Imagine there's no racism

[hfojvt]

it's easy if you're white
no police brutality
cops are always polite
imagine all the people
living in fantasyland

Not that I am saying that anybody is saying 'there is no racism' although some may be saying it for the Gates incident.

Just a lead in to share Somerby's take on it.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/

Somerby mostly comments on Lawrence Bobo's piece in the WaPo and how it relies on imagination.

"But as Professor Bobo continues to “imagine,” he imagines this story only one way. He imagines it as it has constantly been imagined in the course of our tragic history. As he “imagines,” the account of the rich/famous/wealthy party is simply assumed to be accurate. The account of the fellow with working-class roots isn’t even described, although it exists on-line. Indeed, the wealthy fellow’s account is credited even when it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. The working-class fellow’s account disappears—when it portrays the wealthy fellow having perhaps a bad day. (To read reports from Crowley and another officer, click here. Like Bobo, we don’t know if these reports are accurate.)"

There is also a link there to the actual police report. It appears that one corroborating officer was hispanic, if I am guessing right from his name.

The following paragraph also seemed interesting as did his thoughts about Professors.

"Since Professor Bobo wasn’t present that day, his account is truly remarkable. He keeps imagining what “maybe” occurred, telling us what is “possible.” As his account proceeds, the behavior of one person gets more and more noble; the behavior of the other goes the other way. But then, this story has always been imagined this way. The wealthy planter’s story has always been truthful. The account of the grimy field hand has always been tossed away."

Of course, others have said that my comments on Gates rely on my imagination too, and they do to a degree. I imagine the police report is mostly accurate when I do not know for certain since I was not there. It's likely that none of us were.

Somerby then takes a swipe at Professors in general

"Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t think real highly of the professoriate, overall. In part, that’s because we’ve read some of their books—or at least, we’ve read as far into some of their books as a person can read without simply pretending. (We tend to stop at page 30.) In part, it’s because we’ve seen them refuse to intervene in our broken public affairs over the past twenty years. Professors of logic won’t intercede; nor will professors of health care (see below). On balance, we don’t think a whole lot of this group. We think even less of this gang after reading Professor Bobo’s odd essay."

Sorta makes me wonder. Typically I think of Professors as being mostly liberal (except in the economics department where I know different from personal experience) because they are intelligent and educated. But, given that they are generally well paid enough to be in the top 20% I wonder how liberal they are at least on economic issues. Perhaps they lend themselves more to DLC/Clinton type liberalism. Very liberal on social issues and not so liberal on economic ones.