Well, it’s been quite a while since I last posted; pre-surgery for my hip replacement back in May. I’ve been wanting to start this blog back up so here’s an attempt to do just that.
Tonight is the kegger at the White House for President Obama to… well I don’t know what it’s for exactly, other than damage control. You know the story so there’s no need to regurgitate it. I guess the premise is that Obama is going to mediate a truce of some sort between Officer James Crowley and Professor Henry Gates, and the result will be a “teachable moment.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Now I will preface by saying that it’s impossible for any of us to know what really happened that day. You can take one side or the other fairly comfortably. Could Crowley have shown a little better judgment and not arrested Gates? Yep. Could Gates have avoided escalating the event by not playing the race/do you know who I am card? Sure. Had one or the other or both happened this incident wouldn't have become the pile of shit that the Prez decided to step into. Regardless, I have my feelings about what happened and everyone else has theirs, and chances are that none of us are going to change our minds about it. Only two guys know for sure what really happened, and they have differing versions so there’s no point in trying to figure it out.
This brings me to what I want to comment on, which is Obama’s initial reaction when asked about the matter at his health care speech, because it hit a little close to home for me. It does so because I come from a cop family. I’m not a cop, but most of my immediate family is in law enforcement. So when Obama was asked about the event, I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that he immediately went back into community activist mode and blamed the cops. Now to be sure, if you read what he actually said it’s a lot more even-handed than it seemed on first listen. However, if you listen to the intent and not the actual words it’s difficult to come away without the impression of: the cops acted stupidly and arrested a guy because of his race. Obama himself said he didn’t know the facts of the case, yet there he was passing judgment on the Cambridge police in front of the entire nation. THAT’S what I had a problem with.
You can argue that he didn’t mean how it came out or if you look at the words it says something else, but to me it was simple arithmetic on Obama's part:
I don’t know what role race played (meaning I think it did) +
I would have been angry (because I was right and the cops were wrong) +
Police acted stupidly (no need to translate this one) +
There’s a history of racial profiling (which means that’s what happened here) =
The stupid cops profiled Gates and arrested him because he is black.
My sister works for the Department of Justice and has devoted her career to training cops about the evils and insufficient cause of racial profiling. I emailed her the morning after and asked what she thought about Obama’s comments. In her words, everyone (meaning her cohorts and other cops) was “royally pissed.” And I was too. Because the President of the United States had just insulted all the good cops in this country by taking the stance that he did. He knew the question might be asked, yet rather than present an unbiased opinion he knee-jerked himself right back into race pimp activist mode. He let his guard down and it cost him. So now he’s in damage control mode and having a brew with the guys to patch things up. Maybe they’ll all get drunk and start singing Kumbaya or something. Will all be forgotten in 2012? As Gordon Solie would say, it remains to be seen.
