<p>I’m also wondering about the backpacks. The transcript I read made no mention of backpacks.</p>
<p>Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News declared that Crowley had no business arresting Gates and in so doing he violated the Constitution.</p>
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<p>Someone operating under the mistaken assumption that his emails are totally anonymous and non-tracible back to him, the source. It also would seem that he assumed that he’d have a lot of sympathizers to his point of view (after all, isn’t it obvious to most people that virtually all blacks are “Jungle Monkeys”?:rolleyes:), otherwise, I doubt he would have sent the email out. The problem is, unless a person who holds attitudes like this tips his hand by demonstrating overt racism, one can never be sure that his inappropriate treatment of blacks during the course of carrying out his job as a police officer is due to underlying racism, or just proof that he’s a bad cop. Often, the black person who has an encounter with someone like this individual knows in his gut that he is dealing with a racist, but he has no way of redressing his ill treatment. Blacks are confronted with this type of thing all the time, which is why there is such disparateness in the perceptions of blacks and whites over how much racism still exists in America. When racism is seldom directed toward you, you tend to minimize its impact, and assume that its not a significant problem. When you find yourself confronted by what appears to be racism on a regular basis, you know you can’t afford to pretend it has no potential impact upon your life or that of your children.</p>
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<p>Someone on Fox news! actually said this? Well, will miracles never cease? LOL!:)</p>
<p>I wonder if we could consider that a legal opinion. I looked up his background and he has a pretty impressive resume’.</p>
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<p>I would assume that police watch shows like CSI and would hope that they would understand that emails are generally traceable unless you’re a moderately serious hacker. So I’m guessing that he thought that it would be acceptable in his circle.</p>
<p>“Honestly Barrons, you do realize that what you just wrote reads like a resentful little spasm of pique against blacks in general, don’t you? The issue of Law Enforcement’s violation of citizens civil rights under the 1st and 14th Amendments has nothing to do with your particular personal rage against blacks in general, and everything to do with maintaining those values The Founding Fathers (you know—those guys Conservatives vocally worship with virtual evangelical zeal.) codified in those documents which set America apart in all the world. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re called The Constitution of The United States, and The Bill of Rights. I’m sorry that it has become obvious that you believe they only apply to persons whom you believe “deserve” their protections, but maybe you can do something about that. Perhaps you could start a PAC to lobby Congress to limit their application to groups or individuals whom you’re not offended by.”</p>
<p>I realize this is the wrong set of facts people are trying to fit to a different problem as concluded by Juan Williams on NPR this morning. It has as much to do with racial profiling as the fact that more crimes are committed by blacks on a percentage basis. Nothing. Thus my absurd example.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111273291[/url]”>Cold Beer Could Tamp Down Uproar Over Arrest : NPR;
<p>I was called a racist today. I was shopping at Sam’s club. Talking with my son while standing in line to check out, I saw another line that appeared to be moving faster. We started over to that line and apparently cut off two black women going for the same line. I was totally unaware of their presence until one of the women started yelling at me. I apologized and offered to let her go ahead of us.
She then started calling me an “uppity white woman who thinks she is better that blacks. You think you can jump ahead of me because I am black and you are white. It is just like Obama says racism is all around this country.”
I was totally shocked and appalled at her behavior. Unfortunately other customers who had no idea what had happened could have concluded I did something racist and awful.
It was a small dose of what this policeman must have experienced</p>
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<p>I appreciate your thoughtful response.
So let’s play this out.</p>
<p>White Woman A was mugged by Black Man A, and holds racist attitudes towards black men subsequently. However, Black Man A didn’t necessarily mug her because she was white – it wasn’t racism; he was just a mugger and she happened to be the person in the way. Nonetheless, White Woman A sees every black man on the street as a criminal threat, hugs her purse, crosses the street, etc. We can fairly say that she approaches every interaction with a black man assuming that he is a criminal til proven otherwise. </p>
<p>White Woman B holds no such racist attitudes or beliefs, she just goes along her merry way. Black Man B feels, by being part of the community of blacks who have, in general, been mistreated by whites, that he is justified in assuming that whites are out to get him because he is part of a race that was targeted by virtue of the very fact of belonging to the race – not “individually” the way that WWA was harmed. With me so far?</p>
<p>So now White Woman B and Black Man B have some kind of interaction. Black Man B feels that he is justified in assuming that White Woman B is out to get him or thinks negatively of him merely for being black. So he approaches her with that mindset. </p>
<p>Isn’t Black Man B just “transferring back” the attitudes that were problematic in the first place – that everyone in one race should be treated as responsible for the actions of a few? Now Black Man B <em>is</em> “targeting” all white women <em>precisely because they are white,</em> in assuming / treating them as though they are automatically racists. Not in response to individual white women demonstrating individual racist / obnoxious behaviors, but <em>merely</em> because they are white and thus must be guilty of being racist. </p>
<p>How can you say that you resent all blacks being painted with the brush of criminality, and then not see that it’s just as wrong to paint all whites with the brush of racism?</p>
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<p>HA! I was reared in SF and it takes a lot more than skin color – even when that color is on a body walking naked down the street – for a local to look at a stranger askance.</p>
<p>“I was called a racist today. I was shopping at Sam’s club. Talking with my son while standing in line to check out, I saw another line that appeared to be moving faster. We started over to that line and apparently cut off two black women going for the same line. I was totally unaware of their presence until one of the women started yelling at me. I apologized and offered to let her go ahead of us.
She then started calling me an “uppity white woman who thinks she is better that blacks. You think you can jump ahead of me because I am black and you are white. It is just like Obama says racism is all around this country.””</p>
<p>This is exactly why what Obama said (and how he said it) was so ill-considered. He unnecessarily fanned the flames of racism, something no effective leader should do. Gates, too, because of his respected and esteemed position, had an obligation to behave in a way that was befitting his stature, yet he failed to do that also. These are leaders within the country and also within the black community. They ought to behave like it.</p>
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<p>Hey, I am not saying that any of this is acceptable. It is not even acceptable for a black man to hate the person who harmed him. But it is understandable, and not racism in his case. The guy is just afraid and using shorthand, so to speak, to profile certain people in order to protect himself. In his case it is understandable because he himself incurred pain, and his ancestors, including his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., etc., incurred the same pain or worse, from people who look like the person who harmed him. And most of them incurred this pain, unlike for whites, by American law, strictly because of their race. It is entirely understandable that blacks would therefore recoil from whites when they sense the same sorts of signals from whites that danger is upon them yet again. Indeed, it is entirely understandable that all blacks will be looking and waiting for these signals. If a white woman is harmed by a black guy, it is most understandable that she will do likewise to black guys in general.</p>
<p>All black Americans have endured racism, even Debate here has. All of us have encountered it because it was a centuries long fixture in American law, white American law. As such, racist attitudes still linger in a white population that has been conditioned toward it by those centuries. We blacks know this. Even younger blacks, for whom racism has perhaps lost much of its sting (I cannot imagine such a thing), have parents who have endured severe racism. An immense number of black people alive today, myself included, have endured racism that was promoted by white laws against blacks, [some</a> of those laws were still active even as recently as the year 2000]( <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws]some”>Anti-miscegenation laws - Wikipedia). White people have never had to endure anything like this from black people. From 1619 to the year 2000 America has officially condoned the most humiliating racism by whites against blacks, and they have committed racist crimes against blacks in all that time. If we were to tally up white against black crime from slavery through Jim Crow up until today, we would see that the amount of crime done by whites against blacks completely dwarfs anything blacks are doing to whites today (which is just plain trivial even on its own). But few whites are ever honest about this. They merely point to black crime as if it just materialized out of thin air. Well it didn’t. It has come from hundreds of years of whites, officially, stealing, raping, and excluding blacks for generations on end, so that now very many black people are not invested in this country as others are. Whites have simply never endured anything like this, not officially, and not unofficially. So blacks are understandably recoiling as a result of this mistreatment, both historically, and also personally. When a black person encounters racism, and every single one of us has, it is bound to our history and thereby amplified, since it confirms that the history is still active and that there is still danger.</p>
<p>There is not a white person in America who has ever endured a black American law that targets them. So the societal trauma is just not there. When whites, the vast majority of whom have never incurred any harm at all from any black person, recoils from blacks, it is not generally because of anything personal they have incurred, and not from any sort of official law that has targeted their entire race. It is just from plain garden variety “I simply despise them” racism, or “I saw a black criminal in the news” racism (forgetting about all white criminals). It is not the same for black people.</p>
<p>I guess both racism and hypocrisy is alive and well in America.</p>
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<p>Or perhaps because, you know, they are sick of being deemed racists when they aren’t, and suffering a backlash by blacks through preferential treatment (AA) and general animosity as described in a post above for something they never supported. I’m sure you would have considered that before ascribing a blanket mentality to all whites, since not doing so would have been racist and hypocritical.</p>
<p>As a white, I dislike black gangstas as much as I dislike Hispanic gang members or white trash, or really anyone who is obviously prone to criminal activity. I don’t think ‘OMG SOMEONE IS BLACK OMG THEY ARE CRIMINAL AND MONSTER EVIL PERSON’, but think “Wow, that person looks trashy, acts trashy, and has no education or intelligence. Why would I ever want to like or associate with them.” I’ve moved beyond race in assessing people, and I’m fairly sure others have as well. Please don’t pretend as if whites are recoiling from blacks because of racism. There are many underlying reasons aside from unprovoked racism. Frankly, assuming this is the case (as implied above) is racist and rather hypocritical.</p>
<p>The only time I ever “recoiled”, so to speak, from a black kid at my school was when they applied to selective colleges and got accepted everywhere with ease (two of HYPS, out of two applied). That wasn’t a result of disliking him, but a result of me disliking that everyone was celebrating his accomplishments despite the racism (AA) that had been integral in his attainment of them.</p>
<p>“I was totally shocked and appalled at her behavior. Unfortunately other customers who had no idea what had happened could have concluded I did something racist and awful.
It was a small dose of what this policeman must have experienced”</p>
<p>What you experienced is a small dose of what many middle aged black people have experienced from racist black people. About once a year, some white stranger calls me a racial epithet.</p>
<p>For example, I was driving behind a pick-up truck with some white children in the back. At a stoplight, they started yelling the n word at me.</p>
<p>I accidentally cut off a white man in traffic and he called me a black b word.</p>
<p>I was holding a yard sale and a white child looked at my son, who was then a baby, and said, “What a cute little n-word.”</p>
<p>I was walking with a white friend a couple of blocks from the White House when a white man walked by and called me the n word. </p>
<p>Add to this the times that white people have told me that I reminded them of their childhood domestic (The last time this happened, a cashier whom I was making small talk with told me that gem) or have mistaken me for a prostitute (I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and entering the hotel where I was a guest) or domestic staff. </p>
<p>So, if just once in your life you have been insulted by a black person due to your race, count yourself lucky and use your pain to empathize with people who had many such encounters, and that includes encounters that involved their being legally prevented from doing things like even using the library due to their race.</p>
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<p>And you were so familiar with this kid’s academic bonafides as to be certain that he did not deserve to be admitted to the schools to which he applied? Do you realize that it sounds as if you’re certain his race is all that he had to offer these schools? </p>
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<p>Except that when looking at this particular classmate, from whom you felt compelled to “recoil”, all you saw of him was his race, apparently.</p>
<p>Obviously, for the Boston police officer to send such a mass e-mail, he must have thought that many people would agree with him. </p>
<p>"A Boston police officer allegedly sent a mass e-mail using a disgraceful racial slur in referring to Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., prompting the commissioner to move immediately to fire the cop, the Herald has learned.</p>
<p>Officer Justin Barrett, 36, a two-year veteran assigned to District B-3, was placed on administrative leave pending a termination hearing yesterday afternoon. When a supervisor confronted Barrett about the e-mail - in which he called Gates a “jungle monkey” - he admitted to being the author, according to officials.</p>
<p>Police Commissioner Edward Davis immediately stripped the cop of his gun and badge, according to officials. Barrett, who could not immediately be reached, has no prior disciplinary history."
[Officials:</a> Hub cop used racial slur in Gates e-mail - BostonHerald.com](<a href=“http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090729officials_hub_cop_used_racial_slur_in_gates_e-mail/srvc=home&]Officials:”>http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090729officials_hub_cop_used_racial_slur_in_gates_e-mail/srvc=home&)</p>
<p>Several people have posted on this thread and have suggested that racism and slavery have existed only in the South.</p>
<p>I am black, and grew up in Upstate NY in the 1950s, and my family had difficulty buying a house because of restrictive covenants against blacks.</p>
<p>When I was in kindergarten, I kissed a white boy classmate, and his father complained that a “colored” girl had kissed his son.</p>
<p>When my family bought a house in Upstate NY, the people across the street called their next door neighbor’s dog the n word because that family had become friendly with my family.</p>
<p>I integrated my town’s high school, and when I went to Massachusetts to perform with my high school orchestra, my orchestra strayed in a hotel, not private homes, because of my school’s administration’s fears that I wouldn’t be welcomed by a white family. </p>
<p>Several years before that, when another school’s orchestra came to perform in my town, my family was asked to host a student. For years we wondered why since at that time my brother and I went to private schools, and didn’t know anyone in the public school. It ended up that my family was asked to host because the student we were asked to host was Filipino, and people had thought she was black and apparently there were fears that she might encounter racism if she were placed in a white family’s home.</p>
<p>As for slavery and the North, it’s erroneous to think that people in the North weren’t involved in the slave trade. </p>
<p>"African slavery is so much the outstanding feature of the South, in the unthinking view of it, that people often forget there had been slaves in all the old colonies. Slaves were auctioned openly in the Market House of Philadelphia; in the shadow of Congregational churches in Rhode Island; in Boston taverns and warehouses; and weekly, sometimes daily, in Merchant’s Coffee House of New York. Such Northern heroes of the American Revolution as John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin bought, sold, and owned black people. William Henry Seward, Lincoln’s anti-slavery Secretary of State during the Civil War, born in 1801, grew up in Orange County, New York, in a slave-owning family and amid neighbors who owned slaves if they could afford them. The family of Abraham Lincoln himself, when it lived in Pennsylvania in colonial times, owned slaves.[1]</p>
<p>When the minutemen marched off to face the redcoats at Lexington in 1775, the wives, boys and old men they left behind in Framingham took up axes, clubs, and pitchforks and barred themselves in their homes because of a widespread, and widely credited, rumor that the local slaves planned to rise up and massacre the white inhabitants while the militia was away.[2]</p>
<p>African bondage in the colonies north of the Mason-Dixon Line has left a legacy in the economics of modern America and in the racial attitudes of the U.S. working class. Yet comparatively little is written about the 200-year history of Northern slavery. Robert Steinfeld’s deservedly praised “The Invention of Free Labor” (1991) states, “By 1804 slavery had been abolished throughout New England,” ignoring the 1800 census, which shows 1,488 slaves in New England…</p>
<p>The elements which characterized Southern slavery in the 19th century, and which New England abolitionists claimed to view with abhorrence, all were present from an early date in the North. Practices such as the breeding of slaves like animals for market, or the crime of slave mothers killing their infants, testify that slavery’s brutalizing force was at work in New England. Philadelphia brickmaker John Coats was just one of the Northern masters who kept his slave workers in iron collars with hackles. Newspaper advertisements in the North offer abundant evidence of slave families broken up by sales or inheritance. One Boston ad of 1732, for example, lists a 19-year-old woman and her 6-month-old infant, to be sold either “together or apart.”[5] Advertisements for runaways in New York and Philadelphia newspapers sometimes mention suspicions that they had gone off to try to find wives who had been sold to distant purchasers."</p>
<p>[Slavery</a> in the North](<a href=“http://www.slavenorth.com/]Slavery”>http://www.slavenorth.com/)</p>
<p>As for racial segregation as being only a southern phenomenon, that, too is a fallacy. For example, many colleges and schools in nonsouthern regions of the country didn’t integrate until the lifetimes of some parents on CC. For instance, Princeton didn’t racially integrate until the 1940s.</p>
<p>The book, “Jim Crow Moves North: The Battle over Northern School Segregation, 1865-1954” covers the following info. </p>
<p>“Most observers have assumed that school segregation in the United States was exclusively a southern phenomenon. In fact, many northern communities, until recently, engaged in explicit “southern style” school segregation whereby black children were assigned to “colored” schools and white children to white schools. Davison Douglas examines why so many northern communities did engage in school segregation (in violation of state laws that prohibited such segregation) and how northern blacks challenged this illegal activity. He analyzes the competing visions of black empowerment in the northern black community as reflected in the debate over school integration.”</p>
<p>[Jim</a> Crow Moves North - Cambridge University Press](<a href=“http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521607833]Jim”>http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521607833)</p>
<p>only in America can people take something so small and blow it up to epoch proportions</p>
<p>btw Northstarmom, for every example you have of a white person being a jackass, i have an example of a black person being a jackass. insensitive idiots aren’t confined to a certain race.
as for the Gates situation. was it wrong, yes. racist? probably. but i wouldn’t lay 100 percent of the blame on the cop.</p>
<p>“btw Northstarmom, for every example you have of a white person being a jackass, i have an example of a black person being a jackass. insensitive idiots aren’t confined to a certain race.”</p>
<p>That’s true. My point, however, was that most black people probably have had more encounters with whites who have done blatantly racist things to them than white people have had similar encounters with blacks. I doubt that most white people can say that at least once a year they encounter black people who call them racist names.</p>
<p>It also would be impossible for middle aged and older white Americans to have been denied opportunities --including simple things like being able to walk across the campus of one’s local public university or being able to use their local library or being able to be able to use a public restroom or try on clothing at a store-- because of their race. Yet, that’s true of virtually all black Americans who were born before legal segregation was ended. Because of their race, there were certain things that they would not have been able to do depending on where they lived or chose to travel.</p>
<p>As I have just jumped into this firepit, I would like to applaud the lady that called the police from the start. How awful for her that she has endured being called a racist, among other things as well as threats sent her way according to the media reports. </p>
<p>President Obama: a teachable moment might be to highlight this woman’s courage to step in and do the “right” thing. It appeared that a crime was being committed; she notified police. Too many people in this country would have looked away and would not have wanted to be involved. Instead, she chose to be a good citizen. I ask you President Obama–how about the focus of trying to do the right thing in this country, whether you are black, white, purple or yellow?</p>
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<p>What a jerky attitude. How do you know he didn’t fully deserve his acceptances? How classless of you to think anything other congratulations and how nice for him. Your “resentment” reflects poorly on you.</p>