NYT OpEd: President Obama, Professor Gates and the Cambridge Police

[Uzybone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/opinion/24fri4.html

The American obsession with people who are said to transcend race began long before Barack Obama moved into the White House — long before he even thought about running for president. Affluent, well-educated black people were being appropriated as symbols of racial progress — and held up as proof that racism no longer mattered — back when Mr. Obama was still a youth in short pants.

White Americans have little experience with this brand of appropriation. In general, their personal and professional triumphs are viewed as the product of individual fortitude and evidence that the founding ideals of the nation are alive and well.

Successful African-Americans — whether they are sports stars, entertainers or politicians — are often accorded a more tortured significance. In addition to being held up as proof that racism has been extinguished, they are often employed as weapons in the age-old campaign to discredit, and even demean, the disadvantaged.

“Don’t talk to us about discrimination,” the argument typically goes. “You made it. If the others got off their behinds and tried, they would, too.” In this rhetoric of race, there is no such thing as social disadvantage, only hard-working, morally upright people who succeed, and lazy, morally defective people who do not.

snip

These remarks could change how the news media sees the president’s views on race. Up to now, he has been consistently and wrongly portrayed as a stern black exceptionalist who takes Negroes to task for not meeting his standard.

He is not happy with this characterization. That was clear in a recent Oval Office interview with the columnist Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post. Mr. Obama complained about the press coverage of his speeches and seemed especially miffed about the portrayal of the one he delivered before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this month.

He suggested that the news media had overemphasized his remarks about “personal responsibility” — a venerable theme in the African-American church — while disregarding “the whole other half of the speech,” which included a classic exercise in civil-rights oratory.

snip

In a remark that became instantly famous, he responded that the police acted “stupidly” in arresting Mr. Gates when no crime had been committed and the professor was standing in his own home. Mr. Obama further noted that disproportionate attention from the police was an unwelcome fact of black life in America.

People who have heretofore viewed Mr. Obama as a “postracial” abstraction were no doubt surprised by these remarks. This could be because they were hearing him fully for the first time.

[lindisfarne]

1. Obama was right. Gates was in his own home. Police had no search warrant. They entered

without permission. As soon as they saw his ID, they should have apologized & promptly answered any questions (such as badge # & name), and left.

The police were completely out of line.
The man was in his own home. He has a right to argue, raise his voice, even be belligerent. He never physically threatened the police, and by that point, they knew they had no business being in the house.

[lindisfarne]

6. Link to LA Times article. It says "Obama was surprisingly emotive" - not so surprising when you can

reasonably expect that Obama himself has likely been subject to similar types of racial profiling at various points in his life (and without a doubt, he knows people who have been).

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gates-analysis24-2009jul24,0,2990550.story

But Obama was surprisingly emotive and unequivocal when answering the question and concluding that the Cambridge, Mass., police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, who is black, after he tried to pry open a stuck door to gain entry to his own home.

Obama said he did not know what role if any race played in the matter. But he also seemed to welcome the opportunity to teach a larger racial lesson. Obama used the question to recall his sponsorship as an Illinois state legislator of legislation to crack down on racial profiling, noting that "there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped" disproportionately by police.

"Race remains a factor in this society," the president said. "That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made. And yet, the fact of the matter is that, you know, this still haunts us."

With his comments, the country's first black president all but ensured wider attention to the simmering racial dispute -- and also risked overshadowing the main purpose of his press conference, which was to drain controversy from his ambitious plans to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.
==========

I got irate when a grocery store insisted on searching a backpack I always carried with me (my main transport was a bike). They had a sign only visible *upon exit* that said they search all customers' bags.

I seriously considered refusing to allow them to search it, and letting them call the police (and thereby, waste the police's time). The only reason I didn't was I didn't have hours to sit around.
I never entered the store again (it was an Aldi - and it was the first (and last) time I had gone there. My backpack remained on my back throughout my quick trip through the store).

I didn't bother to waste my time writing to their corporate headquarters because I didn't care enough, nor did I expect it to make any difference).

[hlthe2b]

10. Now that stores require/encourage you to bring your own bag...

It would seem they are going to have to lighten up.... I have always been annoyed at stores that post these signs (that backpacks and bags must be left up front upon entry or some such..). WTF is the difference between a bag and a purse.

I'm sympathetic to the issue of theft and certainly comply-- with everyone else-- if one of those detectors goes off when something was inadvertently not demagnetized at the check out counter. But, otherwise, I think stores need to be very cautious about making these kind of confrontations.

[lindisfarne]

9. Link to 1 (of the 2) police reports "arrested for loud & tumultuous behavior in a public place" (his

OWN home)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17512830/Gates-Police-Report

[Phx_Dem]

14. Loud behavior = being mouthy. The cop let his ego dictate his judgement.

Arresting a prominent Harvard professor who is a older man, walks with a cane, is his own home, mouthing off after the cop follows him into his home and refused to show I.D. is ludicruis. And the police commissioner sounds like a huge asshole with his stupid remark. If the cop acted so rightly, why were the charges dropped?!

And I'd still ike to know why it 6 cops showed up!

[FrenchieCat]

2. So as far as the NYT are concerned, only Black people would say that

what the Cops did could be deemed as stupid.
Meanwhile, all of the "normal" people could only conclude that Obama
now see things from the perch of a Black man, and therefore,
they should be surprised!

[Uzybone]

3. I didnt quite read the Op ed that way

my copy n paste may not tell the entire gist of it, but his point seemed to be that those who are surprised that Obama commented on this the way he did, have not been paying attention to who he is.

[FrenchieCat]

4. I got that part of it.

The part that I didn't get is why this particular comment coming from the President should indicate to folks that it was they who didn't realize that he never was into the "exceptional Black" syndrome. As far as I'm concerned, a White President who would have known this professor should have responded in the same way, if he were really understanding of the plight of Black People. That's what makes this OP narrow minded, IMO; the presumption that White Folks should automatically see it differently from the way Obama obviously saw it.

[Uzybone]

5. very true, you don't have to be black to see the injustice

[sandnsea]

8. That has bugged me for a long time though

I hate the way the media always picks up his "responsibility" remarks while missing the entire rest of his speeches. Some troll came here yesterday and made a snide post about Obama telling parents to turn off the teevee, like that somehow relieves the education system from providing functional schools. So I hate that and if that's called an "exceptional Black syndrome", then I hate that.

And I was instantly repulsed by the incident and reading the police reports is only more confounding. He was arrested for exhibiting "loud and tumultuous" behavior. Since when is that a cause for arrest. Unreal.

[BlooInBloo]

7. I took that point to be that those who hold the scales over their own eyes...

WERE (not should be) surprised, when Obama (so rudely - heh) tore them way.

Were surprised, not should be surprised.

That's how I read it, at any rate.

[hlthe2b]

11. I don't read it that way either, FrenchieCat...

If you haven't read the whole piece in context, see if you don't read it differently in total...:shrug:

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. As I said elsewhere, a lot of white folks just realized that Obama was actually a black dude

The analogy:

It's like when three white guys see the black guy they golf with on the public course out at a bar with his black friends. Suddenly, the guy they know wearing golf attire looks like - gasp - a black dude. And he nods at them, and when they come over to say hello he's a little standoffish and like "Yeah, what up, yo," and his black friends, one of whom is wearing one of those scary doo-rags, are eying these white boys with amused half-smiles. And the white guys go back over to their table, and they're all like, oh holy shit, Reggie is a black dude and not just our black golf buddy. HOLY SHIT!

That was the national reaction about halfway through Obama's pronouncement of the word "stupidly."

[ProSense]

13. And all it took was the police arresting a Harvard scholar in his own home.

"Stupidly."

The clear implication is that Obama is black, but should not comment on incidents involving black people unless asked to (as he was, despite the spin).

Now, on the off chance that a white President had been asked the question (whether Gates was black or white), would his response generate such outrage?

It's obvious, this is about a black president commenting on a black person's arrest, and the police officer happens to be white.

The question would it have been any less stupid for a black officer to arrest Gates in his own home?

No. The action was utterly stupid. Period.