Then what would? Do you believe Crowley actually thought Gates was a burglar?
Could be a bit of CYA. “I was just about to leave, having done everything totally by The Book, when Mr. Gates began to endanger the citizens of Cambridge…”
You could check with Bricker on this, but I think the technical legal term is “lying”.
Please look up the words “know” and “assume”. Therein lies the answer to the riddle that so puzzles you.
I commented on what Buchanan said on Maddow’s show. If there’s another thing he said you want me to judge, provide it, with context. I must say, I find it a bit odd that you are so fixated on my opinions on things. It’s flattering, I guess. But also a little creepy.
I;m not familiar with Buchanan’s every utterance. Provide a quote, with context, and I’ll give you the benefit of my Solomonic wisdom that you so hunger for. If you chose to do this, you should probably start another thread though. Put a few examples up of things said by various individuals and see which are racist and which aren’t. If you do it fairly I might even participate.
What it says is that reverse racism is now deemed acceptable by some, so they are more in the public eye and, thus, more apt to be noticed. When’s the last time David Duke uttered his nonsense?
I don’t disagree. The arrest was not justified. but there’s a middle ground between arrest and walking away, and that middle ground is three more minutes of investigation IF Crowley had doubts about what he was being told.
“I’m sorry you’re upset, sir, but I just need a few moments to check this out.”
“Why, you racist pig! How dare you…blah blah blah…”
(Some minutes later)
“Very sorry to have troubled you, sir.”
End of story.
I quite agree, substantially. But now that Rand has borrowed your well-earned dignity, how do you get it back?
I don’t see why it’s OK for you to ASSUME either. You would, I’m sure, object quite strenuously if it were your ox being gored, ie., someone you admired was accused of racism based on such scanty evidence.
The fucking Buchanan Pit thread is still on the first page of the Pit. We both posted in it, to each other. If you find it creepy that my memory is longer than 24 hours, that’s your problem. The entire Buchanan/Maddow interview is linked in that thread. We both commented on it. You seemed to have watched it as well, or at least depicted yourself as having watched it. If you need to refresh your memory, go ahead. I suspect this is just a dodge, but whatever.
We already had an entire discussion in the other thread. You can review the Maddow interview there, and your own statements about it, then come back.
I notice you utterly ignored my questions about what you know about Cornel West, that you can ASSUME that he’s racist at heart. Or can you maybe admit that you have no idea about Cornel West, and just assume he’s racist because he’s a black academic who deals with race issues, and in your mind, ipso facto a racist? Can you provide any evidence to support your very serious and pernicious assumption about him?
DAVID DUKE is the best you can do? Wow. I will take this as an admission that you are pre-occupied with the so-called racism of people of color, and not at all interested in racism in the other direction. Because yes, it does very much exist. I wonder what you had to say about Trent Lott in 2002.
What we are essentially debating is whether the police were correct to arrest the prof. That means we are discussing whether the police report was true and accurate. As a defense you quote the police report. How stupid is that? If you wish to corroborate the cop ,you require an outside source. But saying the cop was right and as proof I will give you what he said in the report ,is ridiculous.
Crowley left knowing he arrested Gates otherwise he would have charged him with breaking and entering.
Gonzo, old top, you have some occassional flashes of insight that are admirable. The clarity of your prose, well, needs work. That last sentence, for instance. I have a good idea what that means, along with about half a dozen likely suspects. And I’m a pretty smart guy, a really smart guy could twist it to mean just about anything.
Take your time, draw a careful bead on your target. They won’t get away, and even if they do, they’ll come back.
Some of our dopers were saying Gates Id was insufficient, such as Bricker. That means Crowley should have arrested him for breaking and entering. He did not. That is why th ID defense is just blowing smoke. Crowley knew he was arresting the resident. If he did not know Gates was the resident, he would have been derelict not to charge him with B and E.
The defense of Crowley has been a bunch of nitpicking. But none of it is valid.
Who’s defending Crowley? Not Bricker and not me.
Oh, well, keep on rockin’ in the Free World, gonzo. I am your friend, but, Lord knows, you don’t make it easy.
No, but frankly, it’s such a waste of time to explain things to you I’m not going to bother. If anyone halfway intelligent wants to know why this isn’t so, I’ll be happy to explain it.
Would you give this level of amused tolerance to someone as incoherent as gonzomax who wasn’t on your side of the political fence?
Oh, Heavens no, I’m a total hypocrite in every respect. Why, I sometimes even pretend to offer you a respectful ear, simply in hopes of tripping you up! But you’re too smart for me! Damn!
Yes I am.
No, I was completely alive in the '60s. There was about a two week period when I was a baby that I had gastroenteritis and may have been in and out of consciousness, but even then I think I was far more alive than dead.
Notwithstanding that you’re misquoting me completely, your interpretation skills would seem to suggest that having been victimized gives you crystal clarity as to what is racist. Incidentally Gates is 58- he was 4 years old when Rosa Parks retained her seat. He claims that he had a racist doctor and maybe he did- but that was 44 years ago, and it does not in any way give him carte blanche to assume all white cops are racists any more than the disproportionate number of black men in prison or black families living on public assistance should give me the right to assume Gates is a criminal or shouldn’t be living in a nice house.
Colin Powell seems to agree with me that Gates acted completely inappropriately, but I suppose that makes him “Gen’ral Co-Po-cetic the Stepin Fetchit Experience!” in your eyes.
Your saying I can’t be trusted because I’m a fag, right?
Of course you aren’t, but the fact that I’m gay- I’ve studied the history of gay rights from the ancient world through the Mattachine Society through Stonewall through AIDS through the “post Ellen years”, and if I immediately called you a homophobe for arguing with me it doesn’t mean I’m right. It’s the same with Gates.
What?
Oh do please take three steps back and fuck your righteous self.
Fine, have it your way: if Gates says it’s racism then by god it must be because all blacks are victims who “don’t know how to act” and all whites are racist. There is no middle ground.
When there was no reason to suspect that race was a motivation, yes. And if Crowley was a racist- if he’s the head of the New England KKK- did he think he was going to have a “learning experience” and say “Yes Dr. Gates, you’re right… I am profiling you because of your race. I don’t know what path has led me here, but if you’ll excuse me there’s someone I must go communicate with… me.”
No, he was saying it deliberately to be incendiary, not for dialogue and not for curiosity.
You lost me. By your adjudication process if I am approached by a black guy on the street and I instinctively reach into my pocket to give him some change because I’ve been approached by black panhandlers many times then it’s perfectly reasonable on my part to make the assumption this guy is a panhandler too? Or for that matter if I see two black kids in a nice car then it’s not at all racist if I call the cops to report a probable car theft, because statistically most black people in my city can’t afford a car like that so it’s probably stolen- that’s not racist by your terms because I’m basing it on my judgment and knowledge.
Oh come the fuck on. Do you really and truly believe he’d have accused a black cop of racism? Really? Really?
Meh it’s your upper lip.
I won’t answer for magellan but why is it that if a white person profiles a black person based on research and personal experience it’s “racism” but if a black man profiles a white man based on research and personal experience it’s “making racial assumptions”?
Hosed down by Bull Conner. If you have the idea that marching for black rights was just a lark with maybe getting a hose turned on you, you are way off. It was nasty work and involved plenty of danger. Just leaving after a march was dangerous. Even women and priests were beaten and jailed.
Really Bricker.The point was made that Gates provided ID. You responded with a court case showing Id can be trusted. Why? Pretty apparent you were suggesting that Gates ID was not good enough or in question. Perhaps you think any ID should not be trusted.
But Crowley accepted it. He did not arrest him for breaking and entering. You poorly defended Id which even the cop involved took as valid. No don’t waste your time explaining ,because you have none. Perhaps you had electrons yearning to be free and were aimlessly trying word combinations. But you were questioning the ID .
You being gay has nothing to do with anything. The condescending pompousness that fills your bombastic colon does.
But it would be quite arrogant and presumptious of me to tell you, a gay man, that you are wrong about your own perceptions of an event that you–not me–had experienced first-hand, especially when this is something you’ve dealt with all your whole life and I have not. And then imagine how offensive I’d be if I went on to preach from on high that simply because you (erroneously) felt you were being targeted because of your sexual orientation that this somehow strips the dignity away from the “true victims of homophobia” (and who determines that? Me, of course!) and that you should shut up. And then finish up by calling you heterosexist for even thinking that you might be the victim of discrimination.
Uh, where are you getting this? The middle ground seems to be lost on all the fools in this thread calling Gates a racist while practically falling over themselves to elevate a silly cop to sainthood status. I haven’t called Crowely or Gates racist.
It’s funny how you felt it necessary to add the bit in there about the KKK, as if it would be somehow unfair to call Crowley racist without him being a grand dragon wizard status. Yet Gates gets called racist for having the audacity to suspect a racial motivation is behind his investigation.
Can’t yall realize how stupid you sound? Surely you can come up with something that isn’t so easy to point and laught at?
Why don’t you think a black cop can’t act in racist ways? Maybe if you lived this experience, you wouldn’t be so incredulous.
Who said anything remotely like this?
FWIW, based on your own arguments, I have every reason to call you a racist. You just can’t see it because you’re too hopped up on irrationality.
I still maintain that Gates didn’t assume that all White cops are racists. I think he asked Crowley if he was treating him differently because of his race. That’s a huge leap you’ve made, and again one only supported by a line that Crowley wrote in his report. You would think that he would use the exact words that Gates used towards him - hell, as a residence life professional, we knew that we needed to try to transcribe quotes from people when writing up a situation - don’t cops have the same or better training?
This is interesting. Because Powell is a Black man, he cancels out what Gates experienced? Not following what you’re saying here. It doesn’t make him a sellout, but it doesn’t mean that Gates is wrong. I’m sure a lot of Black people don’t completely side with Gates, and a lot of White people do, and vice-versa.
This isn’t even analogous. First, unless you’re a tenured prof somewhere, I don’t think your studying of gay rights matches up to Gates’ studying of the Black experience in America. Gates doesn’t do this on the weekends when he’s not working his 9 to 5; it is his 9 to 5. And he’s done it exceedingly well, gone through the rigors of peer review and tenure. That’s the level of acuity and acumen we’re talking about.
All we have is Crowley’s word that Gates called him a “racist cop” (no quote). What I think is more likely is that Gates asked him if he was asking him questions, etc. because he was a Black man, and Crowley for whatever reason chose not to answer (maybe he was incensed, maybe he didn’t hear… who knows). Gates took umbrage to his lack of response and Bob’s your uncle, here we are.
How do you know any of this? That there was no reason to suspect race was a motivation, that Gates was trying to be incendiary?
You’ve exposed your ignorance here, truly. If you’ve ever talked to more than a few Black people about being racially profiled, you will quickly learn that being a Black, Latino, female, etc. officer does not mean you are automatically down. I’ve been harassed by Latino and Black cops before - in fact, I dealt with a Black cop in Newton, Massachusetts who I felt detained me for an inordinate amount of time, never giving me a reason why, asking for multiple forms of ID - far more than I’ve ever been asked for from White cops, when I’ve actually been in the wrong. Hell, it’s even known in popular culture. Listen to Sir Mix-a-lot’s “One Time’s Got No Case” or Ice-T’s “Bitches 2” and you’ll hear accounts of racist Black cops.
First of all, in the seven years I went to school in Cambridge and lived in and near the city, there were plenty of complaints and alleged incidents of profiling from both Harvard PD and Cambridge PD. This is why profiling doesn’t simply affect the people being profiled: if there are repeated accusations and incidents in the department, you lose credibility with the very citizenry that support you through their taxes and public support. It wasn’t as if Gates invented the idea of racial profiling out of thin air; plenty of incidents in the community pointed to this possibility.
I’ve had plenty of White friends profiled by police as well.
There’s a fucking shock. FWIW, based on your own arguments your ability to judge someone you’ve never met comes as no surprise.
BTW, y’all is plural, not singular. Please use it correctly.
Why would he treat a man differently because of his race if he’s not a racist? DIFFERENTIATION ON THE BASIS OF RACE IS WHAT RACISM IS!
Thou hast said so. I do hope you’ll agree that Powell knows more about being black man in America than I do, neh?
40% per CNN poll v. 71% of whites in case you’re interested in the numbers. No idea of the sample size.
Actually I have been a tenured professor and I have taught a class on gay history (non credit seminar, but a class at the university level no class). But, no, I’m not a Harvard professor.
So he’s infallible in his judgment of people then? True, most professors I’ve known would agree with you that they’re experts on pretty much everything, but others differ. Would another Ph.D. who believes he acted inappropriately cancel out Gates? (We’ve established a 4 star general doesn’t.)
Do you have a hard time believing this? Do you believe that he said “is this because I’m a black man in America?” (or words to that spirit). Why do you automatically believe that Gates over Crowley- is it because a Ph.D. is intrinsically more honest or objective [cough Newt Gingrich cough Michael Savage]?
Because it’s a bogus question. As mentioned above in a post that (on that “you with the face” failed to grasp [along with, I’m guessing, pretty much everything beyond basic hygiene and advanced whining]) if Crowley were racist, if he were in fact a KKK member, do you think he’d have answered “Yes, indeed sir, that’s why?” For that matter do you think that Gates was expecting him to answer that question objectively? Do you think he was really trying to bring about dialogue? Which do you think is more likely: that Gates was being less intellectually inquisitive or that he was being accusatorily confrontational? Unlike you with the face who seems to equate grammatical accusations with well reasoned argument you seem an intelligent and logical person capable of honest reflection and some capability of conceding a point and though your opinions differ sharply from mine I respect you and know they’re well reasoned, therefore I a ask not rhetorically but in curiosity, if you had to swear on the eyeballs of the three people you love the most, do you think Gates was being inquisitive or that he was being accusatory?
I think Gates took umbrage to his presence . (Something I am beginning to wonder incidentally- a bit off topic- is if Gates had been drinking; if he had, which is 100% in his legal rights and also 100% logical for somebody to do coming home after a 10 hour trip, it would explain his behavior a bit more.)
Actually I do know this. A friend of mine (and yes I’m going to cite a black friend which I’ve no doubt somebody will claim is my attempt to seem non racist) was a policeman on the LAPD who quit just before the Rodney King beatings, and when it happened he told me that had he remained he could easily have been one of those cops beating King, or worse. When the New Orleans PD was cleaned up there were black cops who weren’t fired but ended up in prison due to their abuse of blacks. (Two wound up on death row though I don’t know they’re race.)
And- it may come as a bit of a shock to you but I’ve lived my entire life around black people, with black friends, with black people I love, and I have discussed these things with them on more times than I can recount. My neighbors on either side? Black. Several of my favorite human beings? Black. The individual I’d most likely call if I had a flat tire? Black. Individual who’d most likely call me if he had a flat tire? Black. Most of the students who voted me ‘Favorite Professor’ where I work? Black. The majority of the residents of the city where I live? Black. All of my student workers (who I’m very close to and damned near a Jewish mother to in their relationships)? Black. And I actually have had major in depth and civil discussions (often with, dare I say, lots of insight gained on both sides I think and- meaning no disrespect- LOTS more laughter on both sides. (I don’t think it’s possible to discuss serious subjects without laughter.)
As you said quite eloquently in an analogy involving beings gnawing at chains in the crevices of your psyche (or words to that effect) I’m not free of racism. Anybody who says they are is either lying outright, self deluded, or a saint, and there are very few saints. (Hell most saints aren’t saints.) My beasts are fettered, and the strongest fetters are those I put on them- and right or wrong I’m proud of that.
(Did I just say that I’m proud I’m not a racist when in fact it’s something that nobody should be to begin with and thus shouldn’t take pride in? Yes I did. Sparing you the long story [though I’ll gladly send you a copy of my book which deals with it- especially my father’s odd relationship with MLK] you would not believe the rural south I grew up in, it was far more similar to Jim Crow times than it was to the 1970s right down to the mules and the old men who doffed their caps and called me Missuh Jon when I was 3 and they were 80. I will say without apology that there have been people that I love dearly and deeply who were quite openly and viscerally racist [separatist is perhaps more accurate a term, but I’ll use racist as an umbrella term) and I will also say that the people that I loved- whose deaths drove me to tears and who I miss everyday- were good people. They really were- no “good people except where race was concerned” qualification- they were good people, to whites, to blacks, to anyone who needed them. They used the word nigger interchangeably with black, it was simply understood without need for words that blacks were intellectually inferior and ambitionless, it was just as telepathically communicated that on the individual level all bets were off, and that ALL people regardless of race deserved your help and your compassion and ALL people loved their families and felt emotional pain and Hell was for those who brought them more.
And I am extremely well read, if mostly autodidactically, in southern history which is the history of blacks as well as whites. I am familiar with the atrocities of the past- very, and how recent they were. Absolute truth: were my parents alive today would be their 57th wedding anniversary: one of their wedding guests was my mother’s step-grandmother [and great-aunt and great-great-great-aunt- the family tree crossed itself like a spastic priest]- why do I mention this? She was a former slaveowner. (She inherited slaves from her father when she was 4 years old and was in her late 90s by the wedding.) SLAVERY was so recent that I was born years after Malcolm X was assassinated and yet there were former slaveowners at my mother’s wedding!
When my teachers in (an all white private) school were telling me that ROOTS was propaganda and slaves were like members of the family my aunts, born in 1889, told me- without trying to impart a life lesson, just in passim, about how they missed the sausage from their childhood that ‘Aunt Pig’ used to make. When I asked who Aunt Pig was they told me “sweet fat old colored woman, funniest woman you ever meet”.
Me: Did they call her Aunt Pig because she made sausage?
Twin: No, it was cause she didn’t have a nose so she kinda looked like a pig.
Twin 2: And snorted like one. Sister pass me the flour…
Me: Could we go back to the nose? Why didn’t she have a nose?
Twin: Cause her Mama cut it off.
Twin 2: With a butcher knife.
Twin: When she was a little girl?
Twin 2: Think this needs more red pepper?
Me: Why did her mother cut her nose off? Was she crazy?
Twin: No.
Twin 2: Aunt Pig was… she was high yella…
Twin: Straight black hair.
Twin 2: She was born before the war and her mama was high yella too and men…
Twin: Men sometimes weren’t nice to high yellas in those days.
I’ll spare you the rest since you’ve long since stopped caring if not stopped reading, but that one little comment by an old aunt making sausage told me when I was about 12 years old that everything I knew about slavery and race relations and “they were like family” was bullshit. A woman defaced her daughter’s nose as an act of love- that speaks volumes.
I’ve talked to any old black person who will talk to me about the pre-integration times. They were something that I doubt we’ll ever completely get over. They were also, as with slavery, one hell of a lot more complex than they’re usually portrayed; as I’ve said a million times there is absolutely nothing remotely simplistic about race relations in the south- I’m sure the rest of the country either, but the south I know best- and there never has been, because race relations are between individuals and individuals are complex and ever changing and rarely consistent.
And I promise you if we met for a beer at the White House you would find that
1- I don’t drink
2- to quote Gates on Crowley “when he’s not arresting you he’s very likeable”
and race is not an obsession with me at all though I will admit I tire of walking on eggshells in the Waking on the topic and biting my tongue in certain situations. But I wish that the racial sensitivities of white people were not so scoffed at and dismissed- accusing a white guy of racism, well that’s nothing. He can’t no what racism feels like. Let him suck it up, no harm’s done.
Harm’s done. When I’m accused of racial insensitivity I
1- want to know what I’ve done
2- want to know how valid it is
3- want an apology if it’s not true
And while you empathize with Gates, I empathize with Crowley. Trust me, I’ve been victimized by cops- I saw my mother handcuffed and thrown in jail at CHRISTMAS TIME for the crime of being broke and there was a Republican judge scoffing at her who to this day as much as it shames me I honestly hope dies a long and lingering death with screams so loud they may be the only part of him to reach any heaven there is. I’m decidedly classist I’ll admit- I work on it.
Anyway, I’ve long since quit responding to argument and gone into an absinthe and spoiled sweet potato fueled Fannie Flagg Faulknerian stream of consciousness, but I won’t reread or delete since I doubt it’s being read anyway, and there is absolutely no rapprochement to be had between us. The field is yours, plant your flag, mock me and call me a mawkish ham all you wish but if you do so please use y’all correctly. Shalom.