This past week's episode of "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" was pushed back an hour by President Obama. During President Obama's press conference, the president took the time to go out of his way to call officers from Cambridge, Massachusetts out on an incident he knew far too little about. President Obama said these officers acted "stupidly" when dealing with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. If you are not up on the story, click here for a summary from CNN/Time. I am not going to recap everything - I am not pretending to be a news source. In short though, if you haven't heard about the case, it is basically an honest mistake turned into an over bloated racial issue.
Upon arriving home for a trip abroad, Dr. Gates, a black man, struggled to get into his residence. A neighbor mistook him for a robber, and called the police. The police, including Sergeant James Crowley, a white man, came to sort things out. Dr. Gates was shocked and angered that the police came to his residence, and would not cooperate as he felt he was being targeted because of the color of his skin. Throwing a fit, he was then arrested for disorderly conduct.
Sgt. Crowley wasn't the most friendly of officers when dealing with Dr. Gates, but frankly if there is someone breaking into my house, I don't want a cop with a girl scout demeanor showing up. I would rather have someone harsh and ready to solve the problem. His gruff response should never have boiled down to a black vs. white issue, but Dr. Gates decided he would seize this opportunity to get into the public spotlight and promote a documentary he has been working on - and in doing so, drag the Cambridge police force down simply for doing their jobs.
I believe racism is a problem that will never be solved. That being said, the country has come a long way in a short amount of time. I mean, who is sitting in the Oval Office right now? Dr. Gates is fanning the flames of racism by acting like a child and then trying to defend his actions. President Obama should NEVER had gotten involved in the issue - I mean, over 90% of African Americans voted for you in the last election - who are you trying to win over now? The other 10%? If you know me at all, you know I worked on the Obama campaign. I voted for him, and went to the inauguration. I still respect and support him. I just think he made a major misstep in judgement by defending the real racist in this issue.
What if someone now does try and break into Dr. Gates' house? Would you want to be an officer sent to his home to investigate? In my opinion, I think any calls from the Gates residence should go unanswered by the police. Dr. Gates is the black equivalent of a clan member - hating a white person for reasons that run no deeper than the color of his skin. Sgt. Crowley is thinking about taking legal action against Dr. Gates for defamation of character, and I hope he does. Dr. Gates deserves to be punished for his actions. While I would never condone theft, there is a part of me that would be overjoyed if someone did break into Dr. Gate's house now and take everything that means anything to him. It would be better still if two black robbers did the stealing. What would Dr. Gates do then? Blame white school teachers for not doing a better job raising the black robbers when they were little? It's sad the way certain critics, usually African Americans, try and make racial issues out of things that are not.
So Dr. Gates, you need to get a life, you pathetic, repulsive, abhorrent piece of racist scum.
Hey Dan-
ReplyDeleteYou don't know me, but i was intruiged by you on the "I survived..." show. wondered if you wanted to be friends.
Send me a message back letting me know yes or no, and I'll give you a better way to contact me.
Interested in hearing about loving Jesus and being on TV at the same time!
Liz
Although I do believe that the President should not necessarily voice his/her opinion, in this case I do not feel that President Obama was in the "wrong." Yes, maybe the word "stupidly" was brash in nature, but the President was asked specifically how he felt about the situation and "race difference in America." In my opinion President Obama responded well identifying that he may hold a bias because of his relational ties to Gates and also noting that he did not know all the facts prior to voicing his opinion on the situation. Was it wrong for him to voice his opinion when he was asked a question directly during the Press Conference? I blame the reporter more than I blame the President.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do believe some of the same core concepts that you believe. Racism will never be solved and also too many African Americans "play the race card" during altercations; I have heard this card played COUNTLESS times at school and each time I hear this accusation it makes "my blood boil" as an educator. African Americans seem to be completely "aware" of how White Americans are prejudiced against the Black community but are totally oblivious to their own racism and prejudices that they hold against the White community. I use to refer to this as "reverse rascism" but have realized as I have grown older that racism is simply racism and is not limited to one social/ ethnic/ religious group. Note how I capitalized the word "white"- even in our written language we are trained to identify African Americans with capitalization rules and yet we NEVER capitalize such words as white and cacasians; Why is this? Are we not all suppose to be equal despite our differences? As our President has said, our country has come a long way in the area of equality, yet there are so many issues that have yet to be addressed and these issues will never be completely resolved.
Thanks for you post Dan, I have always appreciated your point of view and opinions!
I just wanted to add that it is not only African AMERICANS that play the race card. I have lived in Jamaica for a year now and one of the things that bothers me the most here is how often Black Jamaicans try to call me racist. If I do not want to buy their goods, if I do not want to give them money, if I do not want to listen to their harassment, then I must be a racist. I have a sad feeling that this sort of behavior occurs around the world, wherever there are people of African decent.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you Erika. People of African decent are not the only ones that display these types of behavior; a good example of this is Northerners (Yankees) verses Southerners (Confederates) in the U.S but it's a world wide problem, just as you said, that is not limited to one nation or one people group. I once heard a professor say, on the History channel, that this is something along the lines of a "pack mentality;" those who we are similar to we will embrace and those who are different will not always, and sometimes are rarely accepted. Thanks for the perspective!
ReplyDeletefirst of all, i think that it was not a "poor judgement call" or "a mistake" by officer crowley, he was simply doing his job, with no regard to skin color. mr. gates is clearly a racist, and it was officer crowley's misfortune to be the responding officer. also, president obama is the one who made it a race issue!! shame on him!! i am afraid now because i am a white woman, what might obama's adminstration find me "guilty" of??
ReplyDeletei also want to add that if this were a white man who was mistakenly arrested, would obama have spoken about that man's arrest on national tv?? NO!!
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