I didn’t like "cringing" last night when Obama started talking about the Gates’ arrest. Gates was a bit too righteously indignant for me. I’d have preferred him making the same point with a touch of humility, a slight show of empathy for the officer, a thin acknowlegement of the crime statistics. But then I had some otherr thoughts. My cringing had to do with the coming Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, who-knows-who-all response that will fan the racism with charges of racism – all that ‘stuff’ I’ve gotten so tired of hearing over my lifetime.
I’ve decided that America’s ‘diversity problem’ has a distinct and clear cause – diversity itself. Nothing much to say about that in my opinion. Trying to pretend we don’t have a diversity problem doesn’t work because it’s in the DNA. Human beings are herd animals, no doubt about it. If you look at those cows in a mixed pasture. the black ones congregate together as do the white ones. It doesn’t get much more scientific than that.
So how are the cows different from us? They just haven’t evolved to the point where the inderstand the concept of ‘better.’ I’m not even sure they know about ‘different.’ They just know about ‘same.’ That gets them through without all the problems that ‘different’ and ‘better’ bring to human-kind. So, it’s fine with me what Obama said. I could’ve used some other comment than "stupid" for the officer involved. I’d have preferred him saying something like, "I hope the officers involved learned something about themselves in this episode. And I hope they can meet with Dr. Gates and let them talk it out. We don’t need to decry racism any more. We’ve done that. We need to start meeting each other personally and allowing our common humanity to correct the simplistic mistakes of the past." [That was fine. I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead.]
My understanding is that the officer didn’t arrest Gates because he refused to believe it was his house but because Gates got belligerent with him. And we don’t know exactly what Gates did or said. I agree, it probably would have been different if he had been white — less automatically suspicious, less likely to regard legitimate protest as disrespect and resistance.
So, yes, it would have been better if Obama had not called it stupid.
OTOH (on the other hand): Obama has his own history of being in a racial minority and Skip Gates is his friend. Too bad it all got played out on the national stage with political fervor whipping it up into something major.
We watched President Obama being human with us. Sometimes human beings need to be honest with their feelings. I’ve been on a lot of school boards and a sport board and privately the other people on the board treat you real nice(I call it buddy buddy) and then at the board meeting they tear you to shreds. Obama showed his true feelings about what happened to Professor Gates and now he will be ripped a little. I personally respect someone who tries to be honest without being mean. Obama went too far with “stupid”. Maybe Michelle will remind him to be a little less mean about the next incident. Of course I have never been racially profiled or demeaned about where I can go to eat or buy a house or stopped by a policeman while walking in a neighborhood walk or drive. Lets hope the health issue is the main topic today and not this stupid remark. Of course the media like an unruly crowd love a good controversary.