OK, you have to read this article at the bottom of the post and the excerpt I added here. However, I wanted to weigh in first…
Seriously, is that what we need here? Do we need to have the white people of America to weigh in on this topic? NO! But, just so the more Caucasian of us in the audience will listen, I have a few things to say. This IS NOT an issue to move past quickly. The President is right, and GOD knows I HOPE HE HAS A LITTLE activist still in him.
I am from the South and let me tell you friends, the disproportionate amount of race issues that are being discussed here DO STILL HAPPEN! I grew up in a racist environment even though the home I grew up in was not. I was even taught that the war that happen between the states in the 1800’s was NOT the “Civil War…” Because, “there was nothing Civil about it…” It was the “War Between the States…” I cannot get over the sheer amount of pride we still have! And the kicker is that this isn’t even the South, it’s Massachusetts? I mean, you guys will be ultra liberal on who marries whom, but you still deal with this kind of stuff with race… really?
I cannot understand just how this happens still? I am so floored, yet at the same time, we finally have someone who will really admit that it IS happening and ask for something to change. The President is RIGHT!
I am outraged at the outrage against him. Ask yourself this; “do you want to be put in jail for being ticked off at your front door on your own home?” This merits a public apology and not just a statement that this was “regrettable and unfortunate…”
Come on folks, you really want to talk about something? What about the helpful neighbor that CALLED IN THE BREAK-IN! Let’s talk about them. Where are they for comment? I mean really, that person is the one that started it all. They are the one that made the biggest mistake. They mistook their neighbor as a common thief? Why? Why didn’t they RECOGNIZE HIM?
What the crap were they doing? I mean, could it be that they ASSUMED he was breaking in when he OWNED THE HOUSE? How did they mistake an awarded Professor at Harvard with a cane as a THIEF?????? What the heck?
Having been a person that has had to climb in the window many times at my parent’s house due to a locked door and as well having busted open a side door on a house I used to live in here in Rockville because Lori locked our keys inside, I am very thankful that I was not taken downtown. Maybe everyone is right. Maybe the real problem is NOT the guy banging on his door, tired from travel, holding his cane, maybe it is NOT the police officer who was just doing his job with all kinds of hormones pumping, maybe it was the person on the cell phone that RATHER THAN ASKING, “HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING…” Called in a crime that NEVER HAPPENED?!
Maybe they didn’t ask because they are scared of that type of people. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved. Maybe they were really worried that they might be next. Maybe their hormones were pumping, their minds were racing, their hearts were pounding because of the BIASES and the FEARS and the UPBRINGING THEY HAD!
This is unfortunate. I think the real party that needs to do some explaining is, “We the white communities of the United States…”
I feel like this could all be avoided if we simply went next door and got to know our neighbor. Maybe that will take some work. Maybe it is scary, but no matter what, it is time for especially white America to take the necessary steps to treat those that are different from us the same.
So, I guess, I am just writing this in order to state that I am going to do my best to believe the best of my neighbor no matter what it takes. And those of you who know me know where I have lived and what I have done in the past and know that even at the risk of my own life, I have not to this point been too afraid to say, “Hey, what are you doing?” Instead of immediately running to the police.
So, if you don’t have multi-cultural relationships and you only hang around people just like yourself, then stop blaming Obama… Stop blaming the police… Blame yourself!
pd
Obama Stands By Gates Arrest Criticism as Police Defend Conduct – Bloomberg.com
“The scar of race indeed continues to hang over our nation,” Carter said. “Even today, events like this happen all too often.”
Gates is director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard. He is one of 20 people at the school who hold university professor chairs, a title created in 1935 to honor “individuals of distinction.”
The incident happened as Gates returned home after a trip to China. Police were called to Gates’s house after a passerby mistook his effort to open his jammed front door for a break-in.
Verbal Confrontation
Gates and the officers who responded to the call had a verbal confrontation, leading to his arrest. The Cambridge police department, in a statement released after the charges had been dropped, called the arrest “regrettable and unfortunate.”
Obama, at the news conference, said that Gates, who he referred to by the nickname Skip, “is a friend, so I may be a little biased here.”
The president said that while “I don’t know all the facts” of the arrest or the role race played in it, the case highlighted “a long history in this country of African- Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
Technorati Tags: racism, current events, politics, cultural
