Make Nice when a Cop Yells at You

About 10 years ago, I was crossing the international border to the United States from Mexico with my cousin, who is a Mexican citizen. She was going to visit me for a few days.

The ICE officer she was speaking to about a tourists visa was outrageously rude. She is a retired school teacher, which is stated on her I.D. Instead of using the word "retirada" (retired), he said she was "retardada" (retarded). She and I were shocked at his audacity. Yet, neither one of us said anything. You cannot say anything to an ICE officer, or he'll find a way to make your life miserable. In that particular situation, she would not have been able to cross over with me.

What my cousin experienced, and many other people who cross into the U.S. (and millions of Latinos and Blacks who encounter police officers who are rude, cruel, mean, or inappropriate).

This is what happened to Henry Louis Gates. It is what some people call "living while black." Well there is also a "living while Latino."

As Bob Herbert says so eloquently, Gates' mistake was to yell at the officer. The officer's mistake was to arrest a man who already proved he was breaking the door to his own home.

Obama's remark about it being "stupid" - was not off the mark. He was reacting to an ridiculous situation that happens continuously to Black and Latino men. Being President, his choice of words could have been better - but what he said was true. I wonder how many times in his life he was treated disrespectfully because he is Black...

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Op-Ed Columnist
Anger Has Its Place

By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 31, 2009

Cambridge, Mass.


...Most whites do not want to hear about racial problems, and President Obama would rather walk through fire than spend his time dealing with them. We’re never going to have a serious national conversation about race....link to complete NYT article

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Bad Words on Race

Whoever says that race hatred has gone away now that Obama is President, is wrong. It is all over Texas - (in the suburbs and rural areas), and unfortunately in Boston. See this video related to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

Perhaps the Houston Fire Department should learn from how Boston is handling their current racial crisis..

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Obama and Henry Louis Gates

Obama Addresses Race and Gates Incident

By Krissah Thompson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, July 23, 2009; 10:12 AM

President Obama said Wednesday night that racial issues still haunt America, even as he noted "the incredible progress that has been made."

Obama was asked at the end of his news conference about the arrest last week of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside his home. The incident has sparked a national discussion about race relations.

Obama noted that "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here," and he referred to the professor's account of arriving home to find a jammed door, forcing it open and then being confronted by a white police officer looking for proof that Gates lived in the house. According to Gates's account, he showed the officer his ID and became angry when the officer would not identify himself.

The president said he understands the professor's outrage. If he were trying to "jigger into" his old house in Chicago, Obama said, he would assume that the police would be called on him as well. But once Gates showed his ID, he added, it seemed to him the officer should have considered the issue resolved.

"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that," Obama said. "But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."

The remarks received extensive coverage overnight on blogs and top billing on several television news shows Thursday morning.

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"What I think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact," Obama said Wednesday night. He said he had pushed for the passage of a bill in the Illinois legislature to address the problem.

Obama went on to say that he stood in the White House "as testimony to the progress that's been made."

"And yet the fact of the matter is . . . this still haunts us," he said. "And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently, and oftentime for no cause, casts suspicion, even when there is good cause." ...link to complete WP article

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Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrested by Cambridge MA police

What did he do wrong? He was standing on his own front porch...

For those of you who don't know this man. He is considered one of the most important African American scholars in the nation. click here for a list of the books he has written.

click here for link to police report

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Harvard professor Gates arrested at [his] Cambridge home

July 20, 2009 05:55 PM

Boston Globe

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Police arrived at Gates' Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.

He was booked for disorderly conduct after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had "no idea who he was messing with,'' the report said.

Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because "I'm a black man in America.'' [To read a copy of the police report, click here]

Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver's license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.

The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. "It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,'' the officer wrote in the report.

Gates, 58, declined to comment today when reached by phone.

The arrest of such a prominent scholar under what some described as dubious circumstances shook some members of the black Harvard community... link to complete article

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