<p>Dbate, I may be tired at this late hour, but I really think danceangel’s post was meant to be sarcastic.</p>
<p>If I’m wrong I’m sure someone won’t hesitate to correct me.</p>
<p>I know he was sarcastic that is why I reciprocated.</p>
<p>Dbate, I can only speak for myself, not all posters who are defending “the cop”. There have been countless posts that admit that racial profiling exists, racial tension exists, that black males face specific challenges, we know this is not made up.</p>
<p>It just does not apply to this particular case.</p>
<p>I guess the police should only investigate complaints in homes where there is a 100% chance that the person answering the door could have done the “crime”. </p>
<p>So, that might mean only going into known drug dens - with known drug users who have a history of abuse. Or domestic abuse - but only if they have previously committed abuse on a spouse or partner. Or retail establishments where there is a shoplifter - but only after checking to make sure he/she has stolen, before. </p>
<p>I guess some of our posters forgot that the man’s house had a jammed door from a break-in attempt while he was away in China. Too bad the police didn’t catch the criminal who did that…instead, they are following up on a lead of a possible burglary.</p>
<p>I think most of us would be delighted when the police are working to stop crime as it happens. But not in this alternative world where police are thugs, and every action is racist. What a world!</p>
<p>And after the last post, I guess all white, male cops have been branded as hopelessly racist, and should never work in law enforcement. Perhaps in the future a utopian world where people aren’t painted with such broad strokes and stereotypes, we can all live together in harmony.</p>
<p>Guess that day isn’t today.</p>
<p>You know, I’d like to be a professor at an elite university someday. When I get there, I’ll be sure to get a gig moonlighting as a dishwasher or custodian. Maybe that way I’ll have a healthy perspective on myself and my place in the world.</p>
<p>Yeah, because the above is obviously not hyperbole. I am still waiting for the statistic on the number of Harvard professors who break into people’s homes to steal. ( I meant that in reference to littlegreenmon)</p>
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<p>The problem is in the real world it is often times hard to delineate (as an african american male) when a cop is being genuine in his job and when he is just being an ass. The fact that real time obfuscates the intentions of the cops contributes largely to the sense of harassment that Gates felt, and Obama also instinctively felt, and I as well. We don’t know the internal mind of the cop and in all situations where we don’t have the capacity to fully evaluate the situation we rely on past experiences and our own perceived prejudices. So logically Gates thought the guy was just being racist, as did Obama, and as did I. Could the guy been following protocol, sure. But could he also have been a racist bigot, sure. </p>
<p>The offensive thing, is that some posters are taking the position that gates was entirely in error for his reaction without understanding (or possibly dismissing) the internal undercurrents that probably led to his hostile reaction.</p>
<p>What is the statistic that an anonymous internet poster will shoot off his or her mouth without having all the facts?</p>
<p>Seriously, you are asking a ridiculous question. It is ridiculous, because it is not the point. </p>
<p>The point remains that the officer came to investigate a possible burglary and encountered a disgruntled homeowner who, before he identified himself, repeatedly asked him “Do you know who I am?”. Apparently, not. </p>
<p>If you got stopped by the police tomorrow, they would ask you to show id. If you were a jerk and mouthed off to them, they might haul you into the police station for questioning, too.</p>
<p>They would do the same to any of us. </p>
<p>It is an unfortunate incident, and it could have been handled completely differently - on both sides. It would have been even better if the President and the Governor of the state chose not to comment without all the facts. We only have a limited number of facts, currently - yet, ironically, some refuse to look at the police report, because it must be “lies”. Others look at the professor’s blog and assume it must be true.</p>
<p>Generally, when there are two perspectives like this, it is somewhere near the middle. But too many are getting caught up in emotion, and not paying attention to the facts.</p>
<p>Right now, we don’t have ALL the facts. Do we?</p>
<p>But it is just as offensive to assume that the police officer must be racist. Yet, that attitude is also here at this forum.</p>
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<p>Actually I am a political junkie so I watch CNN and read the news all the time. I have read all the details of the case. </p>
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<p>It is not ridiculous because it is the entire point. The officer obviously was not acting in any sort of racist manner prior to identifying the Gates. So the only manner by which the officers actions could be questioned, is his response after he found out that Gates was a harvard professor. Therefore, in order to evaluate whether or not the arrest was racially motivated requires us to evaluate the probability that a Harvard professor is actually robbing a house. There fact is that it is probably zero. So why then would the cop further inquire? That is where the situation is murky, because the question becomes would the cop simply have left if the Gates was white. Ergo, the entirety of the reason that we are even talking about this is contingent on how the officer responded to the knowledge that Gates was a harvard professor.</p>
<p>Dismiss it if you want, but the fact still remains, Harvard professors don’t just break into people’s houses. The cop knew that, I know that, and you know that. So why would further ID even be necessary.</p>
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<p>There is no logic here that would compel any reasonable person to even consider comparing Gates’s legal action to the cop’s illegal action. It is just stupid to even suggest that one is bound to make such a comparison. We need not be concerned with the nature of Gates’s action, so long as Gates’s action was legal. What we must concern ourselves with is whether it is legal for a cop to use the might of law, handcuffs, jail and all, against a citizen simply because he does not like what the citizen has to say. I say the cop ought not have that right. But hey, I’m just holding to American values and other similar sorts of ideals that now apparently are a lot of fruitless nonsense.</p>
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<p>No need. I merely need catalog the man’s alternatives and then use a brain, ANY brain, to consider them.</p>
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<p>No. I do not care even to the slightest degree what you believe. I am telling you what is most reasonable to believe. You may continue with your fantasies for as long as you wish, friend.</p>
<p>*Your supervisors, who are mostly white, are watching you to make sure you are not just going easy on your own people, while your own people are looking at you to see if you are a sellout, doing the ’white man’s’ will, said Marcus, an African-American officer who patrols the West Side and did not want to give his last name. </p>
<p>The problem of police credibility, particularly in the black community, is not limited to Chicago. According to a 1997 national poll on race relations conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that deals with black issues, 81 percent of blacks and 83 percent of Latinos agreed that police, no matter what race, are much more likely to harass and discriminate against blacks than whites. Even 56 percent of whites agreed. </p>
<p>“There’s more than one force directing the traffic when you are a black officer working in the black community,” said Dr. Carl Bell, president and CEO of Chicago’s Community Mental Health Council, who frequently deals with gangs, black-on-black crime and the police. </p>
<p>“You’ve got the community perception that ’Uh oh, here comes the police, and it will be more trouble than help.’ Sometimes you have community people who say, ’Here comes a brother, and maybe I will have a connection that I wouldn’t have with a white person.’ The problem is when the policeman, who is a brother, comes, he’s aware of the perception and the stereotypes and doesn’t know if he is going to get the negative or the positive attitude. </p>
<p>“And if you are a black officer on that stressful middle ground … sometimes you have to be harder on your own people because you know the dangers.*
[James</a> Hill, For black cops, trust hard to gain](<a href=“http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/555.html]James”>James Hill, For black cops, trust hard to gain)</p>
<p>This is something of what I am talking about. It is a much more complex situation for blacks and black cops, than what you represent here.</p>
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<p>And of course you are right. You are guessing here, since despite requiring that I call the black cop to come to my opinion, you have not called all the black cops across the nation to form your own opinion. But I suspect the black cops do support Crowley, and for the reasons to which I refer above, not because of a free sincerity.</p>
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<p>I do not hide, friend. I simply am not interested in being so puerile when it comes to describing the subtle and not so subtle nature of my trust.</p>
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<p>There are more ways to be racist than mere profiling “as a whole”. And I think many of these forms of racism exist within this Gates/Crowley affair. So I am speaking about them. Apparently you are not interested in my view here – and that is fine with me.</p>
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<p>Were he white, and under the same circumstances, he would not have had to.</p>
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<p>Fine. Cya.</p>
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<p>They aren’t wrong, and I never said they were. They are just irrelevant. If the cop had merely ignored the basketball player, it would have been curtains for his career. There is nothing really cosy here when it comes to his view of black people. Moreover, I do not claim this cop is racist in the outright white supremacy fashion. I maintain that he is racist in the same way that the vast majority of Americans are racist against blacks. </p>
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<p>Well, you go too far in your flattery, but thanks so much!</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what his profession is. I don’t know why you are hung up on this detail.</p>
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<p>Whether he was a sanitation worker, an accountant, the Secretary of the Treasury, a schoolteacher, or a salesman, the police had a responsibility to investigate a possible break-in. If a schoolteacher were to say - “I am a high school math teacher”, do you think the police would walk away without finishing an investigation? What about a personal trainer? What difference does profession make with regards to investigating a burglary attempt, past, present or future? </p>
<p>We get it. He is an authority on African American Studies. That is cool. But that doesn’t mean a crime didn’t happen - and if the police officer had walked away, said “Have a good evening”, he wouldn’t have done his due diligence in investigating the scene. Had there not been a jammed door and a previous break in attempt, I can see things happening differently. But there was evidence of a previous break-in, and when the police began asking questions, the homeowner wasn’t helpful. </p>
<p>You can say it is institutional racism, but I have to say that if this happened in my neighborhood the police would have asked the same questions and expected responses. If I didn’t cooperate, fully, I would probably be visiting the local PD station. </p>
<p>We are all political junkies, if we are here in the political forums. Yet, we don’t have all the facts - and may not ever have ALL of them. Hopefully, the tapes are released, yet, that still won’t give us a perfect picture of what happened that night. </p>
<p>Even those who have read the reports in full are ignoring them as “biased” and full of “lies”. </p>
<p>We know that you may have been blatantly racist encounters with the world around you, if you are a minority. But not everyone is racist - what is appalling to me is branding this cop who seems to be doing his job as a racist and power hungry cop. He may be. But just like Professor Gates was found to be innocent of these charges, I wonder if Officer Crowley can get his reputation back. When the President of the United States goes on national tv and tells the world that the officers respond “stupidly” and that it was a racist incident, it doesn’t matter if he extends the olive branch and apologizes after a all-expenses paid trip to the White House. </p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who likes being called a racist. Do you?</p>
<p>Hey Dbate. You are right about white female cops. I think they tend to be much kinder to us from what I have seen. I did have one stop me once because she thought I wasn’t strapped in (happened a few times now - one positive, the other not so much). But it was clear she stopped me for a purpose, and was very professional (in the good way) about it. I am pretty tall, and was wearing a sportcoat. So the belt just blended in close to me. When she peeped inside and got a closer look, she simply told me that from outside it looked as if I wasn’t strapped in, but that she could see that I was. I just said “Eeeeeeyup!” with a smile. She grinned, and that was that. Had it been a white guy cop, I likely would have had to get out, tell him he is not allowed to search my car, and do the whole racist song and dance as he worked some angle to try to get something on me.</p>
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<p>Wow, I should go become a professor at Harvard - with this kinda logic out there, I could do whatever the hell I wanted and get off just by flashing my Harvard ID :rolleyes: “But officer, I’m from Harvard - don’t you realize what the statistical probability of me doing anything wrong is?”</p>
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<p>Because unless Harvard ID cards include the home address of the bearer, they are not sufficient ID to prove that you live somewhere.</p>
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<p>It matters because while we like to think we treat everyone the same we don’t. People don’t treat lawnmowers and lawyers the same. That is just a fact. But moreover the fact that he is a professor at the school right down the street gives even more credence to the fact that he should logically be there. If he were a distinguished professor at say Johns Hopkins I would be a little suspicious, but when a person works in the same area and in a position that would logically lead to a home of that caliber (i.e. the janitors at Harvard probably don’t live there) then there is even less reason to assume that he was breaking in. That is why it matters.</p>
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<p>People are ignoring the adjacent of the matter. This was a home that was rented from Harvard, from that fact we can assume that harvard university owns homes in that region. The cops should know this. Second, it is logically that a Harvard professor would live in a home that Harvard University rents, and that consequently that home would be near the university. That is why his profession matters, because on that fact alone it establishes that he was not out of place and therefore decreases the likelihood that Gates was conspicuous. Again if he worked at Johns Hopkins, the fact that he was a professor would mean nothing, but because he was affliated with the university at a property that was the university owned makes it more likely that he was not out of place.</p>
<p>Actually Drosselmeier, white women all around seem to be alot nicer and less condescending to black males, regardless of their profession from what I have experienced. And cops of other ethnicity never have the same sense of arrogance that white male cops seem to exude.</p>
<p>drosselmier:</p>
<p>you demonstrated whats wrong with your attitude. You are out to provoke an incident. Cops out there protecting the public do not need to waste time with likes of you.</p>
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<p>You are disgusting. You really is the one who control the outcome. Similarly I understand what Gates was thinking too. Were you taught to be confrontational with whites (except nice white females) from early age ?</p>
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<p>I think you two should seriously go back and review the tapes because the President did not! indicate in any way, shape or form that he thought the cops acted in a racist manner. He certainly did not state so outright. In fact, he said the unfortunate history of poor relations between police and black and Latino communities was entirely apart from this incident. Meaning, he was acknowledging that that history was playing an unfortunate role in how this whole thing had turned into a national hot button issue. He did say that he thought the police had acted “stupidly” in arresting Prof. Gates when it was obvious that the Prof. was the home’s resident.</p>
<p>I cringed when I heard him say he thought the police had acted stupidly, and felt he should have said that he would decline to comment further on the incident until he knew more of the facts. Today, The President took responsibility for his words, admitting his part in ratcheting up the tenor and tone of the debate.</p>
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<p>I’m sure The President still believes his friend Prof. Gates should not have been arrested. But, there’s no reason whatsoever to conclude he believes the arrest was motivated by racism on the part of Officer Crowley or The Cambridge Police Dept.</p>
<p>And any attempt to paint the President as just another “paranoid” black man who sees an out of control racist behind every arrest of a black man by a white cop belies a none-too-subtle political agenda in my opinion.</p>
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<p>You really don’t understand. Black people despite what some people believe do not just form an opinion that cops are racist. If we did we would say that all cops are racist. It REALLY is pretty much ONLY the white men who are abrasive. We are not taught that white men are going to racist, we experience it and that leads us to the conclusion. Well my parents did tell me about it but I didn’t believe them at the time. </p>
<p>The fact that SO many black people are corrobating this shows that we are not making this up. I don’t think all white male cops are racists or bad, heck one saved my brother when my house was burning down. But the fact remains that it is white men who are the ones who are being abrasive to black people. And similarly the cops of other races are not being abrasive (even the white women) that is why you NEVER hear stories calling foul about white women or latino or asian or black cops. There is a reason that the white male cop is the one who is constantly accused.</p>