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I know DIBS, right? It’s totally wack. This guy is the Director of Harvard’s Institute for African and African-American Research. A big deal. I think this post was previously held by Cornell West before he departed for Princeton. Definitely would be someone that people at Harvard would know and recognize.
Really? You can’t understand why Prof. Gates was upset?
He’s 60+. He’d been travelling for g*d knows how many hours from China, he was exhausted, had some kind of illness effecting his breathing, requiring a cane to aid his walking. He had trouble getting into HIS OWN home when the door jams, and then to add insult to the injury…in broad daylight, a cop walks up asking him to come outside, give ID and prove that he lives there!
Let’s just add onto this the not at all uncommon incidence of black men who are owners being treated as if they must be a worker in their own home. I have a life long friend who experiences this regularly when he answers his front door here in Bklyn, and he’s elderly, too.
I’d be effing angry, too. And the police should be coached trained to recognize the difference between someone they have offended and how to diffuse the situation not aggravate it further.
Biff, me too. He hasn’t made single mistake so far – so why would his appoval go down? Doesn’t make sense.
Bxgrl, re. your statement “It happens and no amount of similar examples with white people makes the fact that racism still exists go away”, the point of those examples is that it does happen. It is not reported because it is not newsworthy, but that lack of stories gives the false impression that it only happens when its a black man. Its all part of the inflammatory fog of race war that accompanies these issues. People saying he got arrested in his house (rather than outside trying to get in), people saying this wouldn’t happen if he were white. We can see what the facts are and this sort of hyperbole just stands to discredit otherwise worthy positions.
The bottom line is, if the neighbor saw some old black guy with a cane trying to get into a house that she knew a black guy lived in, then shes racist or a nutcase, but probably the former.
Having worked with many esteemed University professors and their egos, however, it wouldn’t suprise me if Gates just said all the wrong things to the officer. I can think of a few profs. I’d like to see arrested.
“This woman, Lucia Whalen, works at Harvard, specifically as head of Fundraising”
WOW….this makes it all the more ludicrous!!!!!!! She didn’t know this guy????? She didn’t know a harvard professor that was her neighbors??? Christ, I know everyone of my neighbors on my block and I knew them after about 2-3 months of living there.
I know DIBS, right? It’s totally wack. This guy is the Director of Harvard’s Institute for African and African-American Research. A big deal. I think this post was previously held by Cornell West before he departed for Princeton. Definitely would be someone that people at Harvard would know and recognize.
Yeah, you’d have thunk she of all people should have known him right? That completely bizarre.
Really? You can’t understand why Prof. Gates was upset?
He’s 60+. He’d been travelling for g*d knows how many hours from China, he was exhausted, had some kind of illness effecting his breathing, requiring a cane to aid his walking. He had trouble getting into HIS OWN home when the door jams, and then to add insult to the injury…in broad daylight, a cop walks up asking him to come outside, give ID and prove that he lives there!
Let’s just add onto this the not at all uncommon incidence of black men who are owners being treated as if they must be a worker in their own home. I have a life long friend who experiences this regularly when he answers his front door here in Bklyn, and he’s elderly, too.
I’d be effing angry, too. And the police should be coached trained to recognize the difference between someone they have offended and how to diffuse the situation not aggravate it further.
“Source?”
google search turned up this, which linked to DoJ statistics:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Burglary-Facts-and-Statistics&id=1007750
“She didn’t know a harvard professor that was her neighbors???”
DIBS, please. You don’t even know half they guys who stay over in your own home. 🙂
“This woman, Lucia Whalen, works at Harvard, specifically as head of Fundraising”
Well, she’s not a nutcase then.
Biff, me too. He hasn’t made single mistake so far – so why would his appoval go down? Doesn’t make sense.
Bxgrl, re. your statement “It happens and no amount of similar examples with white people makes the fact that racism still exists go away”, the point of those examples is that it does happen. It is not reported because it is not newsworthy, but that lack of stories gives the false impression that it only happens when its a black man. Its all part of the inflammatory fog of race war that accompanies these issues. People saying he got arrested in his house (rather than outside trying to get in), people saying this wouldn’t happen if he were white. We can see what the facts are and this sort of hyperbole just stands to discredit otherwise worthy positions.
The bottom line is, if the neighbor saw some old black guy with a cane trying to get into a house that she knew a black guy lived in, then shes racist or a nutcase, but probably the former.
Having worked with many esteemed University professors and their egos, however, it wouldn’t suprise me if Gates just said all the wrong things to the officer. I can think of a few profs. I’d like to see arrested.
“This woman, Lucia Whalen, works at Harvard, specifically as head of Fundraising”
WOW….this makes it all the more ludicrous!!!!!!! She didn’t know this guy????? She didn’t know a harvard professor that was her neighbors??? Christ, I know everyone of my neighbors on my block and I knew them after about 2-3 months of living there.
And it’s the Yankees over the Orioles 5-0 in the middle of the fourth.