My idea is based on a comment you, Emily Rooney, made today, Jan 1, on the year end review show: I'd like to see more of an exploration of the following concept (quoted, but I can't remember who...
Herald on Gates: All Sharpton, all the time
posted by Adam Reilly on July 22, 2009
In today's Herald, columnist Peter Gelzinis accuses Skip Gates of exploiting his recent arrest--equating him in the process with Al Sharpton, whose reaction to the Gates Affair the Herald made sure to highlight yesterday:
As it turns out, there won't be any need for Rev. Al to exploit the incident on Ware Street, because Skip Gates has decided he's going to create a full-length documentary for PBS based on his arrest.
"The idea never crossed my mind," Gates told The Washington Post yesterday, "but it has now."
I expect the documentary will soon be prefaced by Skip's 10,000-word treatise in The New Yorker.
Exploitation can assume many forms - including Skip Gate's sudden decision to train his historian/journalist eye on the subject of racial profiling. Obviously, there's no need to ask why he wasn't moved to make such a documentary before yesterday.
While I don't doubt Skip Gates could produce a compelling piece, I'm not optimistic for one reason: Gates is already insisting that Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley must first apologize for placing him under arrest outside his home.
"If so," Gates told the Washington Post, "I will be prepared to forgive him." That doesn't sound like a dispassionate attempt to get to the truth of the police response to a 911 call for a possible B & E.
My first question: if Gelzinis ever believed that he was the victim of a grievous wrong, as Gates clearly does in this case, would he use his columnist's perch to pursue a "dispassionate attempt to get at the truth"? Or would he, instead, eviscerate the parties responsible?
Also in today's Herald: Joe Fitzgerald sticks up for the cop who arrested Gates, and plays the Sharpton card with relish.
Which brings me to my second question: why, exactly, does the Herald insist on mentioning Sharpton so frequently in connection with this story?
[Cross-posted at Don't Quote Me]
Comments
That last question is rhetorical, right, Adam?
Several thoughts arise out of the Skip Gates case.
First is a matter of class as well as race. Officer Crowley is a Civil Servant whose salary in his best year would probably not allow him to live in that neighborhood. Here he is being confronted about his poor judgement and pitiful police tactics by someone with not only a wealth of knowledge but tangible wealth to deal with the legal ramifications of Crowley's contrivance.
It's sad that Officer Crowley chose not to exercise discretion and walk away and instead let his ego get the better of him. This is a huge loss for not only the city of Cambridge but police who try to labor justly every where.
This brings me to my second point. Officer Crowleys actions have been called stupid by our own President. Members of the public - citizens around the world will take a look at the actions of an egotistical cop and judge all police as jerks. This will lead to less cooperation and increased suspicion and perhaps to isolated acts of violence - especially in areas where the police garner little respect from the public already.
Sadly Police have been proven less than truthful in the past. Many statements about the Police Report filed by Officer Crowley call it's veracity into question. A closer look at Officer Crowley's actions seem to indicate a "set - up" of Professor Gates so he could site the Professor with disorderly conduct in a Public Place. Remember the Professor was in his home. Officer Crowley could have left the domicile and told the White Lady (who called in the false break in report) it was a false alarm then gone on about his business. But after having his authority questioned and perhaps feeling that his position/job was being threatened (remember the Professor asked Officer Crowley to provide his identification and badge number) Officer Crowley prodded the Professor to come outside where the PUBLIC disorderly conduct charge and subsequent arrest was made.
In the end instead of serving justice a self serving police officer of questionable morality chose to only serve his ego. And Ms. Whelan (the 40 year old white lady who made the false and erroneous complaint) should learn who lives in the neighborhood.
I believe this incident has less to do with race than it does with the encroaching police state and the increasing arrogance of police officers.
The kneejerk decision by the mob to make this about race (important, yes, but something that affects a few) is a missed opportunity to discuss what I believe is truly behind it, creeping authoritarianism, something that affects us all.
Gates is just lucky he wasn't tazed, something that is happening more and more frequently to people everywhere for even the mildest offenses. Barbaric devices, those things.
The other night on Greater Boston, the radio show host (white guy-can't remember his name) characterized the cop in this case as a "working schlump" with a low pay job as an excuse for his behavior in this case. A proven outmoded stereotype about police officers. He was obviously much more outraged by the attack on the cop than on Mr. Gates. Bollings (the black guest) gave more rational and nuanced answers to questions by Emily Rooney. My husband (a white guy) acts the same way as the radio host-outraged, supporting the white cop, lacking in empathy etc. I wonder if more white men are outraged and supportive of the cop than other people? Are white men taking this as another assault on their status and is that why this story is so big?
I don't know that the arrogance of police officers is "increasing", or that white men are more supportive of the cop than other people.
As I get older, I have more respect for the difficult job police officers have, but I endured a bit of "profiling" growing up. I got pulled over for doing 25 MPH in a 25 MPH zone ("too fast for conditions"), probably because I was a young long-hair with a NJ license plate in SC. I was stopped repeatedly while driving a VW van with a Grateful Dead bumper sticker on the NJ turnpike ("sir, did you know you have a taillight burned out?").
But over the intervening years, I've also experienced police officers as very helpful problem solvers, concerned for the public welfare.
People can be jerks. Police officers are people, who often are called to intervene in situations where emotions are running high. This sometimes causes the officers to be jerks in return. In this instance, I think the officer was on firm ground up until he arrested Gates for mouthing off. Being a jerk on your own front porch is not a crime.
"I don't know that the arrogance of police officers is "increasing"
Wonder if the family of that kid killed by the jackbooted and riot-gear clad cops after the last Celtics championship would agree. Or the family of Victoria Snelgrove, who was simply walking down the street when a plastic bullet ended her life.
I'd also recommend you watch the documentary "Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech" if you get the time (it was on HBO On Demand recently. Not sure it's still there.)
Pay special attention to the behavior of the New York City Police Department, and their all too willing participation in the stifling of free speech and peaceful protest during the Republican convention, and then tell me we should not be at all concerned about the role of the police in encroaching our liberties.
Or simply search for "taze" on YouTube and tell me that in the vast majority of those cases it was warranted.
Sharpton, Jackson, McKinney Wright and others have found a way to use racism and their blackness as a tool or a weapon. We are all fearfull of defending against it because there is no defense in this PC country we now live in. In another time the IRS, and others groups would question them on their taxes, their income and how they live in a lifstyle normally not afforded to the jobless and incomeless.