1927 he infamously traveled to the USSR, where he called the Soviet system “the most hopeful vehicle for the world.” Eight years later, he published the book “Black Reconstruction,” which offered a Marxist interpretation of the Reconstruction Era
__________________________
MINORITY REPORT
Gates lawyer was young Obama’s mentor
Radical black activist tied to Black Panthers, supports reparations

——————————————————————————–

Posted: July 24, 2009
11:31 am Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Charles Ogletree Jr.

JERUSALEM – The lawyer representing Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of a national race controversy, was a mentor of both Barack and Michelle Obama and served on the president’s black advisory council.

Charles Ogletree Jr., himself a Harvard University professor, is closely linked to the Black Panthers and to radical black ideology. He is a key member of the reparations movement and once pursued the possibility of bringing a class action lawsuit to win reparations for descendants of African slaves.

“I met Barack when he arrived at Harvard Law School in fall of 1988. He was quiet and unassuming, but had an incredibly sharp mind and a thirst for knowledge,” Ogletree said in an interview last year with Essence Magazine.

“Even then I saw his ability to quickly grasp the most complicated legal issues and sort them out in a clear, concise fashion,” said Ogletree.

http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

More grotesque McCarthyism from the reprehensible WorldNetDaily. It’s one thing to say that Gates screwed up and got thrown in the clink for being a disrespectful, arrogant jerk. It’s quite another to write that Gates and Ogletree are dangerous fellow travelers. Sickening. I’d say that WorldNetDaily should be ashamed but given what that rag publishes shame is in very short supply over there.

Heather

To me it seemed like the cop was trying to arrest him. Like, why call the Harvard police after determining that Gates did live there? WTH was that supposed to prove? Come watch me arrest him? The arrest was for hurting the policeman’s feelings and nothing else.

If the police think that the general public can afford to throw every person in jail who insults the cops, they are stupid. We are letting felons out of jail where I live because we can’t afford to pay for it. The policeman should have walked away a long time ago. jmo
tzada

The story would have been the same. Gates was determined to make an issue of this. There are people who make a living off of racial tension, Gates makes a living teaching this theme. Others taking up the hue and cry may also need racial dissent to further their agenda. Obama stoked racial fires at the NAACP meeting.
Why?

If a white president went to a KKK meeting it would have been Katie bar the door time. In fact if he had attended any all white club meeting and said nothing at all about blacks, Latinos, gays or Muslims it would have been hell to pay for it being all white.

All men are created equal, let us all abide by that rule and Obama should lead by example. Give us a “teaching lesson” to use his words.
http://www.historynet.com/peter-francisco-american-revolutionary-war-hero.htm Port Rev War Hero PFrancisco

MORAL OF THE STORY BLACK PEOPLE and other MINORITIES if you an EDUCATE HARVARD ASSHOLE and you HARRASS the POLICE instead of going to COURT like a normal person the HALF-WHITE PREZ, Barry of Arabia, will buy you a beer.

GO AHEAD HARRASS the Police and FALSELY ACCUSE THEM OF BEING RACISTS if you are a BIG ENOUGH ASSHOLE you will get to VISIT the ACORNFRAUD Affirmative Action USUPER.

Breaking News Obama’s Twin Brother’s Birth Certificate was just FOUND and Released in Hawaii. Check it out BREAKING NEWS Mickey Hussein’s Birth Certificate here:
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x13/Mactographer/birth_certificate_2-1.jpg
http://www.historynet.com/peter-francisco-american-revolutionary-war-hero.htm Port Rev War Hero PFrancisco

MORAL OF THE STORY BLACK PEOPLE and other MINORITIES if you are an EDUCATE HARVARD ASSHOLE and you HARRASS the POLICE instead of going to COURT like a normal person the HALF-WHITE PREZ, Barry of Arabia, will treat almost as good as he treats Captured Criminals and buy you a beer. If I was Mr RACIALIST GATES I would Demand a Bermuda Trip instead like was awarded to the Terrorists.

GO AHEAD HARRASS the Police all you want and FALSELY ACCUSE THEM OF BEING RACISTS if you are a BIG ENOUGH ASSHOLE you will get to VISIT the ACORNFRAUD Affirmative Action USUPER.

Breaking News Obama’s Twin Brother’s Birth Certificate was just FOUND and Released in Hawaii. Check it out BREAKING NEWS Mickey Hussein’s Birth Certificate here:
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x13/Mactographer/birth_certificate_2-1.jpg

http://www.dcmediagirl.com DCMediagirl

Wow. Time to tweak your meds.
http://sarainitalyblog.blogspot.com/ American Girl in Italy

wow, that is a darn good photoshopped COLB.

Dawn

I personally don’t know if the lady who called in the police report was white or black. She lived several miles away but worked a couple of doors down. Saw someone breaking into a property(carrying backpacks & a tire iron)and called the police. Sounds like a pretty good citizen to me. I’m sure when asked for a description she either said black men or was prompted to describe race to the dispatcher. How is this racial profiling on her part?
http://lesstalkmoreactivism.blogspot.com whoframedrudy

Something to consider. In an encounter with the police, a man becomes highly agitated, screaming at the police, refusing the officer’s request to calm down. In his agitated state, the man ‘makes a move’ with his hands — strikes the officer, throws an object, pulls something from his pocket. The officer reacts with force — maybe even deadly force. The man is injured, maybe killed.

How do you avoid this awful chain of events? Handcuff the highly agitated man. Is he righteously outraged? Or is he drunk? Is he on medication? Did his wife just leave him? Did his mother just die of cancer? Is he unbalanced? Play it safe. Handcuff the guy until he calms down.
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