Posted on 08/24/2009 9:51:55 AM PDT by IbJensen
After the Obama-Gates-Crowley "beer summit" at the White House ended, Ronald Walter, a black longtime professor of politics at the University of Maryland, said: "Black parents are using this as a case in point of what they have been saying all along" to their children, "Racism hasn't gone away." Children, and especially black males, "are likely to confront it" from police. (Washington Post, July 30).
And on CNN, Colin Powell chimed in with his advice to black children: "When you're faced with an officer who is trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child."
Moreover, when President Obama insisted that the situation surrounding the arrest of the Harvard professor was a "teachable moment," former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said: "He's actually right. It is teachable." And Giuliani, customarily brusque, told people, including professor Gates, across the land: "Here's the lesson ... shut up when a cop is asking you questions!" (Fox News, July 31).
Clearly, Mr. Giuliani remains unteachable on this subject. As I reported during his dramatic mayoral career, none of his predecessors since 1958 (when I began covering City Hall) had so alienated black New Yorkers by urging his police to engage in large-scale stop-and-frisks of predominately black residents without charging them with a crime. For a time, he also refused to meet with black leaders.
As for blacks' encounters with police nationally, in 1995, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (before he became a household name) wrote in the Oct. 23 New Yorker magazine: "It's a commonplace that white folks trust the police and black folks don't. Whites recognize this in the abstract, but they're continually surprised at the depth of black wariness. They shouldn't be."
Apparently, Cambridge, Mass., police sergeant James Crowley missed that issue of The New Yorker.
In the same article, Gates added that "blacks - in particular black men - swap their experiences of police encounters like war stories." Almost as soon I got to know and hang out with black jazz musicians decades ago, I heard a lot of those war stories.
I hope, but am skeptical, that a lasting result of Gates' manacling will be the gradual decline in the number of these war stories. In all the continued coverage across the nation of the Gates bust, the one story that gave some substance to my hope appeared in the July 26 issue of the Long Island newspaper, Newsday: "Nassau, Suffolk cite training against racial profiling."
Reporters Zachary Dowdy and Rocco Parascandola told of how the "Nassau and Suffolk police departments said they aggressively work to avoid racial profiling through a medley of training programs and updates for officers."
In Nassau, along with 30 hours of training on cultural diversity in the police academy, a much more enduring practice is "data collection program that requires officers to note the race and ethnicity of motorists they stop on the road."
Detective Lt. Kevin Smith adds that this data is periodically studied to determine if the police department engages in racial profiling.
Furthermore - and I hope other police departments will take notice - Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy told Newsday: "Last year, for the first time, we completed a pilot program where we collected statistics to help identify a baseline for traffic stops and to red-flag officers who differed significantly from peers when making these stops."
What then? "We shared," said Levy, "these data with individuals who were above the norm, sought an explanation, and then possibly referred those individuals for additional training."
This postgraduate education for police officers, if extended nationally and to police on the streets as well, could eventually lead to fewer war stories among black males about the humiliation, and worse, of "Driving While Black."
He’s also adamantly pro-life, so I think he’s one who defies labels such as what you just tried to stick on him.
maybe on our way, but I mean totally. Their own stores, police force ,fire dept, and most importantly their own government entitlement offices, welfare, food stamps, section 8, everything. Let those who tell their children to watch out for us whites provide for themselves. I am sick of being slapped with the hand that isn’t in my pocket.
That is the funniest clip EVER! And I love that the Crabman is in it!
Hey, have you ever watched that show “Everybody hates Chris”? I didn’t watch for quite some time but I was really surprised at how good and funny a show it is! I mean for a family type show!
I don’t watch TV.
Replace liberal with "militant" and "white hating" and you have what Alan Dershowitz (!) of all people said in Chutzpah regarding black racial attitudes years ago.
I agree with you. You didn’t need to clarify, I just wanted to encourage you that there really are some of us out here who truly get it. None of us are perfect. We all bring some judgments to the table.
Thanks - One of my all time favorites. Had to watch it again to give me a chuckle here at work. :-)
Neither have I, but I do plan on starting to teach my blue-eyed blonde 11 year old daughter to start pulling that card, because she is being targeted for being a blue-eyed, blonde, very smart, white girl.
I truly hope that everyone here understands the sarcasm in the above sentence.
I know there are. My issue has never been with a particular color, race or creed, it is a TYPE of person; lazy, self indulgent, entitled, and ignorant. They come in all shapes,sizes and colors, and they are growing by leaps and bounds.
Atlas is going to have to shrug to cull the herd lest we all be crushed.......
As long as there is a Nat Hentoff, there will always be racism.
I HOPE black parents are telling their children the truth, that is:
- Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Republican.
- Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
- The NAACP was founded by a white man.
- It was the Republicans, not democrats, spearheading the Civil Rights movement, and supplying the votes for its success.
FTA: “In Nassau, along with 30 hours of training on cultural diversity in the police academy...”
Why isn’t there an equal or larger amount of training in the schools and neighborhoods about respecting the authority of the cops and not creating a bad situation by being confrontational?
One of the biggest reasons that the blacks vs cops meme continues is Hollywood’s portrayals in movies and television shows. Perhaps they need to accept their fair share of the blame.
Hmmmm...
It might, Nat, but only if you're willing to accept a lower level of policing in predominantly black neighborhoods. More violence, more crime, more young black men murdered by other young black men. Is that where we want to go?
—As for blacks’ encounters with police nationally, in 1995, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (before he became a household name) wrote in the Oct. 23 New Yorker magazine: “It’s a commonplace that white folks trust the police and black folks don’t.—
Wrong again, Skip. I wasn’t raised to be color-conscience, only cautious around strangers—as most children are raised. I was raised to respect law enforcement, the military, and others who take an oath to serve and protect. I was taught that law enforcement was there for us when in trouble. Option 1 was grabbing one of dad’s guns, if available and necessary.
First off, people like this get press but are NOT speaking for ALL Americans who happen to be black. I had this quote put on a plaque and it hangs in my home office:
****************************************************
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915.)
What do you mean “Surprisingly”? Giuliani is the most pro-police, anti-crime mayor New York ever had. Just because he’s been labeled “not conservative enough” here, doesn’t mean it’s true.
I was about to quote from Chris Rock’s funniest special, “You know who really hates you (white folks)? Old, black men.”
I had the good fortune to meet a conservative black man at the Irving/Valley Ranch Town Hall last week. He drove up from South Dallas to show his two children (middle school age) what "Democracy is all about". He prominently carried Mark Levin's book for all to see.
I bet he catches a lot of flak in his neck of the woods.
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