AP article: Lucia 'Whalen was vilified as a racist on blogs'

[Eric J in MN]

Was she really?

I didn't read any blogs which called her racist.

If there were such blogs, I think the AP reporter should give us the names of the blogs and bloggers if the opinions expressed there are so important.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090729/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_caller

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The woman who dialed 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Wednesday she was pained to be wrongly labeled a racist based on words she never said and hoped the recently released recording of the call would put the controversy to rest.

With a trembling voice, Lucia Whalen, 40, said she was out walking to lunch in Gates' Cambridge neighborhood near Harvard University when an elderly woman without a cell phone stopped her because she was concerned there was a possible burglary in progress.

Whalen was vilified as a racist on blogs after a police report said she described the possible burglars as "two black males with backpacks."

Tapes of the call released earlier this week revealed that Whalen did not mention race. When pressed by a dispatcher on whether the men were white, black or Hispanic, she said one of them might have been Hispanic.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Crowley lied in his report and bloggers take the heat

Figures.

[Fumesucker]

2. If she was it was because of execrable reporting.. n/t

[EFerrari]

10. Actually, there was a racist narrative put into play that people responded to.

It just turned out not to be hers but Crowley's.

[billyoc]

3. "Some bloggers say" is the new "Some people say".

:eyes:

[Enrique]

4. I read people calling her racist

how she was afraid of big scary black men, how she didn't even know her own neighbor, that kind of thing.

[WeDidIt]

5. All I wanted to know was why wouldn't they play the 911 tape

When they finally did, I figured my suspicions were valid because I suspected she said nothing about race.

[BlooInBloo]

6. I don't recall that, but if so, it's a good thing the 911 call was released.

[Buzz Clik]

7. "I didn't read any blogs which called her racist." I've read it here at DU.

I'm guessing blogs have made similar accusations.

[Gothmog]

8. Really?

I read most of the threads on this topic and do not recalling seeing any posts calling the 911 caller a racist.

[timeforpeace]

9. Who, little levelheaded fair minded us? Many, many such posts.

[hfojvt]

11. Worse yet, she was villified on TV

"MATTHEWS: She was profiling him!

(LAUGHTER)

DYSON: Yes. Yes. She saw his profile and called in: “Yes, this guy with the cane looks like he’s going to beat me down.” But the point is—

MATTHEWS: See, what I don’t understand is, she knew her neighbor was African-American. He had a certain look. She sees a guy with a certain look. She wasn’t profiling, or what—what was going on here?"

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh072809.shtml


Not called a racist, but said to have engaged in racial profiling.

[EFerrari]

12. Not really. Matthews brings up rightfully that the reporting doesn't make sense.

And it didn't make sense because it didn't happen.

[hfojvt]

15. Mathrews comments were what didn't make sense

He was reporting it himself when he could have known better.

"Why was that a “teachable moment?” Because this moment was so typical of the way this group does business. By that time, we’d already done a bit of background reading about this unfortunate, newly-reported incident; for that reason, we already knew that the women who called the police was not Professor Gates’ neighbor. (For example, we had read this.) But to judge from their performance, none of these three men had done even modest preparation, and so they didn’t know that. To them, your public discourse isn’t important enough to rate a few moments of basic prep. Lords like these don’t stoop before handing comment to serfs."

Although it might be interesting to see a timeline. Is Hardball shown live or are segments taped in advance? Somerby had read the article by the time he watched Hardball, but could they have read it by the time they taped Hardball?

[Eric J in MN]

14. Thanks for the link. The caller wasn't even Gate's neighbor.

She lives in Malden, MA, about 20 minutes from Cambridge, MA.

[seabeyond]

13. it was crowleys lies that made people question this witness. to hear backpacks knowing

it is luggage, to see them take it into house and be clueless, makes people question.

shame on crowley once again

he gets to own this

[TheKentuckian]

16. She was stupidly slammed by several. Some in a dumb anger dragnet other trying to cover for the cop.

In fact, I still don't get why she would be seen as racist if she described the people she saw. I'm mean if she was like "There's two niggers trying to break into a house and there's no way they belong around here" or something I could see the venom but saying she sees two black males or whatever is totally inbounds.

[EFerrari]

17. Well, think about all the times you read a story in LBN about some

stupid arrest and then, reading at the link, it becomes apparent that the victim is a Latino or a black person. That detail is usually not screamed in headlines or fronted as it was in this story. People were responding to that fronting, imo, and took it out on this lady. The script that Crowley ran tripped peoples' triggers.

[armyowalgreens]

18. She was accused of being racist on DU...

I wouldn't be surprised if it happened elsewhere.