History and Race: The Gates Affair
So much for the "post-racial" Obama administration.
The first racial controversy of Barack Obama’s presidency has predictably exposed the fault lines in American politics and made the president’s implied promise of a “post-racial” administration ring hollow.
The knee-jerk reaction of both sides to the incident has revealed the enormous difficulty in making any real, substantive progress in arriving at a true “post-racial” America.
This is especially true when what divides us is talked about using a uniquely American code that precludes us from honestly confronting our differences.
We don’t talk about “race relations” in America. The subject is too painful, too charged with memories of past sins and filled with portent for our present standoffs to deal with directly. This is true of both sides. Talking about race — really getting down to the nitty gritty and exposing our fears, our hopes, our biases, our misconceptions, and, ultimately, our human failings in being prejudiced simply because someone doesn’t look like us — cannot be done in a political context.
Hence, we go around the problem, sidling up to it, stopping short of dealing honestly with it by bringing up ancillary issues that keep us from looking directly into the mirror but allow for a little steam to be released from the pressure cooker.
An example was the Democratic convention of 1964. The real issue was second class citizenship in the south for African Americans. Rather than directly confront the evil, the battle lines were drawn between the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party representing both blacks and whites, and the regular Democrats who were represented by an all-white slate of delegates. Which delegation should represent the state in Atlantic City at the convention?
The subtext of the entire fight — played out in the televised credential committee hearings — was the indignity and basic unfairness being accorded blacks in Mississippi. The searing speech before the committee by Fannie Lou Hamer, a 45-year-old sharecropper who shamed the convention with her fiery rhetoric, brought the issue of race to a boil by appealing to basic American values:
And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings — in America?
Despite Hamer’s charged words, the MFDP challenged the credentials of the segregationists on the political basis that the whites had no intention of supporting Lyndon Johnson in the general election and that by excluding blacks from the selection process they violated party rules and the law.
Everyone in America knew that the argument was really about race. But Johnson, who dispatched Hubert Humphrey to come up with a compromise that was eventually endorsed by Martin Luther King, Jr. but rejected by the MFDP, was fearful that if the matter became too overt, other all-white delegations in the south would bolt the convention a la the Dixiecrats of 1948.
LBJ prevented the question of credentials from reaching the floor of the convention (where the MFDP almost certainly would have won) by strong-arm tactics, but he altered the Democratic Party forever by requiring future delegations to be integrated.
In true American fashion, the real issue of race in America was subsumed in the name of party unity.
In similar fashion, we have tiptoed around the real issues of race to this day. Look at how our national conversation on race proceeded when Barack Obama became a serious candidate for president. One would think a black candidate for the highest office in the land would open the floodgates on both sides and allow for a serious discussion of the history, the fundamental human flaws, and the emotional world that both blacks and whites share. Both races journey through time, side by side — but separately. Equal before the law — but not. Eying each other warily across the great chasm that has been created in politics, culture, and simple human contact, we make up excuses to remain apart.
Barack Obama tried to finesse the issue of race when a “distraction” rose up to bite his candidacy early on. The question of candidate Obama’s relationship with the preacher Jeremiah Wright was leapt upon by the candidate’s foes as they tried to portray him as “the angry black man” — a feared stereotype among whites and one almost certain to derail his candidacy unless he defused the controversy quickly.
He put the issue to rest the way we always do in America — by sidling up to the truth but avoiding the profoundly painful questions that keep us apart:
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother — a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Avoiding specifics and putting the controversy in a personal context may have been smart politics, but it did not address the issues at stake. Why does Wright feel the way he does? Why are white Americans fearful or angry at the preacher (beyond his paranoia and wretched view of history)? To answer “racism” is the code we always use when confronted with the stark outlines of the racial divide. But Obama couldn’t ask or respond to these questions because to do so would have required almost a new vocabulary that no one has invented yet — a vocabulary of reconciliation without rancor or recrimination.
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Rick Moran is PJM Chicago editor; his own blog is Right Wing Nut House.
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81 Comments
1. WhyamInotsurprised?:This piece is a bunch of PC crap. Officer Crowley wound up in a no-win situation with a race-baiter. Be it motivated by an African-American Dept. professor drumming up PR for a new book, video, event, whatever, or trying to protect the dept. from budget cuts due to the economic downturn, he had everything to gain from making a scene.
The Officer asked him for his ID. Oh my, what an outrageous demand! Did he hit him upside the head with a baton? Knock him to the ground and kick him in the ribs? When on the ground, put his knee in the middle of his back and cuff his hands behind his back? NO!
Race is Gates’ business! Period. He needs it for funding at Harvard and for his own prestige. It is also Barry’s No. 1 business as a community organizer and it just comes second nature. He is still feeling his way around the role as the “prez.”
Too many blacks continue to play the victim. Others get on with life and choose to succeed. Some get pulled back by the “crab mentality.” Those who do make it (Condi Rice, C. Thomas) suddenly become oreo’s to the Hood. Like with most children, they learn more if treated with tough love and respect rather than as children with no capacity to handle life on their own. Democrats and government have been successful at inculcating a victim mentality now for several generations and it will not be changed by “talk.” It’s called arrested development.
Jul 26, 2009 - 2:31 am 2. Boscos8:>>>All he knew was his experience as a black man in America and his assumption that if he had been white, the police would not have asked for his ID.
Who was stereotyping who, here? It was patently reasonable for Sgt Crowley to ask for identification under circumstances in which he was trying to determine whether or not the person he had contacted, in fact lived at the residence. He would have done so regardless of Gates’ race because that was the easiest, quickest, and most unobtrusive way to determine whether a crime was occurring or not. The fact that Gates refused to recognize that because of his own biases is not Sgt Crowley’s fault.
Jul 26, 2009 - 2:40 am 3. Mike Murray:Prof. Gates refers to this as a “teaching moment.” But he is the one who has much to learn.
President Obama, for his part, first treated the incident as evidence of law-enforcement wrongdoing — saying the Cambridge police acted “stupidly.” Following a firestorm of criticism, he now says both sides “overreacted.”
Baloney. The white police officer acted appropriately (as a black colleague verified). It is Gates and Obama who have behaved poorly.
And Obama, as you so clearly point out, is hardly “post-racial.”
See: Stupid is as Stupid Does http://emmeffemm.com/id103.html
Jul 26, 2009 - 2:52 am 4. Steve:Rick Moran is a PC disgrace. There has never been a group of people like the white people of this country that have tolerated and given so much as we have to blacks.
Obama and his wife are black supremacists. Any reasonable person could
“google” black liberationist and find that they believe that their god is a god of black people and the white are demons or devils. They sought out this ideology over 20 years ago and have remained faithful to it ever since.
Yet Moran has the audacity to state – “I think Obama really believed he could be a “post-racial” president.” Yeah right. Just ask Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farakhan.
That is outrageous for Moran to make such a statement. That would like saying a prominent KKK member really wanted to and hoped to bridge the racial divide.
Blacks and their liberal cohorts are at war with Western civilization and white people in general. They discriminate against white people. Black on white crime is totally out of hand. Its NEVER reported.
Yet Moran thinks whites are equally to blame.
Stick it Rick. You’re a PC coward.
Jul 26, 2009 - 4:08 am 5. Hello Chicago:This article is 100% pure hogwash.
Whatever real progress America had made with black-white / white-black race relations has been wiped out by Obama, his wife and their race baiting cronies.
The Chicago duo are also very, very busy doing everything they can to incense Latinos into the same frenzy level of racial hatred and prejudice against America, white people and the Jewish race that has sustained the sicko liberal Democrat Party for well over 60 years.
As far as how Americans handle racism under circumstances like we find ourselves living now goes; we learn from our mistakes better and faster than any nation on Earth.
When politicians double cross them, lie to them or abuse their confidence and faith, American voters seldom carry a heated grudge. But, they always get even; and they don’t feel one damn tiny bit of guilt for doing it.
Hence, Mr. Obama and his wife might as well start packing for their trip back to Chicago right now.
Jul 26, 2009 - 4:28 am 6. Meryl:Once again, those who never bought in to the post-racial fairy tale are not having to make any adjustments.
Just because someone claims their are post-racial does not mean I believe they are post-racial. There never was any evidence in his life, either in the concealed years-past or in the recent past, to indicate there was anything post-racial about this ingrate.
Man! People have got to start believing their eyes. It will save a lot of confusion at the personal level and a lot of serious danger at the national level.
Jul 26, 2009 - 4:30 am 7. kywrite:This is a load of crap. I have black friends and I have white friends. I have friends who are cops. I know other people better than I want who are bad people. Color does not predetermine which falls in what category.
I’ve never, ever judged someone by their skin tone. I just don’t care. When I heard the story behind the Gates/Crowley incident, I was solidly on the side of one person – the cop. Had it been a black cop arresting a white guy, I’d have felt the same.
Post-racial, meh. I bring my kids up to judge people on the content of their character. Their friends run the gamut, and I love them all because they are Good Kids. That’s enough for me.
Jul 26, 2009 - 5:32 am 8. J.J. Sefton:As soon as I read the words “knee-jerk reaction of BOTH sides.” I stopped right there.
Please. No mas.
Jul 26, 2009 - 5:40 am 9. Vaughn:#4 Steve,
Can’t say it much better! I would like to admit that my life has gone ‘full circle’. Racist in my youth, liberal in my 30’s, and back to racist, as I age. However, racist only for one group. I live half my life in Mexico now, and greatly admire and respect Latinos, who I might add, never fail to ask ‘why do Americans put up with them?’
Jul 26, 2009 - 5:43 am 10. homero:there is a large vocal group in america that will not drop the subject. it is part of their baggage, their leadership derives it’s living off maintaining the racial bias. (Obama is just one of them) …Jesse Jackson , Al Sharpton. J. Wright. are others. they use race to make a living. they keep the pot boiling. they foster the victimhood that perpetuates the race issue.
the government too is an enabler of the victimhood. affirmitive action is one of the tools used to prolong the race problem..
It seems to be largely a black issue, although there is a contingent of latinos who are now also using the same tactics. (Sotomayor is an example of how the latins want to get in on the racist action)
no group can advance themselves if they continually look backwards and try to remedy issues that have no remedy.
the only ones who benefit are those who make a living on the backs of those now twice abused.
as for true racism, well it is unfortunatelly a part of life., not unlike fans for opposing football teams ….a natural extenstion of tribealism.
often overlooked is that there is racism against white people too …they normally don’t try to make a living out of it.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:06 am 11. LeighB:It seems to me that what is limiting Obama’s ability to be a post-racial president is his over-reliance on identity politics. If you look at the world as groups and are not willing to deal with people as individuals, the group norms and stereotypes are going to be a factor. And usually not in a way that promotes communication and understanding.
The president also seems to divide the world into victims and perpetrators. Maybe we get too much fresh air and sunshine here in flyover country but it is hard to see the Obamas or Henry Gates as victims.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:15 am 12. pelaut:#5 hello chicago: “Whatever real progress America had made with black-white / white-black race relations has been wiped out by Obama, his wife and their race baiting cronies.”
Amen.
Obama’s legacy may be that he broke the chains of the “white guilt” canard and, God help us, summoned infernal resentments from non-blacks.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:16 am 13. davimcg:One reason Obama will never be able to help usher in a “post-racial” society is because he does not see himself as being part of the American past. That’s why he is always apologizing for things America has done but when it comes to any personal responsibility he pleads innocent (i.e. concerning the Bay of Pigs, stating he hoped he would not be held “personally responsible” for something that happened when he was three-years-old). For Obama, the buck never stops with him. He is always fixing problems caused by “others”.
Another example of this “otherness” is when he stated “our children are always shortchanged” concernng education. By “our childen”, he meant black children. An American President is the president of all American children. But Obama still thinks in terms of “ours” versus “theirs”. Black versus white.
He will never be able to help the U.S. transcend race because he personally cannot transcend it.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:41 am 14. Patrick of Atlantis:“Knee jerk reaction from both sides”? Well, there was the knee jerk reaction from one side, and then the rational response to the knee jerk reaction. When someone tries to knee you in the groin, the natural defense is to block that knee with your own knee. I’m beginning to believe that there will never be a “post-racial America”. “Racial America” is too darned entertaining to forsake.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:41 am 15. homero:5 hello chicago
unfortunately you are right on with the analysis.
Obama’s wife is enough of an example to the world as to how post-racial this presidency will be.
what upsets me is that anyone ever thought he transcended race.
he was an obvious racist during the campaign. so how was he a post-racial ever !
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:51 am 16. Locomotive Breath:As long as you have professional race victims like Henry Lous Gates there can never be a post-racial America. Hey Henry, sometimes a cigar really is a cigar.
Jul 26, 2009 - 7:14 am 17. Realist:Yet again the Obamanation exposes himself for the blatant RACIST that he is and yet again the MSM and the LIAR Messiah worshipers sticks their heads in the sand and cannot see it.
Jul 26, 2009 - 7:15 am 18. Maggie:Release the audio tapes of the incident and let everyone decide who over-reacted and who assumed what from their personal bias.
Jul 26, 2009 - 7:59 am 19. Ozzie:“”"The subject is too painful, too charged with memories of past sins and filled with portent for our present standoffs to deal with directly.”"”
This is where I realized the author has accepted the white guilt and racial sins premises. I have no sins to ask forgiveness for, at least to blacks I have never met. White people as a group of Americans have nothing to ask forgiveness for either. It’s a level playing field, and no amount of lying will change that basic fact. If an individual white wants to accept some global guilt, that is his(the author) or her personal choice. Give all your belongings to a black neighbor, and go to Africa and work to help people the rest of your life. Just shut the hell up about it here. We’re sick of hearing about it.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:08 am 20. Bender:Who’s doing the tip-toeing?
Seems like a great many people are having a very substantive discussion on race, like Holder said we should, but now folks like Gates and Obama are insisting that we shut up about it already and move on.
America is having a good discussion on race. But some people don’t want to hear the truth.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:09 am 21. sydney jane:“Shedding 300 years of history takes more than the affirmation at the polls President Obama received last November.”
Ugh, where do I begin? I am a black woman, and, unlike Barack Obama, am a descendant of slaves and had more of a typical “black” upbringing than Barack Obama did. Still, in my family, we were never allowed to use race as an excuse for anything, unless all other reasons had been considered. You got a bad grade? Dad said, study harder. Didn’t get that job? Dad said, maybe you weren’t qualified…work harder. Shedding 300 years of history, as you say, was quite easy for me and my siblings, because we were brought up that way. Not to say my father/brother didn’t ever get stopped by the police (and I doubt Barack Obama was, even though he claims he was), and didn’t suffer from racism, but we were taught not to cry racism at the drop of a hat whenever something happened we don’t like.
Second, yes, I did expect Barack Obama to leave his race at the door when he got elected. It’s not that difficult…and he, with his background and upbringing, doesn’t have 300 years of history to shed! And, if he’s going to see every racial issue through the prism of a black man whose first instinct is to blame whitey (or the police), then he should not be our president (and I see now why they decided not to pursue the case against the Black Panthers).
Finally, enough already about this “national dialogue on race.” Sounds like something that was just drummed up by liberals and people like Jackson/Sharpton to show white folks how bad they are.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:12 am 22. Bertly:A Marine defined being PC quite well. “Being PC is like trying to pick up a turd from the clean end.” PC keeps us from having honest discussions regarding race, gender, EEOC, crime, terrorism………… So we all step around the real issues and continue to let politicians divide us up into small fragmented groups that find fault with one another while the politicians spend all of our money getting re elected by handing out tax dollars to their supporters, ie the bailouts and earmarks.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:28 am 23. garyj:They are fooling all of us with this ploy.
It’s ironic how the blacks are the biggest racists just as the feminists are the biggest sexists.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:31 am 24. "progressive"watch:Moral equivalency,Mr. Moran? You gave us your beliefs,but you strayed from the facts. There wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction from both sides,just from the Gates-Obama side. The other side was left with the option of getting rolled over or standing up and answering. Gates and Obama are racists. Gates is a Harvard multicultural professor meaning he is a professional racists,and Obama and the whole O-adminstration are race-baiters,race-card players and American apologists,including O-Hillary. B.O. couldn’t help being his racist self since he was away from his teleprompter baby-sitter,and on top of that,he acted and spoke stupidly. Obama is a Marxist Al Sharpton.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:45 am 25. Spider79:Lesson 1 from the teachable moment – when the police come to your house because someone told them it had broken into ….don’t be an arse-hole.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:49 am 26. Cato:#18 Maggie is right that the audio tapes should be released. My suspicion is that the cops are holding on to them to be able to sucker-punch the smug and arrogant Gates if he files a lawsuit.
I think Moran’s piece here is ridiculous PC mouthwash. While I would hope to Heaven a passerby who saw two people of any description trying to force their way into a house would immediately report it to the police, whether that call was in some way ‘racial’ or not is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that the police were called to respond to a potential breakin.
The officer’s DUTY at that point was to investigate the report, to ensure that anyone he found in the house belonged there, and, further, to ensure that any legitimate residents (and their invitees) in the house were not under duress to say everything was OK.
Asking for ID deals with establishing legitimate residence. If the ID didn’t show Gates’ address as the address at which the incident occurred (as it apparently did not), they further inquiry was in order. Asking Gates to step outside was only sound practice FOR THE PROTECTION OF LEGITIMATE RESIDENTS to ensure they were not being held hostage and forced by intruders to say all was well. That DOES happen, after all.
Gates, supposed to be some brilliant scholar, was unable to see any of this. A remotely sensible resident would have told the officer — politely — that he was the resident, offered proof cheerfully, and OFFERED the explanation that he’d forgotten his keys. Had he politely asked the officer why he wanted him to step out — to which the officer could have replied, “to make sure no one’s coercing you or someone with you, sir” This is basic stuff.
I’m from the ’60s generation that had plenty of negative interactions with police, and I don’t discount that many of them can be hostile, even if only due to the stress and uncertainty of the situation. I’ve been stopped where circumstances look bad, and never even considered being confrontational — rather, I knew that I had to allay the officers’ reasonable suspicions and make the understand the actual facts. And, I knew that to do that I had to convince them I was not threatening.
I am frankly sick and tired of the kind of racialism blacks such as Gates show, and their exaggerated sensitivities. I am tired of being expected to excuse the anti-Americanism of Jeremiah Wright and tired of being expected to feel guilty because some of my ancestors held slaves (including a greatgrandfather who freed his slaves on moral grounds at great personal cost). We fought a war that ended in the abolition of slavery; again at great cost – I have ancestors who died fighting on both sides.
I’m old enough to have worked blacks who were successful before affirmative action, ethnic studies and the creation of the race industry. Very different people. Their competence was unquestioned, because they had to be better to get a fair shake. That’s unfortunate, but there was no sense that when you saw a black engineer or doctor that he had inferior skills or intellect.
The ONLY way to get beyond race in a meaningful way is to just do it: require all governmental treatment to be truly racially neutral, letting the outcome chips fall where they may. Get away from the “self-esteem” world into a world of self-respect, where all children (black, white, brown, whatever) are taught that only genuine achievement merits respect for self and the respect of others.
Crap like this article, and Jerks like Gates and Obama, only make things worse in the long run. Before the election I said I feared Obama’s election would set race relations back 50 years. I was wrong, I think it will set them back further than that.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:55 am 27. Strawman:Nonsense. There was never a conflict in ideals, there was a different definition of humanity. Slaves simply weren’t considered full humans. Nor were women. We had to evolve to change the definitions, not the principles. To this day, there’s a burning controversy over the definition of human life, and which side of the issue the constitution should come down on. There’s no reason to believe that we’ve settled the issue.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:58 am 28. Marc Malone:Great comments. Obama let the mask slip, and he’s paying for it in the polls. His approval ratings crashed since the Presser. He had nothing constructive to say regarding the healthcare proposal, then he lets fly this gross, racist response.
Whites finally saw him for the race-hustler he is, and quit giving him the benefit of the doubt. It was the final straw. Lots of people across America are regretting their vote in the elections. The backlash in 2010 will be severe. Dems are scrambling for cover, now. The collapse begins.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:01 am 29. Strawman:You’re missing the fact that 0bama knew Gates personally. It might have been appropriate to mention in passing that he knew Gates, and he knew him to be of good character. Anything beyond that shows him to not understand or respect the law. The most dismaying aspect of this affair is that this guy, who’s supposed to be a hot-shot legal scholar, doesn’t seem to know enough of the law to be a public defender. Anyone with any understanding of and respect for the law will instinctively refuse comment.
I could excuse him if he had a background in, say, journalism. But pretending to be a hot-shot legal mind carries with it certain responsibilities.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:09 am 30. Strawman:And yes, Mr. Moran is twisting himself in pretzels trying to present this as being a failure of both sides, when there’s zero evidence that Sgt. Crowley did anything wrong. There may be something to the larger point, but please don’t twist what happened to try to prove it.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:12 am 31. TexEd:Rick – we do talk about race relations in America! What we don’t talk about is black racism! Every discussion of race relations ends with what whites can do to enable or empower blacks, thus, demonstrating that the more grievances, real or imagined, blacks can generate, the more stuff they will get.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:15 am 32. HalifaxCB:A claim of racial profiling is nothing more than a demand for a black license to engage in the behavior without fear of consequence. The claim that blacks are pulled over for speeding on the Jersey Turnpike is nothing more than a demand that blacks be allowed to speed without consequence because every black pulled over was stopped ONLY because he was black.
With Gates, I’m hoping that the professional black victims groups don’t stop the police from releasing the tapes they have of this event. I think the tapes will demonstrate Gates’ arrogance and maybe, even, thefact that he had been drinking.
Maggie @18 – re. Gates & Crowley, I agree, the audio tapes should clear things up a lot, and we should all learn a lot about ourselves…(I will say though that having watched Sgt. Crowley’s interview, and the various remarks from Prof Gates as well as other participants, my sympathies are entirely with the Sgt.)
But the big point though isn’t with these two, it is with the President grossly overstepping the role of his office. The President’s primary role is “to preserve, to protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”; every time he ventures into the public arena he should think of that oath. Yet once again (as we’ve seen so often in the last few months), by acting like a princeling, he demonstrated the basic contempt he holds for both the office and the oath. He should be truly ashamed of his actions. But as has been pointed out many times before, Obama has no moral compass, and he’s obviously not any closer to finding one now.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:19 am 33. Charm:I don’t think Crowley made a racist error. But I do think he should have Tazered Gates for being an academic snob
The “best and the brightest” can be oh so annoying.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:24 am 34. misanthropicus:RE #18/Maggie: [...] Release the audio tapes of the incident and [...]
Frankly, Maggie, I don’t think those tapes will be ever released. I read Crowley’s incident report on The Smoking Gun (a pretty detailed one), and if the sequence of events and movement & actions of people in and out of the house are as described (and I think they are), Gates and Obama simply don’t want that evidence exposed.
Oh, by the way, when it comes to tapes, Obama has quite a history:
* the reverend Wright tape
* the “Whitey” tape
* the Khalidi tape…
… we can add here the Gates tape…
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:25 am 35. iputnam:It’s tedious to get beaten endlessly over the head with this PC non-think.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:25 am 36. Mike:Discussions about race are meant to draw one conclusion- whites are guilty, blacks are victims. Thus it was said, thus it is – lesson learned.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:29 am 37. Jack Olson:As soon as I heard about the incident, I thought: ‘here we go again.’ How can person not tune out such endless drivel?
Blacks are unable to think about their country except in view of the chains of their ancestors? President Obama’s black ancestors never were slaves in the United States, although they may have been slaves in Africa. His white ancestors were never slaves in the United States, although they may have been slaves in other countries centuries ago. General Powell’s ancestors were never slaves in the United States, since they lived in Jamaica, although they may have been slaves in the British Empire. I don’t know who Rick Moran is, but since his reasoning isn’t based on facts I won’t bother to find out.
Jul 26, 2009 - 10:06 am 38. Sallysue:Why do people insist the black/white problems in America are about APPEARANCE? Appearance has little or nothing to do with the disgust blacks & whites have with each other. The problems have to do with BEHAVIOR. Whites behave in ways which disgust blacks and blacks behave in ways which disgust whites. The biggest race problems in America are caused by race baiters such as obama, rev. wright, farrakhan, khaled al mansour, and “prof” gates.
Jul 26, 2009 - 10:14 am 39. Professor Guvinoff:Political “solutions” can’t solve anything with matters of this kind. In the case of gays in the military, all the political process could produce was the ultimate dodge: “Dont’ask, don’t tell”. This is where all these supposedly wonderful politically correct contrivances fail completely: There is no such thing as equal opportunity racism: We are stuck in a crazy code of conduct where black anger is acceptable, but its white counterpart is not!
If there are solutions, they are of a personal nature, not a political one. If a white person refuses to tolerate the abuse of a race baiter, and a black person decides to go by uniform standards of performance and behavior, they do so because they are capable of courage, not because of some superior political allegiance.
The only way a political leader can help is by displaying personal courage himself or herself. That does not happen very often, does it? Courage is nothing spectacular. It’s difficult and its wages do not include popularity. Don’t get mired in the adulation of mythical heroes, and just do what is right within your own sphere.
Jul 26, 2009 - 10:50 am 40. sallie:Gates is a racist, period. Obama is a racist, period.
Perhaps the police of this land will understand he is not their friend…Just as doctors should now realize this fact. Damned tonsil snatchers!!
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:04 am 41. noreen:This is such a telling moment for Obama. His unscripted statements are very rare and very telling. He does not often mess up like this. Notice how during the press conference he droned on and on saying nothing in his hypnotic boring speech pattern. Regurgitating the same old words that don’t really mean a thing. Answering questions with non answers. Boy did he come alive when this issue was broached ! Notice how passionate and animated he became. Away with the teleprompter and on with pure Obama. The black racist who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years. The disciple of Black Liberation Theology. The hater of America. The devotee and spewer of tired old black hate. Always take the black man’s side no matter the evidence or his behavior. His election proved nothing? Oh no we have to keep the racial divide wide and present in the USA. Every contentious interaction between a black and a white is labeled profiling and racist. Every argument and disagreement is designed by white people to keep the black man subservient and downtrodden. Such utter and complete bullshit. It is so insulting to every white person in this country. I am surprised I have never been accused of giving blacks substandard medical care. He is a promoter of racism. If he keeps the fire of prejudice and hatred stoked then we can take our attention off his attempts to destroy our country. Micheal Jackson and Dick Cheney did not work for long so onto something else. The only problem is the white victim they picked this time. This fine cop has a track record of trying to bridge the racial gap in this country. He should have tasered the jerk. I don’t know why he bothers. It will never do any good because race baiting is a industry. It keeps low rent blacks employed and on TV. Obama should be ashamed but sadly as a follower of the Reverand Wright it has become part of his DNA. His hateful nasty wife is another big clue into what our fearless leader is all about
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:04 am 42. bobbcat:From the article:
“Why does Wright feel the way he does?”
A study of black liberation theology would likely yield some answers to that, coupled with the likely mindset that Wright holds which supports the notion of reparations and that most (if not all) white people are prejudiced against blacks due to the color of the latter’s skin.
“Why are white Americans fearful or angry at the preacher (beyond his paranoia and wretched view of history)?”
Possibly because most of what the ‘dear reverend’ has to say is utterly false. Who appreciates lies, particularly when delivered with such a malicious, bloviating manner?
“Obama got high marks for that speech for even mentioning slavery in the context that it is a burden we carry as Americans.”
As long as we Americans are going to be forced to carry the legacy of slavery as a ‘burden,’ don’t be looking for any real bridging of the racial divide to ever happen. Everyone must let go of that or there won’t be any moving forward. Everyone should be mindful of the fact that slaveowners have been pushing up daisies now for generations. I cannot think of any living, breathing American who wants to restore slavery. Again, let it go!
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:04 am 43. The Skizzerd of Waz:1. WhyamInotsurprised?:
I agree with your analysis of this article totally!
This incident was blown out of proportion by those who seek to profit from the race canard, namely that America is a white racist country to this day. Race profiteers like Gates will create incidents to justify their advancement of this white racist state myth, but cring wolf means squat when compared to law.
And our laws are clear, discrimination is a criminal act, period. To claim those who break the law by discriminating, as race baiters like Gates claim, (Falsely, as in the Crowley case.) represent a nation defined by its laws is ludicrous!
For men like President Obama and Governor DeVal to insinuate the nation that they govern, in the name of the people who voted them into office, is a racist state is nadir of personal stupidity.
It’s idiots like Gates, Obama, and DeVal who “acted stupidly” not Sgt. Crowley. A blind man can see it …
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:10 am 44. bobbcat:38. Sallysue:”The problems have to do with BEHAVIOR. Whites behave in ways which disgust blacks and blacks behave in ways which disgust whites.”
Indeed. Progress towards true racial harmony can never happen before both races can honestly and openly discuss such things with one another without cries of ‘racism’ creating a din which drowns out the truth.
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:10 am 45. personal trainer austin tx:The officer should have made the Biden observation that Gates was clean and articlate and moved on.
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:12 am 46. Still Bill:Uncle Tom Gates is a professional Democratic Party race hustler with tenure. He makes a very good living teaching Black History. Hey Uncle Tom, next summer take your students to Somalia and let us know how things are going over there.
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:25 am 47. catherine:Rick, you’re an idiot! How long will it take to satisfy the hypocracy of the black liberationists? Is one hundred years enough or 1000? As long as blacks are trained in race baiting and white guilt we will always be separate. Martin Luther King said the object was to be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. But the race industry (African American studies, Sharpton, Jackson, Black Caucus, Black Chamber of Commerse, Black Business Women’s Association and on and on!) have no intention of integrating. They are a seperatists movement! Imagine if there was a White Causus!
This country elected a black president! That can not happen without alot of white votes. Blacks have been taught by the very Professor Gates that being singled out as being black is the “default” position. When Obama made his stupid remarks, he opened his mouth and out popped Reverend Wright! Most whites as a whole have been post racial for quite awhile now, but until the “default position” is changed nothing will happend. Blacks must know in their soul that they are just people and must make their own way just like the rest of us for anything knew to occur. I once thought that when my Dad’s generation died out, we’d be free of the color controversy but, no, too many have made and continue to make a lucrative living of it and so it continues, perhaps forever and that’s really a shame!
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:30 am 48. Sturgus Drain:“All he knew was his experience as a black man in America and his assumption that if he had been white, the police would not have asked for his ID.”
I don’t believe Gates has claimed he had any earlier run ins with “rogue” cops.
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:31 am 49. catherine:Rick, you’re an idiot! How long will it take to satisfy the hypocracy of the black liberationists? Is one hundred years enough or 1000? As long as blacks are trained in race baiting and white guilt we will always be separate. Martin Luther King said the object was to be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. But the race industry (African American studies, Sharpton, Jackson, Black Caucus, Black Chamber of Commerse, Black Business Women’s Association and on and on!) have no intention of integrating. They are a seperatists movement! Imagine if there was a White Causus!
This country elected a black president! That can not happen without alot of white votes. Blacks have been taught by the very Professor Gates that being singled out as being black is the “default” position. When Obama made his stupid remarks, he opened his mouth and out popped Reverend Wright! Most whites as a whole have been post racial for quite awhile now, but until the “default position” is changed nothing will happend. Blacks must know in their soul that they are just people and must make their own way just like the rest of us for anything new to occur. I once thought that when my Dad’s generation died out, we’d be free of the color controversy but, no, too many have made and continue to make a lucrative living of it and so it continues, perhaps forever and that’s really a shame!
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:37 am 50. crazynut:Sydney Jane you are what our country is all about. As an old white woman I am very proud of you. You and your family are the real hope of our country. You contribute not take away.
Jul 26, 2009 - 11:48 am 51. ding:“Perhaps we should demand better of our president.”
Perhaps?
No “perhaps” about it.
It has often been said that presidents grow while in office. That they are forced to take a long and distant view of this country, the world, and history. This incident indicates that Obama is still a partisan pap.
Jul 26, 2009 - 12:05 pm 52. Jim Anderson:The writer makes a statement that reminds me of an Eddie Murphy comedy sketch. First, the writer’s comment: “All he [Gates] knew was his experience as a black man in America and his assumption that if he had been white, the police would not have asked for his ID.
We’ll never know if that assumption was correct.”
Eddie Murphy did a comedy sketch in which he was ‘made up’ to look white so he could go ‘undercover’ and explore true white behavior. He found that once a black man left a bus, that no white people were charged fares and they all danced in the aisles of the bus. He ‘learned’ that white store owners don’t charge white people for newspapers as long as there are no blacks present. Everything was ‘free’ for white people, etc. It was a funny sketch and it pursued that theme with several other funny concepts.
But making inflammatory statements about racial ‘assumptions’ is not funny.
For Moran to say that ‘we will never know’ if
Gates’ assumption that if he were white he would not be asked for i.d., is ridiculous. It is a statement that is false on its face.
I’m white, grey [and short] haired, clean-shaven, no scars, no tatoos and I dress conservatively. I’m 58 years of age. I have never been arrested. I am also an attorney in Massachusetts.
With that said, I direct Mr. Moran’s attention to these incidents:
1)After a long night of driving in southern California I stopped at truck pull-in site to sleep. A house was nearby that I didn’t see that night. The cops came in the a.m., woke me up, ASKED FOR I.D. and an explanation of where I was going and why I had stopped. [It seems that parking within 100 feet of the house had disturbed the resident.]
2)A Massachusetts state trooper noticed I left a MacDonald’s with my headlights off at 6 p.m. on a January night. [the parking lot was brightly lit and I didn't notice I'd left them off.] He stopped me within fifty feet of the brightly lit parking lot on the brightly lighted highway. Not only did he ask me for i.d., he asked from where I had driven and where I was going. When I told him the location from which I was coming, he asked what ‘time’ I left there. He asked what ‘work’ I had been doing there before I left. THEN he insulted me by staring at his watch to calculate the time to travel that distance to see if my ’story’ checked out. We then had what I considered to be a ridiculously long conversation about whether or not I might be ‘taking illegal drugs’ or ‘drinking something’ that caused me to forget to turn on my headlights. [Hell, I don't even drink alcohol at all, so it wasn't like he smelled anything.] All in all he detained me for twenty minutes over my ‘headlights’ being off in an area that was lighted like a broadway musical on opening night.
3)Also – mea culpa – I let my inspection sticker expire. TWO cops arrived when a busy-body reported the expired sticker because my car was ‘a stranger’s car’ parked near his home. (I drive a Toyota Camry – not an armed humvee.) Both cops checked my i.d. They asked if the stated address was current. When I mentioned I was ‘renting,’ they wanted to know the name of my landlord and the amount of time I had been a resident. Why? I dunnoh. But I answered them.
4) A month ago I awaited a friend’s arrival at his new house. A neighbor saw my car parked in the cul de sac. She wasn’t used to cars in the cul de sac during the daytime. She called the police. Cops showed up. I had to present my identification. In fact, as they arrived I reached for my wallet. Why? Because we ALL know the ‘drill.’
TRUST ME, MR. MORAN – WE DO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION: YES, YES, YES – WHITE OR BLACK OR YELLOW OR GREEN – COPS ALWAYS ASK FOR IDENTIFICATION. PERIOD. END OF STORY. AND GUESS WHAT – THEY ALSO – ON OCCASION – HASSLE INNOCENT WHITE PEOPLE ABOUT THE DETAILS OF THEIR ‘STORIES.’
But guess what?
None of the police described above arrested me. You know why? Because THERE’S ALSO SOMETHING WE KNOW AND DO NOT HAVE TO ASSUME: If Gates had been polite as was I [even to the State Trooper insulting my integrity by seeing if the 'timing' of my story checked out all because my headlights were off in a blindingly lighted lot] – if – like me – Gates hadn’t started shouting and refusing to cooperate – the cop would have checked his i.d. and left.
These are not assumptions. These are facts. We know the answer to Moran’s rhetorical question. Mr. Moran chooses not to face it. He chooses not to face the answer because the answer proves that Gates is an irrational and unbalanced man who has a psychological obsession about his race.
But – who knows – maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if I had immeidately started shouting at all of the [above] cops, “So! This is all about me being a white male attorney in America!!! – they would have said, “You’re right. You caught us. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Still, I think the more likely response would have been, “Sir, please keep your hands where I can see them and step out of the car. Are you carrying any weapons?”
Jim Anderson
Jul 26, 2009 - 12:13 pm 53. steveg:Needham, Massachusetts
The way I see it, the black community does not have need for hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson or Gates. The so called mainstream media does their work for them.
I can recall several CNN anchors and reporters calling whites racist, if they did not vote for Obama. And last fall during college football season I listened to ESPN announcers consistently pimping for schools to hire black coaches, and shaming them if they did not. This has been going on for years, but last year it was more prevalent there ever.
Bernie Goldberg was right in suggesting that all the guilt-tripped white liberals in the MSM should consider giving up their jobs to minorities. If they did so, there would be very few whites left in the media.
Jul 26, 2009 - 12:46 pm 54. Bender:>> 41. noreen – His unscripted statements are very rare and very telling. He does not often mess up like this. <<
If only it were so.
I admit that it would probably be a stretch to say that Obama does it each and every day, but not a week goes by where I do not hear him say something that is profoundly offensive, insulting, and contemptuous of someone or some group.
However, we are so used to hearing such venom so often from the left that it doesn't even register anymore. Moreover, Obama likes to spew his animus in a backhanded, passive-aggressive manner. But make no mistake, Obama constantly and repeatedly says things as obnoxious as this.
Jul 26, 2009 - 12:50 pm 55. Strawman:And while we’re at it, I’d like to see the Malthusians volunteer to reduce the world’s population.
Jul 26, 2009 - 1:20 pm 56. Cybergeezer:Obama’s taking us back to the 1960’s with his racial stereotyping and juvenile racial statements; We are going to have riots in the big cities exactly like we had in the 1960’s before the Obama Clan is finished.
Jul 26, 2009 - 1:33 pm 57. Cichawoda:2. Boscos8:
“It was patently reasonable for Sgt Crowley to ask for identification”
I agree with you but – I am a 50 something white guy. Several years ago when I was living in the Belmont Heights area of Long Beach, a mixed neighborhood, a neighbor called 911 reporting a break into the apartment I was living in. I heard somebody in the apartment down stairs and ran down. As I turned the corner I ended up facing 2 frightened cops, white and latino, with their guns pointing at my face. I guess I was lucky that day. We stood there for a moment till one of the cops asked me “Do you live here?”. I said yes and they lowered their guns and proceeded to tell me about the break in and that the front door was opened. I looked around the apartment and found my and my wife’s wallets missing from the kitchen table. The cops wrote a report and never questioned who I was or ask me for ID.
Do you think it would have played out differently had I been black? As far as we have come along in the race equality thing since the 60s I can make a bet that 8 out of 10 times I would have been treated way differently.
Jul 26, 2009 - 3:35 pm 58. Cichawoda:52. Jim Anderson:
“We know the answer to Moran’s rhetorical question.”
You are wrong. Police like ordinary people, make judgement calls and have “markers” for all kinds of occasions. You are treated differently if you are young or old, male or female and yes black, white or latino.
The job of the officer after he was shown ID was to present his badge and give his name when asked, apologize if only to ratchet down the situation and leave – that is what I would expect from a public servant if it were me.
Jul 26, 2009 - 3:52 pm 59. clear mind:51… ding
Obama and Michael Jackson had much in common… little adult supervision as adolescents.
Now, you’re at the intersection of an angry black man who teaches racism at Harvard (look at his course syllabuses)and an angry man of mixed race who lives in the White House and each is living their adult lives as racist. Yes, racism persists because it is the interest of black political leaders and academics to keep it alive (Jackson, Lewis, Sharpton, Conyers, Lewis (D-GA) et al).
A meeting at the White House solves nothing, particularly, if Obama refuses to apologize, which he never does. It does give Obama another chance to be on TV in prime-time, though.
Jul 26, 2009 - 4:04 pm 60. Cristina:Mr Moran:
“The knee-jerk reaction of both sides to the incident has revealed the enormous difficulty in making any real, substantive progress in arriving at a true “post-racial” America.”
“We don’t talk about “race relations” in America. The subject is too painful, too charged with memories of past sins and filled with portent for our present standoffs to deal with directly. This is true of both sides. Talking about race — really getting down to the nitty gritty and exposing our fears, our hopes, our biases, our misconceptions, and, ultimately, our human failings in being prejudiced simply because someone doesn’t look like us — cannot be done in a political context.”
Mr Moran,
Don’t speak for me and the miilions of immigrants who have nothing to do with America’s past sins. I speak about race relations all the time, whenever I can. If you and your friends are shy about speaking up about race, and have “biases/fears/misconceptions,” too bad, but that does not describe me, and I think anyone who is afraid to speak up in a free society is a coward. My only fear is totalitarianism, whatever the color/race it happens to come packaged in. There’s nothing “painful” in discussing any political and social issue. “Pain” is justified and relevant when you are on the shrink’s couch, not to mature political debate. Imagine any of the Founding Fathers or Lincoln refusing to debate because it was too “painful.”
Knee-jerk reaction on both sides of the incident?? No way. A rainbow coalition of cops show up to the place of a reported incident of breaking and entering, apparently in progress. That’s what they have to do, or else you wouldn’t be secure in your neighborhood–I guess you don’t live in the most insecure ones…
Jul 26, 2009 - 4:19 pm 61. Steve:Next, black prof, confronted with a white cop, refuses, initially, to produce proof of address, yelling “Why, because I’m a black man in America?”, setting up the racial confrontation.
#57 cichawoda writes “Do you think it would have played out differently had I been black?
Maybe. But SO WHAT blacks commit 10 to 20 times the amount of crime than any other group. Especially violent crime.
Black on white crime is our country’s biggest problem.
Screw you.
Jul 26, 2009 - 5:34 pm 62. David Thomson:“The job of the officer after he was shown ID was to present his badge and give his name when asked, apologize if only to ratchet down the situation and leave”
Did the ID prove that Prof. Gates belonged in the house? If not, the officer could not leave the premises. Two things had to be firmly established: the identity of Gates—and his right to be inside the dwelling.
Jul 26, 2009 - 6:02 pm 63. sbourg55:……..you really miss the point. The episode with Barry O proves once again that he’s such an extreme idealogue that he can’t even think his way out of a paper bag. He assumed the police acted stupidly, when he should have assumed the police were doing their job. And Gates should have assumed that as well, when Crowley asked him for I.D. Gates should have been grateful for quick police-presence after he broke into his own house. Gates is an idealogue. He despises Clarence Thomas because Gates wants MORE affirmative action, not less as the Constitution “wants”. Gates looks for racism everywhere, and evidently so does Obama. Maybe Gates should run for President in ‘12…….he certainly is well-spoken. God, we are toast with Obama. He does everything the OPPOSITE of what our country needs. Literally, everything that’s important.
Jul 26, 2009 - 7:19 pm 64. gracie:Obama appears to be a racist with a world wide platform and the press as lap dogs.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:15 pm 65. dick stanley:It’s amazing that even at Pajamas Media we have to endure yet another PC monologue on our alleged poor racial la-de-da. The race-baiter Gates is already out there puffing himself up. “It’s Not About Me,” says the headline quoting him on Drudge. The hell it’s not about him. Slimey toad. He makes his living crying racism at every turn.
Cops are a minority in this country. They are the thin blue line between the law-abiding and the thugs. Cops never know what awaits them when they answer a call. They dare not let creeps like Gates scream abuse at them in public and get away with it. It’s not a long step from people doing that to taking shots at them. That’s, in part, what the disorderly conduct laws are about.
The PC media is now saying Gates will have a beer with Crowley and Obama. The stories uniformly neglect to report whether Crowley wants to have a beer with with these two race hustlers. I hope he doesn’t, unless he makes it clear that it’s truly “all about Gates” and not the Cambridge PD.
Jul 26, 2009 - 8:46 pm 66. Paul:The problem conservatives fail to realize is that Black people will never, ever waver in support of Obama. NEVER. 97 percent of Black people still approve of Obama’s performance as president and 96 percent voted for him.
THis article is amazing and I suggest you all read it!
http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/07/49-criticism-of-mein-obama.html
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:17 pm 67. Moho:What always amuses me about historical retrospectives of this kind conducted by right-wing nutballs is how neatly they end in 1965. Funny, that’s when the unprecedented milestones legislated by Democrats turned black voters away from Republicans, and when the Democratic party began to actively court non-white voters as a means of gaining ground. Its well known that Nixon, on the other hand, predicated his entire electoral strategies on winning over the Southern and Northern whites who felt betrayed by the civil rights legislation of the sixties. He did, and it’s become the centerpiece of every Republican platform to this day. Its the reason why there are so many sites like this, reflexively taking the same unsurprising stands on any issue concerning race, and who never have anything but a token few blacks on their sides [yes, the only one's who can think for themselves. Give me a break].
The problem today for you people is that Barack Obama demonstrated quite neatly that the South could be won back by courting black voters, and white people anxious to break free from the chains of race-baiting bullshit so prevalent in forums such as this. Try as you might to disenfranchise them over the last thirty years, you Republicans have only succeeded in turning them over to the Democratic Party for any foreseeable future.
This shouldn’t be seen as an endorsement of the Democrats. Quite the contrary, on most issues, they’re as corrupt as Republicans. But in this case, the Democrats chose their way and the Republicans chose theirs. Because Republicans predicated their future on a constant white majority, they are seeing the likelihood of their political survival evaporate a bit more every day. Democrats, on the other hand, have a burgeoning non-white polity which they communicate to just as well, and those numbers are growing exponentially.
I suggest you keep up this kind of ridiculous rhetoric, in any case. You’re certainly not going to win over any black people any time soon, given that the memories of your hateful discourse–most visible in last years election and which continue unabated by your intellectual leader, Sarah Palin–are still fresh. Your only hope is to hang on to racist, resentful, ill-read and none-too-bright white Republicans. And as once said about real estate, they’re not making any more of them.
Jul 26, 2009 - 9:19 pm 68. Fuzzlenutter:This piece does seem out of place here at Pajamas Media. It has the flavor (and heavy PC slant) for a rag like the Huffington Post.
I mean, please. Who’s really at fault here?
A) A race-baiting, Caucasian-hating Harvard University Professor who has spent his entire existence–well–race-baiting and hating Caucasians
or
B) A well-respected police sergeant with a clean record who teaches classes on racial profiling at the Lowell Police Academy?
A no brainer to me, that’s for sure…
Jul 26, 2009 - 10:16 pm 69. Nancy:I don’t know why anyone is surprised. I knew what Obama was months before the election and it frustrated me no end that so many others didn’t see it. Or wouldn’t. I had a sinking feeling that the racial debate would suffer from his presidency, and I was right.
Elections have consequences. Our commander in chief is a dyed-in-the-wool racist, and it will set race relations back a century, at least.
What a shame.
Jul 26, 2009 - 10:28 pm 70. George H.:The critics here are right to say this article is largely nonsense, because it is written only allowed, politically correct terms. There are two main problems with discussion on race in this country. The first is the fact that the whole “anti-racism” campaign is mostly phony, its real goal isn’t to stop racial conflict (it almost always escalates racial conflict wherever it can), it goal is political power for the left and class warfare (of a particularly vicious kind) waged by the upper classes, particularly upper middle class nomenklatura, against the white classes below them. Blacks are largely powerless tools in this struggle. The second and REAL heart of black problems in America, THE most taboo issue in politics today, is the issue of black intelligence and capabilities. A while back a libertarian got into a little hot water by suggesting that if blacks were more capable the nature of the market would ensure they got ahead, and that while he acknowledged that some racial discrimination existed, no power on earth could hold blacks back from rising if they had superior abilities. He was pretty much correct. All this comes together in the Gates story. Here is a man who is employed at the W.E.B Dubois Institute, an organization that purports to study Africa and African Americans but mostly just engages in far left and anti-white politics, an institute of hate, peopled largely by tokens, the job of which is to allow Harvard to have black faces in student and faculty pictures, by providing a course (hatred of whitey) that they cannot fail. Do you think that the racial hate politics that comes out of the DuBois institute hits the grandees of the Harvard faculty or the rich non-black students that go there? Do you think it affects them in any negative way? No, it hits blue collar white cops, and blue collar white fireman, and ultimately it hits convenience store clerks (who are certainly not the children of Harvard professors) that are shot dead by black criminals pumped full of hate and unjustified indignation by organizations like Harvard.
Jul 27, 2009 - 12:18 am 71. Realist:So ‘Moho’ tell us again why 96% of BLACKS voted in a BLATANTLY RACIST way for the Obamanation.
Jul 27, 2009 - 4:18 am 72. Mike:Obama is a racist. He is also a Communist and a Muslim.
Mr. Moran in my opinion in his article is being way to pandering to Obama or else has chosen to avoid the evidence about Obama and who and what he really is.
Obama also happens to be a friend of Gates, who has had strong ties to Communist organizations in America as well as black liberationists just like Obama has
Gates has held at least one fund raiser at his home for Obama.
As a side note. When Obama graduated from Harvard in the 1991 he left with 17 unpaid city of Cambridge parking tickets. According to at least one source in MA (the story can be read on WND.com) non of those 17 tickets were paid until just before he got nominsted last year or in some cases for up to 18 years after the tickets were issued.
Jul 27, 2009 - 8:09 am 73. Moho:Realist: Keep it up, you’re winning over hearts and minds. By the way, its obvious that with four articles on Gates, the lackies who run these blogs are hoping that they’ve finally got a little powder in their guns on the race thing. But the unfortunate thing for you all is that over the weekend, the conversation turned over to the power of the state to make unnecessary arrests, and that’s where it’s stayed. Though many people here pretend to be libertarians, many of the independents out there whom the Republican party wants to win over are REAL libertarians.
The message they’ve received from this whole incident is that police abuse their power when they get annoyed, violating the rights of citizens and wasting the time and money of the state on frivolous arrests. This issue has already broken out of the narrow focus of race and become one of police abuse of power–and that’s something, unfortunately for you power-felating drones, that almost everyone has experienced in some way. These kinds of views are turning them off in a big way–if you all were smart, you would have gotten behind the issue, still criticizing the Democrats for making it about race, while saying the real issue was freedom of expression and abuse of power. But, you know what they say about the kid with the hammer.
This is back-firing on you in a serious way, and you’re way behind the curve. Stick to the fake birth certificate issue–at least that’s entertaining for the rest of us.
Jul 27, 2009 - 8:11 am 74. Paul -Indiana:Another Harvard elite. Like Obama?
Jul 27, 2009 - 9:11 am 75. Panini:Racial reconciliation can succeed only when racial stereotypes are systematically exposed. President Obama lost a golden opportunity of doing so by referring to the police as ’stupid’. The police let’s admit will have to be ’stupid’ because they have to follow the code of self defence and the rule book that would insist on following certain procedures while performing their duties. I would put the onus on the enlightened Professor Gates who could have shown more restraint and followed the instructions of the police. President Obama needs to show greater restraint than to profile the entire police as stupid.
Jul 27, 2009 - 9:36 am 76. JackT:The problem is not just a ‘racial’ problem. It is also a ‘class’ problem. To a certain extent, white police men as well a large majority of blacks are drawn from the lower income groups and their mental and moral compasses are bound to be stenotopic.
Bridges have to be built by intellectuals who can transcend their limited circumstances. However painful it may be, they have to tear themselves from their ethnicity and evolve a new inter-racial discourse that can dissolve rock hard sediments of mistrust.
You article really says nothing. A lot of words to try to explain something that is very simple, Gates is an a hole. End of story. It has nothing to do with Obama, Crowley or race relations in America. Crowley was just unfortunate enough to run into a whiny old black dude, that thought he could use this unexpected incident to milk the media into labeling it racial injustice. But it backfired,and he slowly changed his tune and then proclaimed “this is not about me”, oh really, he started out sounding like Sharpton, and a few days later he tried to sound like a professor again. Before anyone had made any public comments, I knew Gates was the problem when I heard that he had said something about being black in america, or that this could happen to any black man. Once he crossed that line, it was obvious he had ulterior motives. How can you call a cops actions racist when you don’t even know the guy. And I’ve been around long enough to know that “show me your ID” is not sinister. Many will argue that whites often try to control blacks by requiring “proof” of legitimacy. But if you just finished busting in your own front door and the cops show up and explain that they received a call regarding a break in, your job is to help the officer resolve the complaint, prove that you are the owner in a calm and professional manner, offer the cop a refreshment and let him get back to work catching real criminals. It’s guys like Gates that might diminish the effectiveness, or willingness to fight real racism and weed out rouge cops by crying wolf.
Jul 27, 2009 - 10:26 am 77. Dave:Rick M.,
Lots of us are perfectly willing to have this conversation you think we can’t have. It’s about honesty, and most of us are fully capable of it. I think you’d find, if we did have that talk, that most white people in America are not the LEAST BIT ‘prejudiced’, and that it’s a rapidly fading problem except for the desperate race-baiting of the Jackson/sharpton/gates/obama crowd.
Half the people I know these days are MARRIED to a different race. Even GATES HIMSELF was married to a white woman and has a couple of half white kids. Not to mention Obama is one too.
I suggest the discussion doesn’t even NEED to be had. All it needs is time, and the forced retirement of any Democrat race baiters who like to fan those flames.
Gates was clearly abusive for a PURPOSE– he was trying to provoke that officer into something more like what Gates wanted to broadcast to the networks, a real physical attack, perhaps with some real juicy race words. Gates would have been happy to take a few lumps in order to be the one to carry this stupid football into the 21st century.
But, surprise, it DIDN”T WORK. Crowley was professional, disinterested in race, just doing his job and doing it well.
Too bad for Gates. Now he looks like he was behaving STUPIDLY.
Jul 27, 2009 - 6:10 pm 78. Dave:p.s. Rick M.,
You accuse our society of being unable to ‘talk honestly about race’ TODAY, in 2009, and for an example of this political inability to address it, you cite a speech given by LBJ in 1964!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How about a little contemporary EVIDENCE to prove your contemporary social theory!
Jul 27, 2009 - 6:14 pm 79. El Grande:Typical Boston cops: arrest the coloreds for acting like a white man, insert lies and made up facts on the report, have all your ginger brothers close ranks. So what is the problem?
Jul 27, 2009 - 9:25 pm 80. rightwink:Same comment as #14 from Patrick of Atlantis.
Jul 28, 2009 - 7:16 am 81. JohnRJ08:I read until “The knee-jerk reaction of both sides” and quit in disgust. What a bunch of baloney! Officer Crowley DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG!
I think the mistake people make in this discussion is that they begin to speak in broad terms about racism and historical police behavior. It’s important to try to stick to the specifics of this particular incident in order to avoid arguing over irrelevant anecdotal evidence. I would agree that police in the Boston area have had a long history of questionable behavior toward African-Americans. However, in this particular case, the white police officer happens to be an example of the gains that department has made in dealing with its unfortunate history. In other words, Sgt. Crowley was the wrong person to accuse of racial profiling. The man has a history in the community and personal relationships within the department which indicate that he is anything but a racist “rogue cop”. On the other hand, it is quite clear that Professor Gates has built his academic career on the study of racism and the oppression of the black man in American society. Could it be that his heightened sense of awareness about this problem led him to apply a similar kind of racial profiling to a white cop? Sure looks like it.
Jul 30, 2009 - 8:34 am