US Features
Obama on Harvard prof arrest - 'Race still haunts us'
Jul 23, 2009, 23:57 GMT
Washington - US President Barack Obama has jumped into the growing storm over police and racism sparked by last week's wrongful arrest of a high-profile Harvard professor who is black.
Answering a question at the end of a news conference Wednesday night, the country's first black president said police 'acted stupidly' and that the arrest showed that 'race remains a factor in this society' and 'still haunts us.'
At issue was the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, a leading scholar and one of the country's top authorities on African-American history.
Police responded to a call from a neighbour who reported that a black man was trying to break into Gates' home. In fact, it was Gates himself, arriving home late at night from China, where he had been filming a public television documentary.
His front door was stuck shut, and Gates enlisted help from his taxi driver to assist in prying it open. When police arrived, they demanded that Gates identify himself and an altercation ensued.
The white police officer, Sergeant James Crowley, arrested him for disorderly conduct and took him to the police station to book him. The charges were later dropped.
Gates has demanded an apology and launched a protest campaign, calling his arrest an 'educational opportunity for America.' In broadcast remarks Thursday, he called Crowley a 'rogue policeman.'
'If this can happen to me in in Harvard Square, this can happen to anybody in the United States,' Gates said. 'What it made me realize is how vulnerable black men are ... vulnerable to capricious forces like rogue policemen, and this man was a rogue policeman.'
In his remarks Wednesday night, Obama admitted he may be 'a little biased' because Gates is a personal friend. He joked that if he was 'trying to jigger into (his) old house in Chicago' police would likely be called on him too.
'Here I'd get shot,' he said of the White House.
Obama praised police for 'doing what they should' by responding to the report and admitted he had not seen all the facts to know exactly 'what role race played' in the incident.
'But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact.'
Obama said that his presidency was 'testimony to the progress that's been made,' but that didn't change the fact that 'race remains a factor in this society.'
One of the most stark examples of police racism occurred in May in New York, when police shot a black off-duty police officer who was chasing someone who had broken into his car.
Obama said that racial profiling 'still haunts us. And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently and oftentime for no cause casts suspicion even when there is good cause.'
White police officer Crowley Thursday refused to criticize Obama for the 'acted stupidly' remark, according to a Boston Globe report about a radio interview Crowley gave.
But Crowley said it was 'regrettable' that anyone would speak without knowing the 'whole story.'
'The president has a lot of other daunting tasks ahead of him,' Crowley was quoted as saying. 'I wish for the good of the whole country that he is successful in efforts to do the many things that he has to.'
Last year, the presidential candidates ran campaigns remarkably free of racial invective, despite Obama's historic candidacy.
In a speech in Philadelphia, where the US Constitution was drawn up - a document that originally gave only white property-owning males a voice - Obama appealed to Americans to get beyond divisions and tackle the country's major problems. He addressed black anger as well as white resentment in the March 2008 speech.
Obama proved on election day last November that he was a bridging, unifying force, attracting white voters in predominantly white Midwestern states as well as black voters in the deep South.
COMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in US
- 1. Mitt Romney Addresses Tea Party Summit Pictures
- 2. Seven injured as US Navy plane crashes into apartments
- 3. At least three injured in US Navy plane crash
- 4. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, others to face death penalty trial
- 5. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, four others to face death penalty trial
Older Talkback
page: 1
What it is, is a non-race incident being turned into one. The home owner, instead of telling the officer how he apprecitates his assistance, which most of us would do decided to be the racialist ass we all know he is now, but will not discuss. On this note, I'd agree with Obama, we have a long way to go and the professor needs to start peddling the bike some.
News Media is bias and so is politics,
I'm a 43 year old black man. I had a similar circumstance happen and the officer that confronted me asked for my ID. I presented it, told him it was my house and was unforturnately trying to breakin. He checked my ID and confirmed me living there. He even offered to help me break in but he was on duty and might break a rule of liability if he did.
This professor, with a little 'p' is a liar. No officer would do what he did unless the 'p' got a case of the 'ass, reverse prejudice'.
If someone is breaking in my house and someone calls the police, regardless of their race, color and etc., someone better call, the police better come and they better arrest if they show the slightest sign of problem. Let someone that is really a crook that is black do this to your house and the police don't respond, I hope your entire home is wiped out including everything sentimental. Then maybe you will learn, the news is making a headline that is creating more racial discrimination and problem than there really is.
The 'p' needs to be charged for messing up a police investigation and not showing proper ID when asked and could present it.
Police officers are to arrest first when in doubt. I already know this.
I think police officers need to go on strike for a week nation wide over this incident. 'See what happens next asshole news media.'
Unfortunately, it is getting to the point where I want to buy and AK47 to protect myself from the new media, much less any color or race.
IDIOTS
..to the poster(s) above. The Harvard libnazi elite seems to think the police are disposable humans, who are to risk their lives and violate protocols put in place for their safety and liability, to satisfy their whims.
Hopefully, this more-than-equal opportunity elitist academician will retreat into his academic womb and ponder his mistakes, but I have my doubts.
One other thing, to the poster above: don't buy an AK47: the ammo is expensive, you must train with it to be proficent and they are unwieldy in a home or closed space. My recommendation is a .357 caliber revolver with snake load in the first chamber and holow points in the others. This way, the snake load will give limited cross fire protection to others in the home and if a perp is hit, at close range, it'll likely stop him. The hollow points are there if it gets serious. trust me, when that snake load hits the perp, he'll think he broke into a bee hive. Also, get a barel lock and read up on accidental shootings in the home before buying a lethal weapon.
If the man arrested for disorderly conduct was white, the clearly warranted charge of disorderly conduct would still stand and a conviction would follow. I'm sick of of this whole reverse discrimination crap. The American political system sucks.
Because this is the culture of grievence that we let happen. For all the white people, and for African American ethnocentrists this is everyone not black, they live in a world where they feel that all of this lopsidedness is owed to them. For every person who let's them off the hook, buys into this racialist culture, or enables folks lik ethis so -called college professor, this is the world you have created.
The police is always innocent ...unless fortunately there is a video showing their lies like happened with Rodney King and others..Without any evidence the police state rules.Then you can taser an elderly person,shoot a negro or beat him up with complete impunity .And there will be the usual neocon idiots waling here that we live in a reverse racist society .How dare these negroes even accuse the police of anything at all.Every GOP person knows the police is never prejudiced against coloured people.Just ask them ...
Your the people who perpuate this crap.
Well check the facts you neocon;The professor was arrested in his own house ...for what reason ,except being black ?Tell us ..
Once again, the libnazi left, without a shred of evidence, wishing to be judge, jury and executioner paints this policemen as Metzger Evers. In the libnazi gossamer world, the police are supposed to risk their lives in order to maintain a standard of political correctness that libnazis themselves are incapable of. This policemen was supposed to put his own life on the line for a person who would spit in his face, when all he had to do was just show him his I.D.
Now, the president, with fewer facts about this than most of the legislation he has signed to date,acts as if he has a god's-eye view. Once again, we arrive at another Duke Rape case, with acadamia wishing to play god.
Pull your head a out of your ass and say disorderly conduct.
To the 43 year old black man,
I salute your level headedness. The commissioner was a black man and said the officer is stellar. He was even teaching the department on how to handle racial issues with anothyer black officer. This whole garabage has gotten so out of hand. I agree-protect yourself from the new media before they won't let you have your gun any longer.
..he was, as a point of protocol, detained for not identifying himself, a procedure officers use to protect citizens and themselves from harm. There is no way the officer can legitimately let this man loose in a house he cannot, or in this case chooses not to, identify as his.
Like the Duke Rape Case, the left speaks while ignoring the facts, for their own purposes, then when confronted, retreats behind the church walls of acadamia.
Oh really bigot boy:
'..he was, as a point of protocol, detained for not identifying himself, a procedure officers use to protect citizens and themselves from harm. There is no way the officer can legitimately let this man loose in a house he cannot, or in this case chooses not to, identify as his.:
The problem arose after it was determined it was in fact his house (don't you read anything idiots stick?). Then when the professor got upset, the officers overreacted. I thought they were trained to handle this kind of crap? I wonder if he was really causing a problem why they dropped the charges against him in less than 4 hours?
'Like the Duke Rape Case, the left speaks while ignoring the facts, for their own purposes, then when confronted, retreats behind the church walls of acadamia.'
Note even remotely like the Duke rape case. God you are stupid, the Duke rape case was caused by a 'white' prosecutor who was in fact a right wing bigot trying to get reelected. This cop is not a bigot just a hothead.
Jesus are you stupid, please read things before you spout your bigoted crap, then maybe we could have an intelligent discussion. So wrong and so full of crap.
He was arrested for not being able to keep his big mouth shut. End of story. No racism involved. Just an arrogant chest thumping man who has something to prove in America.
When you are black and intelligent in the USA...better shut up when the police is around,even in your own house .SP4 calls that 'police risking their lives '.Good joke,I guess the 72 year old professor walking with a cane is a menace to people like SP4 .Paranoid ?
..is that the libnazi philosophy is to judge something like this with facts they glean AFTER the incident as opposed to correctly using only the facts that were evident at the time. The professor, monkey boy did NOT correctly identify himself and the officers acted appropriately. Curious that it was the professor himself who was served here by officers potentially entering a hostile situation to protect HIS life and property.
'When you are black and intelligent in the USA...better shut up when the police is around,'
I think the correct syntax is '..are around'...
I guess spell check doesn't cover that, either.
Gates owes his job to racism. I can't wait for someone to tell me he's a scholar. Gates, Sharpton, et. al. have a vested interest in racism. It puts money in their pockets. They are the biggest obstacle to a 'post racial society'
Is the fact that Obama is 'haunted' when he is the living embodiment of just how much things have changed. You are correct though in that there is power in the culture of grievence.
page: 1
SP4: One has to askJul 24th, 2009 - 02:03:58
...how the esteemed professor would feel if his house were really broken into, the policemen being forced by a society to act irresponsibly politically correct, and then being killed because of it?
What is it about liberals that they seem to think police and soldiers are disposable human beings?
Report this comment