Ahh, the most liberal person I know other than me said it too.

It's true. Quit playing victim politics.

Bravo, Els.

Officer 2, not Crowley, called to see if the wagon was still coming, not calling for one, before the Harvard cops arrived.

I'd like to know just who made the 911 call, from the grassy knoll. The whole thing could have been orchestrated as publicity for Gates to push his reparations plan. :eyebrow:

Els - :notworthy: You totally got it.

This is also the biggest non story I can think of off the cuff. Act like an ass to a cop - get what you deserve.

After they were called, though, as I've been saying all along. At that point they knew who he was, and police officers who could verify it were on the way (or even there; the transcript doesn't say either way). Calling to cancel the wagon would have made more sense at that point. And the Harvard cops were there when they carted him away.

I don't see that it matters one damn bit that Gates was able to prove it was his house because he wasn't arrested for B and E. He was arrested because of his behavior towards the police officers during the course of their investigation. If you want to be a cock to the cops then take your lumps and enjoy your day, don't come crying racism.

That just bears repeating.

Seems like a clash of 2 egos that demand respect instead of earning it. Only 1 had handcuffs, so the outcome seems pretty obvious. Professor took a knife to a gun fight, so to speak.

Don't know about "African" anything Els, but being a black person in England does not mean having to have anything.

The black people I know are as different and diverse as the white people.
Chips on shoulders and attitudes and issues are far more dependent on social class, deprivation, family situation, sense of identity and (sadly) religion than they are on colour.

I can't speak for your country. You have a more violent racial history, and more recently, where people can remember their families being hosed, having dogs set on them, being segregated, being denied votes and schooling. Here, it's further back, where people's family memories include partition, colonial rule, Amritsar and all that. I'm not taking the moral high ground.

I'm just saying, while I applauded the first part of your post, the second part shocked me. I think the Professor acted like a cock. I don't care whether he was black, white, or sky-blue-pink. But your post sounds to you like to you it does. Which I find sad.

Doesn't stop you from trying, does it?
Did you happen to read anything about the original story? The fact that this man is a career expert in racially inflammatory subjects, sees everything with racially-colored glasses, and was the one that introduced the topic of race into this incident? Yet, in your mind, the pollyannish platitude that race is an invisible, neutral subject trumps everything else (even the facts). Nobody, especially--God forbid--a white American, is allowed to comment on race.

thanks Flint - you beat me to it and were much nicer than that which I was going to say.

Sorry to hear that about your car S123 - maybe they'll just total it and give you a shiny new one.

Fuckboy is going to buy me a brand new car to replace the car with 599 miles on it. I finally am mad...he broke the law and I'm the one sitting here in the dark while the insurance companies play their little games.

Can't wait til that little fucker throws the race card, which is where he was headed last I heard (it's a conspiracy against me, he says.)

Yeah, he's black, and from a foreign country. Do I care? No, he threw that card into the ring and I won't put up with that shit.

We weren't around many black people when I was little. (My dad was a foreman on highway construction and we travelled around and lived in some very remote places until I was halfway through first grade.) Before I went to preschool, my mom says she told me "Your teacher, Mrs ____ is black, and you haven't seen a black person." My mom hasn't a racist bone in her body: she wanted me to understand and not be surprised. She said I shrugged and said "is she nice?" I didn't even care when I didn't even know what it meant. Incidentally, my mom thought she was wonderful and from what little I remember I thought so too. *shrugs*

So to have that shit thrown around, and especially at ME, doesn't sit well with me. I quit making excuses for fucking up my life and changed it: why do I now pay for people who won't take responsibility for their own mistakes?

Boohoo, I'm a victim. Yeah, well, so were my ancestors. Bite me. kthxbai.

Flint hits the nail squarely on the head. White folks are *not* allowed to comment on race. Only people who are *not* white are so allowed, and they can bash away with all the forces of righteousness, without making the qualification that "assholes are assholes, not just white people", and it is not only acceptable, it is *encouraged*.

So I ask us all...which race is more racist? And how are we to have a dialogue towards easing tensions, righting wrongs and coming together if we cannot point out, honestly and openly, our cultural foibles that may work against us?

There are tests of this. Try throwing a White Heritage Festival and see how far you get. Then call for a Caucasian History Month in all schools. Have a White Film Festival, an Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People or a WET (White Entertainment Television - lots of reruns of Leave it to Beaver, I presume). You, the hypothetic organizer, would instantly become the most racist, bigoted person on the planet. Yet each and every one of the proposed entities I speculate above has it's African American counterpart. So how come it isn't racist in that context?

Racist is racist. Like being an asshole, it is not the province of a single color, religion or ethnicity. Racism is a two way street, period. The time has past for standing upon wrongs which cannot be undone, but which have been put as right as they can be at this point in time. Time to stop pointing fingers and to roll up the sleeves and get on with the hard work of getting on.

Well, when I was growing up, pretty much every day was Caucasian History. The only African American figure I remember studying was George Washington Carver. Other than that, it was all dead European dudes, settlers and Indians (the phrase "Native American" hadn't been coined).

I learned about John Brown, Sojourner Truth, and W. E. B. DuBois on my own dime.

Of course, I also don't remember studying anything about Haym Solomon in public school, so it wasn't just African Americans who were left out.

You did grow up a long time ago though, Rich. It was far more balanced when I went to school in the 80s and early 90s, and even moreso today for my kids' curriculum.