On Skip Gates and What It Means to Have a Black President

[bana05]

According to NYT writer Katharine Q. Seelye, “Americans got a rare glimpse Wednesday night of what it means to have a black president in the Oval Office.” It’s not exactly clear what that quote means; but one could suppose she is saying Americans now have a president who will, if not put a spotlight on the elephant in the country that is racism,

Comments

[stoplookingup]

Other than a couple of traffic stops, my white husband has not been stopped by a cop since he was 16 (30 years ago), at which time he actually was committing vandalism and was caught in the act

[bana05]

I was stopped for speeding while I was in college, probably just before senior year. I had NEVER been so terrified, especially because I was in the wrong. Lord only knew what could happen--me alone on the backroads in SC in a nice car. I think the cop (yes, he was white) saw me freaking out that he let me go with a warning. But I kept my hands on the steering wheel and everything. I was lucky that day--both because I didn't get a ticket and because I got a decent cop to stop me. But every person of color, no matter the station, knows that possibility is still out there.

And Prof. Gates is one of the least incendiary "black scholars" out there. He ain't no Cornel West, that's for damn sure--and I loves me some Cornel West!

[stoplookingup]

I can only imagine how you must have felt. In New York the cops were generally pretty laid back, but when I went to college in Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia, it was another story. I remember Freshman year when a friend of mine came back from an orientation for black students at Du Bois House, she told me they had a talk about the Philly police. They were told that they could expect to be treated more or less like any Penn students by campus cops -- but set foot off campus, and they could expected to be treated like "any other West Philly nigger." And that was a deadly serious warning.

[bana05]

They were told that they could expect to be treated more or less like any Penn students by campus cops -- but set foot off campus, and they could expected to be treated like "any other West Philly nigger." And that was a deadly serious warning.

Except you don't even get that at Harvard sometimes. I try to always make eye contact with cops because I want them to know what I look like and for them to know I do belong here.

[stoplookingup]

I feel pretty sure the Penn cops were being given more credit than they deserved as well.

[bana05]

probably.