[quote name='camoor']I feel like you're nit-picking here because you don't want to see the overall picture, that no matter who you are if you mouth off to an officer and refuse to cooperate they're going to treat you as a suspect and pull you in the first chance they get. In this case feel Crowley also had a bad feeling about the situation and wanted to get it under control as quickly as possible.[/QUOTE]
Except that (1) you are correct that mouthing off can get you in trouble with the police. I'm not saying that they should, or do, shrug it off. But I am saying that you are more likely to experience those cuffs for mouthing off if you are black. Also, that (2) what do you consider getting "the situation...under control?" What more is there to do now that you've established that the person you're questioning is the owner and resident of the house, and not, in fact, a burglar? What situation are you controlling when you've dropped the pursuit of said burglar to arrest the owner of the house for Disorderly?
[quote name='UncleBob']See, you're looking at this and then deciding that every situation is anti-black. Do you at least recognize the fact that this situation *could* have nothing to do with race?[/QUOTE]
First things first, here's your money quote if that's all you want: yes, there is indeed a chance - a glint of a glint of a chance, that this has nothing to do with race. I would also remark that said chance is improbably low - but it still exists. Like "Cubs win the World Series" low.
Now, if you want a genuine answer (and I suspect you do, despite my general lack of niceties to you), I would argue (as I have before) that racism ≠ Crowley having malicious and/or racist thoughts. It's not "
this black asshole" that has to be considered to be racist.
It's institutional racism - the justified racism that I contend exists. Rationalized, justified, explained differential treatment due to minority status. The kind of racism that people support, like in Michelle Malkin's "In Defense of Internment." It's the "if you see something strange or suspicious in your neighborhood, you report it to the police." Except, in our America today, which is a helluva lot less integrated geographically than we think, simply being nonwhite in a neighborhood is enough to trigger suspicions. There's plenty of support for the idea of "driving while black" - after all, we applaud those who look after their own neighborhood to report to the police that things seem amiss. Unfortunately, things being amiss can simply mean "I see people who aren't from this neighborhood," and that is most easily triggered by the visible displays of nonwhiteness.
Which, as someone (elprincipe?) pointed out, could have come from the person who initially made the 911 call - not someone Gates knows, mind.
There were half a dozen police on the premises when Gates was arrested - why so many? Now I'm sure Cambridge is a more "ticket for speeding" kind of police jurisdiction, so nothing better to do might explain such a response. Was it fear of a burglary, which might be dangerous? Or fear of the respondent's race? Could be.
I think an audit study would show how the Cambridge police respond to similar emergency calls. Crowley's record may suggest he is an exemplar, but I'd like to see his record as well. As public servants given great power over citizens, this is not too much to ask, IMO.
Crowley may have acted with no racial malice, but that doesn't mean racism did not occur. Amadou Diallo, Omar J Edwards, and Dexter Brown may not have been shot/killed (save Brown) had they been white - but that doesn't mean they were shot because the firing officer(s) hated blacks. So it is indeed racism in those cases, but a more unconscious sort of stereotype internalization.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - conscious, willed disgust/dislike of another race is not the only racism in this world by a long shot; moreover, it's the least dangerous kind, because we're unaware that we possess the unconscious variety, and therefore do nothing to destroy it.
Speaking of overt racism, I saw a cat the other day (while driving to Pittsburgh) wearing a t-shirt that said "Adolf Hitler European Tour 1939-1943" on the back, with a list of cities he conquered and a list of locations of camps. While disgusting on the surface, that's not the kind of racism I'm afraid of. We all know that man is racist. It is those, however, who revile at the idea of this kind of racism but perpetuate their own differential treatment with no malice that are more dangerous. I.e., those who don't consider the possibility of testing bias in the case of how the tests were written for these firefighters. But that's on the topic of this thread, which, at this point, is remarkably off topic.
