On Being a Black Man in America
Don't we live in post-racial America? Not judging by the case of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who was arrested at his own house for his temerity to live in a predominantly white neighborhood. Some would say he had it coming, but from where I'm standing, from the moment arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley appeared at Mr. Gates' door, Gates had every
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Having read all your links, I must play Devil's advocate.
Stupid lady sees a guy (whom she does not recognize) try to force open the front door of a house down the street. He moves to the back, and successfully gets in. Then he and another man essentially break open the front down. Nope, nothing odd about that. But since assuming she's a racist exacerbates your point, let's go with that. Fine, the stupid racist lady calls the cops on the scary black man with the penis you could snake a drain with.
I read nothing about response times, so lets say Crowley drew the short straw of fate and was patrolling a block away. He shows up, sees a broken door, knocks, and a man answers. Since it's fairly standard procedure to try and, I dunno, isolate the various elements of any scene, Crowley asks him to step outside. Why? Because during all those years of being a cop, he's heard enough stories of suspects who act innocent, then pull a knife or gun because the officer did not think anything of it. Please step outside so I know you can't pull a 12-gauge from behind the door. I'd like to read a recorded list of how many times Crowley has asked people to step out of the home/car/portapotty with a cross reference to race, but MSN didn't have that on file.
Anyway, just step outside and we'll chat about this broken front door at this house that I received a possible B&E call on. But before he gets a second sentence in, the man inside pulls the race card. Personally, I would have stabbed him in the eye with my pen right there. I can't tell you how many people pull this with me at work, over the stupidest issues. No I'm not giving you cash back for this $100 item that you have no receipt for. No I don't care about your skin color. No I don't think you know the mayor and can get my store shut down.
Now he's arguing, and I'll make no hesitation to assume loudly since the first words out of his mouth were racist accusations. Crowley just wants some ID so he can go back on patrol and have a little less paperwork to do before going home. Gates wants to yell some more instead of just getting his ID and going back to whatever it is scary black people do behind closed doors. But now he goes to get his ID. Having not 'secured the scene' Crowley follows him. You might say the old man had a cane and should be assumed not dangerous. I guess we'll just disagree. Really, he just walked behind the guy, didn't pull his weapon.
He was asked for his badge number and didn't give it (assuming that the Harvard professor isn't lying, which I'm not impressed with his title enough to assume), which is not just stupid, it's a bit cowardly. Other officers show up because that's what happens in slow communities on any call. Even traffic stops. They all get the call, and it'd be strange if more unis didn't show up. This is true in many places, not just where there's one pepper shaker in a field of salt shakers.
Now Crowley does something impressively stupid: Gates has proven his identity and arrests him anyway. This might have been because Crowley walked behind him to the porch and was yelling and swearing and being a public disturbance and not calming down when requested. This might be because Crowley just got tried of this damn loud idiot and wanted to show him his figurative penis is larger than Gate's literal penis, and this loud fool ruined his day, so Crowley is going to ruin his day. This might be because Crowley had to teach the uppity negro a lesson. I dunno. Hope more info comes. But really, unless the guy was being a big disturbance, it seems better to have let Gates go back and fume in his own house. This shows Crowley used poor judgment, not that he hates darkies.
A study was done a few years ago that looked at a large number of complaints against police officers for unnecessary conduct, and looked at the race of the the officers and the complainants. It found that there was a shocking tendency for black men to be abused by.... black officers. But I think that study might have applied to inner city stats. Just something to chew on.
Also, I hate Al Sharpton.
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My rendition of this event is meant to be very vitriolic, and I don't even necessarily believe parts of it to be accurate (especially the wild speculation). As such, I think your level-headed assessment is probably the closest thing to the truth I've seen.
It's really too bad for Crowley that his mistakes have gotten such a public airing. I think somehow, some way, some good won't come of it. I hope so, anyway.
It's really too bad that the department doesn't want a blemish on their golden boy's record, though.
~Sean
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