Thoughts on the Henry Gates debacle?
Ok, so the recent hot potato surrounding the issue of race is Harvard scholar Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. getting arrested in his own house after the cops were called because some neighbors saw two black men trying to get into a house. Here's a summary of the event. Two opinions on the event: one op-ed that says it's not about race, it's just about not getting angry with the cops and a different perspective that points out that the history and weight of always being a suspect for being a black man in America means there's more going on than just learning to control your temper. Put another way, a black man doesn't have the hidden privilege a white man has of knowing that he's not being interrogated simply because of his skin color. The officer interrogating Gates may have not been racially biased, but he just as well might have been because we live in a country that has been racially profiling people since its inception.
That's basically what Obama pointed out at the end of his press conference last night: "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."
I'm left wondering just what Obama meant when he said we need to "improve police techniques" to reduce bias? Can you really enforce or train cops to give up their bias? Anyhow, enough rambles, anyone else have thoughts or insights on the event?
Comments
I guess my concern is what happens to those who find themselves in this situation who are not like Professor Gates, who are not Harvard professors, who do not know the President. Their stories are not broadcasted on the news, they are not debated on cable. What happens to people like my friend's husband who happens to be a young black man who is arrested for loitering while waiting for a ride to pick him up? What happens to my friend and his father when they get pulled over and the cop demands to know how they, who are both hispanic, have such a nice truck? When the story goes away, what happens then? Even Ryan Moats's story has been forgotten by most Americans in the last few months (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4017382). How do we keep the conversation going?
Pastor Eugene's sermon from last week speaks volumes about the state of our world. We are in a storm. We are dealing with hurts (past and present) and realities that have us all - pumping our arm, swearing, blaming and the list goes on. It is tiring. I long for shalom. Yet I accept that storms are a necessary corrective. Blacks and Whites have been feuding for what seems like forever. I feel sadness for both groups - because we (including me) carry so much baggage and cargo around race, class and power. Can we ever find it in our heart and head to come to the threshing room and speak honestly about certain truths regarding both parties. Can we ever find it in our hearts and heads to learn the value of co-creating and sharing power. Will we ever understand the importance of assessing, inventorying and releasing. Apologies are needed from both sides in order to start the real dialogue.
We all fall short e. Can we g e we assessed, inventoried and thrown out.
Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph.
Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It?
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
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It takes a Village to protect our President!!!
The sad/true thing is that stereotypes are typically true. Even though I try not to place the race cards.. or discriminate, black people do have a certain feel to them.. just like white people. In this case, I believe it was blown way, WAY out of proportion, but still. It could have happened to anyone, white/black/asian/mexican.
(i do some consulting for a stretch marks education blog)
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