Thread: Obama Police Comments Trigger Firestorm

Obama Police Comments Trigger Firestorm

Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:40 PM

Making his first foray into a divisive racial issue, President Barack Obama sided with Henry Louis Gates Jr. after the black scholar's arrest by a white police officer, a striking departure from Obama's "post-racial" impartiality.

Saying that the white sergeant acted "stupidly" in arresting Gates, Obama inflamed an already volatile topic. Although he backed off that comment slightly Thursday, Obama stood by his assessment that the arrest of the Harvard professor "doesn't make sense."

After years of deftly defusing racial land mines, why did Obama speak out now? Because Gates is a friend and fellow Harvard man? Because racial profiling is an issue close to the president's heart?

Or could Obama, contemplating the idea of a white cop questioning a black man in his own home, have lost his legendary cool?

"I think he was responding emotionally. It was a visceral reaction," said Mary Frances Berry, a University of Pennsylvania history professor and former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

"It is a milestone, in a sense" said Berry, who was watching the news conference when Obama made the original statement. "It's his first foray into putting his tippy-toe into the water, to respond directly to something about race."

The journalist Ellis Cose, author of "The Rage of a Privileged Class," about anger among successful blacks, pointed out that Obama had sponsored legislation while an Illinois state senator to combat racial profiling.

"To the extent that he did drop his sort of nonracial face, so to speak, it was because this is an issue he feels personally passionate about and an issue that has clearly touched most black men in America of a certain age," Cose said. "I think he was personally outraged."

From the start, Gates' claims that he was racially profiled seemed like a case from the divided past, when truth was subjective, sympathies color-coded _ and most presidents stayed neutral.

The Harvard history professor and prominent intellectual returned home from a trip to China last week and had to force open his jammed front door. A white woman who works nearby called police to report a possible break-in. Sgt. James Crowley arrived to find Gates inside the house and demanded to see some ID.

Gates says Crowley treated him rudely and refused to provide his badge number; Crowley says Gates yelled at him, accused him of racism and refused to calm down. Gates was charged with disorderly conduct and spent a few hours in custody. The charges were quickly dropped.

At the end of a news conference Wednesday night, Obama was asked about the arrest. After saying that he didn't know the details of what happened, the president plunged into uncharted waters.

"I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three _ what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

In an interview with ABC on Thursday, Obama said he was surprised by the reaction to his comments. He didn't take back his words, but he did offer that he understood Crowley was an "outstanding police officer."

"My suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates," he said, "and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed."

But for many black men, the history and humiliation of racial profiling makes it almost impossible to keep cool.

In his book "The Audacity of Hope," Obama said he has personally felt its sting: "Security guards tailing me as I shop in department stores, white couples who toss me their keys as I stand outside a restaurant waiting for the valet, police cars pulling me over for no apparent reason. I know what it's like to have people tell me I can't do something because of my color, and I know the bitter swill of swallowed-back anger."

So did this history lead Obama to step, however briefly, out of character _ or maybe back INTO it?

"The notion of a friend, of a fellow human being, being humiliated in their home cuts to the core," answered Benjamin Todd Jealous, CEO of the NAACP, which is pushing for a federal ban on profiling.

"Racial profiling is like lightning, it's a form of humiliation that strikes randomly," he said. "It humiliates black men in front of their children, in their homes, in stores."

As an Illinois state senator, Obama was a key figure in the Legislature's 2003 decision, after years of debate, to require police to record information on race in traffic stops so that the data could be analyzed for evidence of profiling. But rather then settling the question, the results were vague enough to allow debates between police and minority advocates to continue.

In 2004, Obama's star was born with his speech at the Democratic National Convention calling for unity among all Americans. Since then, he had largely declined to delve into racial issues, choosing a middle ground that reflected his biracial parentage.

Forced during the campaign to respond to accusations that he shared the divisive views of former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama delivered a landmark speech in Philadelphia that empathized both with blacks who face discrimination and whites who "don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race."

A long silence on race followed. When asked about solving "minority" problems like high unemployment or low educational achievement, Obama's position was that improving the economy and education for everyone would disproportionately help minorities.

In a speech last week to the NAACP, Obama told the black audience that structural racism continues to deny opportunity to blacks _ and then he demanded more personal responsibility and "no excuses."

So when Obama angered police officers nationwide by siding with Gates, conservative radio host Mike Gallagher called it "stunning."

"He has positioned himself as a guy who wanted to move past the racial divisiveness of the past," Gallagher said. "On race, he's supposed to be a unifier. ... My fear is that racial identity is much more of the agenda for President Obama than he ever let on."

Gallagher wasn't the only one taken aback by Obama's choice of words.

"He said the Cambridge police acted stupidly," the black radio host Gayle King said in a conversation with Gates on her show. "I agree with him, but I was surprised that the president of the United States would use that particular phrase."

Responded Gates: "I think that the circumstances are so egregious ... (the word) logically popped into his head."

___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Wills in Springfield, Ill., contributed to this report.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/us_o ... 39502.html

Cop Obama Called Stupid Is Lauded Profiling Expert

Thursday, July 23, 2009 3:25 PM

The white police sergeant President Barack Obama criticized for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being handpicked for the job by former Police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

"I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy," Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The course, called "Racial Profiling," teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from," Fleming said.

Obama has said the Cambridge officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates last week when they responded to his house after a woman reported a suspected break-in.

Crowley, 42, has maintained he did nothing wrong and has refused to apologize, as Gates has demanded.

Crowley responded to Gates' home near Harvard University last week to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded that Gates show him identification. Gates at first refused, flew into a rage, and accused the officer of racism, police say.

Gates was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday.

Gates' supporters maintain that his arrest was a case of racial profiling. Officers were called to the home by a woman who said she saw "two black males with backpacks" trying to break in the front door. Gates has said he arrived home from an overseas trip and the door was jammed.

Obama was asked about the arrest of Gates, who is his friend, at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night.

"I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

In radio interviews Thursday morning, Crowley maintained he followed procedure.

"I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as he himself stated before he made that comment," Crowley told WBZ-AM. "I guess a friend of mine would support my position, too."

Crowley did not immediately respond to messages the AP left Thursday. The Cambridge police department scheduled a news conference for later Thursday.

Gates has said the arrest "outraged" him. He said the white officer walked into his home without his permission and arrested him only as the professor followed him to the porch, repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number because he was unhappy over his treatment.

"This isn't about me," Gates said. "This is about the vulnerability of black men in America."

He said the incident made him realize how vulnerable poor people and minorities are "to capricious forces like a rogue policeman, and this man clearly was a rogue policeman."

The president said federal officials need to continue working with local law enforcement "to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias."

Fellow officers, black and white, say Crowley is well-liked and respected on the force. Crowley was a campus police officer at Brandeis University in July 1993 when he administered CPR trying to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis. Lewis, who was black, collapsed and died during an off-season workout.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who is black, said he was troubled and upset over the incident. Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, who also is black, has said she spoke with Gates and apologized on behalf of the city, and a statement from the city called the July 16 incident "regrettable and unfortunate."

The mayor refused Thursday to comment on the president's remarks.

Police supporters contend that Gates, director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, was responsible for his own arrest because he overreacted.

Black students and professors at Harvard have complained for years about racial profiling by Cambridge and campus police. Harvard commissioned an independent committee last year to examine the university's race relations after campus police confronted a young black man who was using tools to remove a bike lock. The man worked at Harvard and owned the bike.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/us_h ... 39406.html

Barry's true colors shown through last night when he said the white cop acted "stupidly" and he never brought up Gates tirade.


Wasn't it curious that this issue came up at all last night? We all know that Barry stacks the deck in his favor and knows the questions he is going to ask so he can prepare his lies.

Originally Posted by ELE

Barry's true colors shown through last night when he said the white cop acted "stupidly" and he never brought up Gates tirade.


Wasn't it curious that this issue came up at all last night? We all know that Barry stacks the deck in his favor and knows the questions he is going to ask so he can prepare his lies.

I like the way that obama allways throws latinos and blacks in the same sentence in his speaches lately.Did any one listen to his speach a few days ago to the NAACP conference? He made several references to "blacks and latinos" in his speech.Wonder what he is trying to accomplish by doing this?Hmmm.For him to make his comment about this police officer acting stupid when he doesn't even know what happened makes me wonder.Just how is he uniting the Country? Seems to me that he is trying to split us even farther apart and all for political gain.

So much for the uniter. If Geroge W said anything like that he would be called a racist and there would be calls for his resignation.

Originally Posted by agrneydgrl

So much for the uniter. If Geroge W said anything like that he would be called a racist and there would be calls for his resignation.

As much as I was against Bush and his policies, you are certainly right about that one! We don't have a NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People) where we can file our grievances because that is racist!

If you have a FaceBook page please join this group.


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=1 ... 830&ref=mf

If we get enough members maybe we can send a letter demanding he apologize.

Check this out!!!!

Bill Cosby wants the professor and the cop to kiss and make up!

I think the professor AND the president should kiss the cop's butt!

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/loc ... s_incident

Obama and his big mouth!

Disgraceful:' Obama Criticism of Black Scholar's Arrest Angers Cops

I am disgraced that he is our commander-in-chief," Stephen Killion said. "He smeared the good reputation of the hard-working men and women of the Cambridge Police Department. It was wrong to do. It was disgraceful,"

(As a side note, I know many in the U.S. military feel the same way)

Obama was asked about Gates' arrest at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night and began his response by saying Gates was a friend and he didn't have all the facts.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534687,00.html

O.K. I"m sorry and I apologize for what I'm about to say and if my comments are deleted, that's fine but I am so damn fed up. Obama is nothing but a ******!!!! Their are blacks, African Americans, and Negros but HE is a ******!!!

Again, my apologies but I just needed to blow off some steam.