I don’t agree that Buchanan’s statement was racist. You’re free to feel about it the way you do, and characterize him the way you wish.
Snap judgement. Fair enough based on his actions. Like I said, that could change tomorrow, based on what he says and does.
Well, that’s not entirely true, I was being pressured by Maddow. But, still, I don’t think what he said was racist.
Like I said. I’m willing to change my opinion. If his emotions got the better of him and that caused him to be an ass, he can apologize, and I will adjust my pinion accordingly.
The words, and the attitude. A white cop shows up at his house to help him, asking for ID and he toggles to: white racist cop profiling a black man in his own home, treating him like a perp right off that bat. Fuck that.
As I said, I don’t characterize Buchanan’s words as you do. Not at all.
Because we disagree if anything he did or said is racist. Do you deny that Gates’ actions were racist. You seem to allow for that.
Let’s see if he apologizes.
Ha. That’ll be a short list. As if liberal academia would tolerate such a thing. I doubt it. If you think there is, feel free to post some of their opinions and I’ll be happy to let you know what I think.
The one you’re currently arguing with Marley23, about the light shining on the racists. That thread is about Buchanan.
Wow, OK. You do have a major double standard.
Holy shit, this is really unbelievable. You do know he has a large body of work on the subject of race? That he’s been in academia for a long time, and has an established reputation that is very much at odds with your “snap judgment”? Yet you feel justified in saying what’s in his heart based on one incident? You don’t think that’s a completely ridiculous, ignorant, judgmental stance to take? You don’t know anything about Skip Gates but this one incident. You have no right nor basis to say what’s in his heart. Incredible.
So nothing short of an apology will change your mind. You are OK with making a snap judgment, just like Skip Gates did about Sgt. Crowley, based on scanty evidence from a bad situation. You won’t read his books, or investigate any further. You’re comfortable in labeling an entire person RACIST, a label you claim is pernicious and only to be applied very seriously, based on what you admit is a snap judgment? I have to say, this is a very hypocritical attitude.
Snap judgment of an entire person based on one incident? Labeling someone as having a racist heart, knowing next to nothing about him? Fuck that.
As I said in the Buchanan thread, I think you can say something that’s racist without BEING A RACIST in your heart. You are OK with saying this about Buchanan but nope, Skip Gates is racist in his heart. So I think I’m being consistent, while you are being a hypocrite.
So it’s your position that there are no white racist politicians or academics, only black and Latino ones. I am in awe of your utterly one-sided view of the world. And my opinion of you deepens, not in a good way.
Did it ever occur to you that the field of Black studies is a tad more complex than soundbites you might hear on 20/20? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to try to sound reasonable after you’ve applied the broad brush. McWhorter isn’t taken seriously in academic circles because his race “work” is essentially polemic - he has no training as a social scientist, he’s a linguist. Maybe’s he’s read a few books recently but Losing the Race is a joke of a text.
I don’t know what any of this has to do with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Why are they mentioned in this discussion, anyway? What is it with this board, Black people, and Jackson/Sharpton?
Aw, magellan01 is just playing the Sharpton card – it’s the preferred get out of racism free card for the (I-am-not-a!)bigot. Akin to the “but Clinton got a blowjob” riposte to any accusation of Republican malfeasance. The nuclear option of tu quoques.
I don’t know what is in anyone’s heart. Buchanan’s, Gates’, or ours. I can just go by how I experience them. gates action brought him to the fore. I judge him and that. and what he has not dine since. I would gain much respect for him if he would so what he clearly should do: apologize. And I mean a real one, not Obam’s mealy-mouthed Clintonesque version.
Nice try. I have evidence. Gates acted on racism right off the bat.
Do you really expect me to read a book by Gates just to discern if it is at odds with his racist behavior? You’ve GOT to be kidding.
Two. The incident. and his actions—lack of apology—afterwards. Give me a third incident and I’ll include that in my estimation, too.
Can you please digest this: I do not think what Buchanan said was racist.
How about not putting words in my mouth. I’m sure there are white racists. Some of them are probably professors. I just don’t know if there are any employed in colleges in the social sciences. I doubt it, as colleges, especially the social sciences are so skewed liberal. Why don’t you find one, post some of his writing or actions, and I’ll be happy to evaluate them.
Huh? This makes no sense. And why bring up Clinton’s blow job that he lied about and got impeached for? I don’t see the point. Just not following you here.
This is the question for all centuries. This thread is just one of recent several that have started filling me with a strange urge to spell America with a “k” instead of a “c”. I’m not being serious, but still. Post-racial era my ass.
Rand’s conjecture about fake ID’s would be the stupidest thing ever showcased on this board if that superlative hadn’t been permanently bestowed to a conglomerate of statistically-challenged geniuses a couple years ago in a thread that shall be unnamed. (Why am I not surprised to see Bricker in here once again defending idiocy? Gah, it hurts my eyes.)
Then we got IvoryBill opining in a sister thread that it is PhDs–not cops–who should be expected to keep their calm in these kinds of situations. Because, as we all know, a man with a doctorate who loses control is liable to take someone eye out with a laser pointer or ballpoint pen. A cop with a gun, a taser, and/or billy club and the power to lock someone up in jail…not so much. Let’s give the guys in blue a pass because they are just trying to do a job, mmmkay?
And then there’s Sampiro, a white man who was barely alive in the 60’s, who thinks he knows better than a 60-something Jim Crow-surviving black man about what is racist and what is not, and when the “r” word should be mentioned and when it is expressly verbotten. Somehow he has it in his head that Gates has little to no experience in this area despite the volumnious work he has devoted to studying this subject. He also seems to think that Gates’ opinions on his own experiences take something away from the indignities suffered by other black people. But thank God we have Sampiro around to speak up for the folks who were hosed down by cops in the 60’s. If not for him, these innocents could be victimized again, this time by Gates and his big mouth.
And in the center, we have a cast of characters calling Gates a racist for reasons that still remain elusive to me. He asked the cop if he was being targeted because he’s black, and that’s enough to make him racist? If that’s all it takes to be a racist, I don’t know why so many people have convulsions if anyone so much as hints at applying that word to anyone who is white and more than one notch below Hitler on the heinous scale. Why do yall assume he wouldn’t have asked the same question to a black cop? I smell some irony here but I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out where it’s coming from.
But please note the irony of magellan calling Gates a racist for making racial assumptions about a white cop, when he himself has made racial assumptions about Gates and Cornel West without even being familiar with their work. Can someone say ri-damn-diculous already? I can.
Hey you with the face, I know you are Officially Black and all, but that doesn’t mean that your opinion on any issue touched on in this thread is worth more than anyone else’s. So you can take your editorial round-up post and shove it where the Black is blackest.
You act as if I was arguing that the fake ID scenario was likely here, but that’s not what I was doing at all. The fake ID scenario is just one example of why the cops should fully investigate instead of just rolling up, looking at an ID, and rolling out.
Also, you know that if another situation had the same facts as this one from the cops’ perspective before they showed up, the cops look at one person’s ID and left, and then all hell broke loose after they left because the cops didn’t bother to do anything beyond checking one person’s ID, then luci and gonzo and Rubystreak would be calling the cops idiots and asking for their heads on a platter.
Serious question - how much investigating is a private citizen required to permit in his own home? Remember - this all started with a 911 call from someone who didn’t see anything. Instead - she called to report that a neighbor of hers saw something. So it starts with hearsay, no more than rumor, that something fishy might have happened. But of course, the caller didn’t see it herself - she just heard about it.
Then the cop shows up and learns that the man in the house has ID showing he lives there.
So - we have a caller who didn’t see anything tell a story she heard that someone might have seen something possibly fishy. Then the cops show up to find a man with ID showing that he lives in the house that he is currently in. Just how much more is a private resident, in his own house, required to do? What amount of questions, “investigating”, looking about, searching, seizing, ransacking, etc. is a person required to permit?
Hey you with the face, I know you are Officially Black and all, but that doesn’t mean that your opinion on any issue touched on in this thread is worth more than anyone else’s. So you can take your editorial round-up post and shove it where the Black is blackest.
You act as if I was arguing that the fake ID scenario was likely here, but that’s not what I was doing at all. The fake ID scenario is just one example of why the cops should fully investigate instead of just rolling up, looking at an ID, and rolling out.
Also, you know that if another situation had the same facts as this one from the cops’ perspective before they showed up, the cops look at one person’s ID and left, and then all hell broke loose after they left because the cops didn’t bother to do anything beyond checking one person’s ID, then luci and gonzo and Rubystreak would be calling the cops idiots and asking for their heads on a platter.
First of all, the citizen cannot use self-help at any time. That is, regardless of the amount of time the cops decide to spend investigating, the citizen cannot forcibly eject them. The citizen can demand that they leave, making clear that he is not extending consent for them to remain. But that’s where his options end. if the officers remain illegally, his remedy is in the courtroom, not in his ability to push them out (or shout them out). This is practically true, and (mostly) legally true as well; there is an old common-law rule about the right to resist an illegal arrest, but many states have abrogated this right via statute and even in those that have not, it would be highly foolish to exercise it.
There’s no bright-line test (five minutes after seeing valid ID, the investigation must conclude). In my view, anything more than a few minutes after seeing valid ID would end up being found unreasonable, since any detention must be reasonable and reasonably related to the crime under investigation.
There’s no question that the police were there initially legally. Your comment about the report being “mere hearsay” is useless: almost EVERY report made to the police is “mere hearsay.” As it happens, hearsay is permitted in determining probable cause. The police had probable cause to believe a crime was in progress.
How long can they remain after seeing an ID? It depends. If Sgt. Crowley can say, “Look, I got word that the Harvard Campus Police were three minutes away, and they can verify the residence of their students and faculty,” then it’s probably reasonable, as a matter of law, for the police to remain. If he says, “The Harvard Police were three hours away,” then it’s almost certainly not reasonable.
Based on the radio transmissions mentioning the Harvard Police, I;d say it’s likely they were reasonably available.
Note carefully that this refers only to the issue of accepting the ID, and whether or not to continue the investigation. Contrary to some suggestions above, I have offered no opinion on whether the arrest was justified. I’m speaking solely to the idea that the instant Gates handed over his ID, the matter legally has to end. That idea is false.
I’m virtually certain the issue is your reading comprehension.
If you’re contending that anything I’ve said here is not an accurate statement of the law, please point it out. But I suspect you think I’m defending the arrest of Gates. I’m not. It’s possible you think I’m defending the fake ID theory. I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that the “here’s my ID, now it’s over” theory is wrong. If you have an attack on that point, let’s hear it.
Then what is the point? Gates gives 2 pieces of ID. You cite a case that ID was faked. I suppose you should have done more than that. You should have given information on what percent of ID is faked. Then cull it down to what percent of faked ID is offered by old ,educated men. What really is the likely hood that the ID was faked by an educated, elderly prof. ? The cop had no reason to believe Gates was handing him fake ID. I do not recall that even being mentioned in the incident at all. In honor of our soldiers ,quit making shit up.
Well obviously you think my opinion does mean more since you feel the need, apropos of nothing, to argue that isn’t. A true case of protesting too much. Guess I should be flattered.
Well, one is left wondering what other detective work Crowley should have done in this situation to sufficiently prove that 60 year-old man who was probably dressed like Heathcliff Huxtable and who was actually bold enough open the door when a copknocked on it instead of running away was not an indentity-stealing burglar masquerading as a Harvard professior. Since you’re arguing along the lines that you are, clearly you think the cop would have been within his rights to do more probing, and I’m wondering what that would be. Fingerprints? DNA? Teeth impressions? Birth certificate verification at the vital statistics office?
Does probable cause mean anything to you?
tumblewood made this point a long ass time ago but it bears repeating: if there was a report of a break-in, why didn’t the cop ask Gates if he was all right or if he saw/heard anything unusual? Since burgulars are not in the habit of answering the front door when summoned, my first impulse would be to consider that someone else was doing the breaking in. Not a sixty-year old man with a bum hip who answered the door when I knocked on it. The very fact that so many people in this thread have ignored this possibility in favor of the absurd is extremely telling.
Why would it require the participation of the Harvard Police to verify Gate’s address, whether they were ten seconds away or ten days? Dick Tracy had a two-way wrist radio, these guys don’t? A number of onlookers were available, likely from the neighborhood, none of them could have been approached?
Where certainty is not available, plausible has to do. Did Gates behave badly? Likely. Is Sgt Crowley Bull Connor updated? Given his record, probably not. Did Sgt Crowley abuse his discretion and apply an “informal” discipline on Gates for Disrespect of Cop? Very likely.
That’s all its about, for me. Time and again, I’ve seen this sort of thing done, seen it condoned or winked at, and it pushes my buttons. It is unacceptable. It is not within a cop’s authority to defend his dignity with the power of law, any more than it is within mine.
For me, that is the issue here. Sgt Crowley, by all accounts, is not a bad cop. So this is not especially egregious behavior, this is standard operating procedure, this is normal. Given the fact that the charges were dropped, we are confronted with the ugly prospect that no prosecution was ever actually contemplated, it was a spanking, as suggested above by noted civil libertarian advocate Mags. He approves of such spankings, I most definitely do not.
So you claim that you can freely state that Gates and West are racist at heart, but now you’re going to backpedal away from that.
And Buchanan habitually spouts racist rhetoric. One person, losing his temper, in a bad situation = racist at heart. A man who regularly makes political hay off racial tension in America = unfairly judged by the left. Yeah, no disparity there.
What I expect you to do (though god knows why) is not judge an entire person based on one incident. You are almost entirely ignorant of the work of Henry Louis Gates and Cornel West, but you freely label them racist. This doesn’t seem wrong, and well, racist, to you? All you know about Cornel West is that he’s a black academic, maybe you know he was in the Matrix movies. But you say you know he’s racist at heart. WTF?
Ever? Buchanan has never said anything racist, ever? What about Jeff Sessions? Did you condemn him loudly, and declaim his hypocrisy in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings? Or is it only people of color you attack as racist?
What about politicians? You named Sharpton and Jackson. Name a few white politicians. Why are you able to rattle off half a dozen black racists off the top of your head, but cannot for the life of you name one white racist politician or academic? Does this not speak to your own preoccupations and biases about race? And pretty much discredit you from having anything of merit to say on this subject?
And in fact, the police report (as biased as it may be) actually supports this conclusion:
So - by his own words and his own report - he states that he didn’t call for the Harvard cops to verify anything. By his own words and actions, he acknowledge that Gates was affiliated with Harvard.
The obvious question is - Why call the Harvard cops if you’ve already accepted that Gates is affiliated with Harvard? Could it be to punish him a bit, and drag out this whole incident?
And then the very next sentence of the police report states the following:
(bolding mine)
Second question - why was he preparing to leave? Could it be that he had finished his investigation? And if he had finished his investigation, why did he need to call the Harvard cops?
I’m sorry - but we don’t even have to hear Gates’ side of the story - the police report itself states that 1) they accepted the Harvard ID, and 2) after accepting the ID, they called for more police. To which I have to again ask why? We know that Crowley thought the investigation was over, since in his own words, he “prepared to leave”. So - if he thought it was over, why call more police? Or - if he didn’t think it was over, why would he prepare to leave?