Posted on 07/23/2009 12:52:30 PM PDT by americanophile
BOSTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama plunged his presidency into a charged racial debate and set off a firestorm in one of America's most liberal bastions by siding with a black Harvard scholar who accuses police of racism.
Saying he was unaware of "all the facts" but that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in their arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Obama whipped up emotions on both sides of an issue that threatens to open old wounds in Massachusetts.
His comments marked his biggest foray into the hot-button issue of race since taking office in January, and underline how racial issues remain very much alive even despite advances embodied by his election as the first black U.S. president.
"Unfortunately the racial divide is still there. It's still very raw. I think he was trying to let the majority of non-minority Americans have a sense of what it is like to a black or Latino," said Boston University professor of politics Thomas Whalen.
But many in Massachusetts said he crossed a line by passing judgment on police while acknowledging he did not have all the facts. Online polls in Massachusetts show strong support for the white arresting officer. A police union also has come to his defense.
"He should steer clear of it if he doesn't know all the facts," said Patricia Lynch, 49, a consultant and graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as she emerged from a Boston cafe. "For any specific case, you have to go only by the facts of that particular case."
Gates, 58, director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African & African American Research, is a potent cultural force, listed as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997. He is a friend of Obama and other black celebrities
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Wasn’t it a gay harvard professor that was raping his adopted son and offering other gays to rape him on the internet?
Who is harvard hiring these days.
“stir up racial passions”...
that’s code for “if there’s a white guy, he’s the racist”.
That was Duke.
It’s kinda fun to see these Yankees tearing at each other.
“His comments marked his biggest foray into the hot-button issue of race since taking office in January”
Umm...and all the other speeches and pronouncements he’s made about race were just tiny little blips on the radar? Obama has been racist since the day he declared his candidacy, and has had no qualms whatsoever about leveling the same charge against any of his opponents.
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This is what? The third so-called “racial” incident by Democrats in the past few months? and they call us the racists...
Wow...I’ve never heard that before, is that true?
Per Drudge!
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99KBEAO1&show_article=1
“unaware of all the facts” but that doesn’t stand in the way of implying “racism” anyway.
Yeah, that is leadership with no bias.
Yet he expects other American’s not to be biased when it comes to race.
Yeah, President Obama, that’s the leftist liberal route of race politics.
Too rich!
Yes, I stand corrected.
Being from California, we don’t see any difference between Duke and Harvard - there all just way over there nuts.
It was Duke about 2 weeks ago it was discussed here.
BO is just another race pimp.
Ignant racist president. Plain and simple. See, Reverend Wright wasn’t such a non-issue, was it now? You are judged by the company you keep for a reason.
Maybe it’s time we had black police officers for blacks, and white police officers for whites. That would fix it.
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