Analysis of Scholar's arrest....

[bliss_eternal]

Scholar’s arrest is a signpost on road to equality
Case signals there’s ‘nothing post-racial’ about U.S., colleague of Gates says

ANALYSIS
By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer

updated 3:18 a.m. PT, Wed., July 22, 2009

It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling — it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.

The news was parsed and Tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all Henry "Skip" Gates: Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. MacArthur "genius grant" recipient. Acclaimed historian, Harvard professor and PBS documentarian. One of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997. Holder of 50 honorary degrees.

If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009?

-----------------snip----------------
excerpt from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32077998/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/?GT1=43001


Anyone else shaking their head at the image of the male officer of color (toward the front of the photo)?
:eyes:

Seeing that brother, I seriously want to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdffmmnWZHs

[Number23]

1. I have worn out my fingers talking about this.

I am so fed up and enraged at the stupidity surrounding this issue and others I could scream. Between this, Oscar Grant, those black and Hispanic children being kicked out of that pool, Wells Fargo's predatory loans, that fool Turley saying Thurgood Marshall was "mediocre," the Repub foolishness against Sotomayor, the CONTINUED attacks on Obama from deranged white people on BOTH sides of the political spectrum etc. etc. etc. I cannot keep going like this.

I have never been so close to picking up binge drinking as I am right now. My nerves are SHOT.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. OMFG! Sure enough, here comes Bill Cosby.

[firedupdem]

13. +1 n/t

[Brewman_Jax]

2. This is the 21st Century

and it ain't post-racial America. This incident again shoots down the "class, not race" racists' argument. It is so tiring trying to tell the brain-dead that racism is more than simply deliberate acts of individual meanness by mean bigoted individuals. It's a total social and economic racial caste system. To them, as long as you didn't say the n-word or burn a cross or wear a KKK hood and robe or anything OBVIOUS, it isn't really racist/racism. :crazy:

[Fire1]

3. bliss, your last sentence says it all in more ways than one.

"If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009?"

I only have ONE problem with Dr. Gates and that IS: Where have you been on this issue for the last couple of decades? NOW, he wants to let this 'travesty' be KNOWN???? Celebrities, politicians and community leaders ACROSS THIS COUNTRY have been addressing this problem since the birth of 'hip hop!' Why hip hop? Cause that's when the FEAR SET IN!! When white women started clutching their purses, white people started locking their car doors, crossing to the OTHER side of the street, AND RED LINING! Fear of gang bangers and the like.

Dr Gates is a day LATE and a dollar short!

[Karenina]

4. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. I'm so tired of this shit! Two things made me just about blow a gasket:

First, someone mentioned OJ! They said something like "Obama shouldn't have commented on an ongoing investigation. Clinton didn't comment about OJ" FUCKING. OJ.


Second, someone else said that Gates should have thanked the officers. WTF!!?!?

Look, even if your argument is that both of them acted like jerks, only ONE of them abused his power to send the other to jail.

[bliss_eternal]

6. "thank yah, massah...."

"yall sho did put me in mah place, massah sir."

:eyes:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. The comments at MSNBC are horrid. I'm just going to log off and torture Sims until I fall asleep.

[bliss_eternal]

10. I understand.

:hug: Have a good night! See you soon.
I may have to avoid for a couple of days until this dies down. :scared:

[ismnotwasm]

7. Post-racial?

What a term. If DU is a microcosm representative of a "liberal community" the knee-jerk or simply blatant racist responses here in this tiny corner of the internet are enough to put that notion to rest.

Unfortunately, the same bullshit is on all the major media outlets. So to me "post-racial" at this point belongs in science fiction when I'm feeling bitter, and a difficult to reach, but obtainable goal on my cup half full days.


Looks like we white 'liberals' have the same white privilege bullshit blinders on as the rest of them, huh? That's sad you know? Sadder, heartbreaking actually, is that I'm not at all surprised.

[bliss_eternal]

11. Same here...

...not surprised. (sigh) But it's still disconcerting and a tad disappointing.

[Number23]

12. "Looks like we white 'liberals' have the same white privilege bullshit blinders

...on as the rest of them"

Could you post that every day in every thread for like, oh I don't know, the next 25 years???? :)

[Fire1]

14. You're one of two people on this entire board willing to admit it.

It IS fuckin sad. More than you kmow.

[Kind of Blue]

15. To be quite honest, I'm glad it happened

to a prominent man of color because this happens ALL THE TIME and it's mostly grouped as unusual incident or it's just in this part of the country or in that part. Here in San Diego, a few years ago and after many complaints, there was research conducted to see if the SDPD did target African Americans and Mexican Americans. The finding was overwhelmingly so. But the police chief at the time, David Bejarano, said yes the research is true but it's not because of profiling??? I won't even go into his reasoning but suffice it to say it was condemned by the Urban League, the NAACP, the ACLU, et cetera. But he said that the department would work to address some recommendations.

Lately here, there have been several incidents of young black youths or Latino youths beaten up by gangs of whites in nice middle to upper class neighborhoods at parties they've been invited to. The police are classifying them as "gang-related," meaning these "gang" kids infiltrated the parties. they do this so they don't have to go after the sons and daughters of the white community. The victims and parents have been coming out with their credentials denying any relations to gangs. In one, there are 60 witnesses but not one has been interviewed so far. So now we're putting pressure on any "gang-related" incidents.

The other thing I want to state is that from personal experience, many members of my family, while still in the D.C. area were targeted by White AND Black cops. One Black cop followed me to the point of turning on his siren and turned out that he wanted a date. :wtf: Having not learned how to deal, I let loose a torrent of expletives. It landed me in jail. When I was speaking to my parents on the phone in our language, he and the other cops told me that I had to speak English and they laughed. I can go into more from BOTH Black and White cops. Funny, he didn't show up on court date and the case was dismissed and my money refunded.

My point is that I don't feel the policing system was set up to protect me. So I'm glad this happened to Gates to bring a sharper focus to the issue. I mean Chief Bejarano, clearly of Mexican descent actually uttered dribble about what his department did and does to his own people. I've wondered if there's maybe something cadets are taught in police school about who and who not to protect. I just distrust the whole lot of them.