thebin
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Post by thebin on Jul 23, 2009 5:44:56 GMT -5
The Globe's editorial nails it. Gates and the cops could have acted better but there is no evidence at all to suggest it would have played differently had gates been a white man pulling the "don't you know who i am" routine.
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AvantGuardHoya
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Post by AvantGuardHoya on Jul 23, 2009 6:38:53 GMT -5
The Globe's editorial nails it. Gates and the cops could have acted better but there is no evidence at all to suggest it would have played differently had gates been a white man pulling the "don't you know who i am" routine. Your reading of the Globe op-ed piece is pretty different from mine, but I would agree that it fairly well encapsulates things. |
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Post by fsohoya on Jul 23, 2009 7:31:29 GMT -5
Isn't anyone even the least bit annoyed that our supposedly post-racial president decided to essentially characterize this as a case of, at best, stupid policing? I mean, people who have read a lot about the case -- who know the basic facts, unlike the president -- think it's at best ambiguous who was most at fault, and actually seem to lean toward the cop just trying to do his job only to be berated with accusations of racism? Shouldn't Obama just have said "I wasn't there, I don't know what happened" rather than misstating the facts (Gates, he suggests, was alone at the door just jiggling his keys)? Shouldn't he then have just expressed regret that race can still be a factor to people, and moved on?
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jul 23, 2009 7:33:26 GMT -5
It hardly seems possible to read Vennochi's editorial and not conclude that she is pointing out that there is no evidence at all to suggest this incident has a racial component other than the one Gates himself promoted. Feelings are not evidence Avant. Nor do they make persuasive arguments. The bulk of that editorial is spent detailing very similar examples where privilleged white people acted the same way and encountered the same overly aggressive police response. I'm not sure what other way there is to read it.
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thebin
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Post by thebin on Jul 23, 2009 7:36:52 GMT -5
Isn't anyone even the least bit annoyed that our supposedly post-racial president decided to essentially characterize this as a case of, at best, stupid policing? I mean, people who have read a lot about the case -- who know the basic facts, unlike the president -- think it's at best ambiguous who was most at fault, and actually seem to lean toward the cop just trying to do his job only to be berated with accusations of racism? Shouldn't Obama just have said "I wasn't there, I don't know what happened" rather than misstating the facts (Gates, he suggests, was alone at the door just jiggling his keys)? Shouldn't he then have just expressed regret that race can still be a factor to people, and moved on? Yeah, I was quite disappointed to see that from Obama myself and honestly somewhat surprised as that kind of rash statement is not in his style. I mean even if you read the comments section of The Root (an African American type of Slate webzine that Gates writes for) you have a pretty large number of people saying more or less "I don't know, sounds like Gates was begging for it to me." |
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Buckets
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Post by Buckets on Jul 23, 2009 8:17:02 GMT -5
The bulk of that editorial is spent detailing very similar examples where privilleged white people acted the same way and encountered the same overly aggressive police response. I'm not sure what other way there is to read it. Call me crazy, but hitting a cop with part of your car and going on a drunken, drug-induced tirade in an airport are slightly different than yelling at a cop in your yard. |
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TC
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Post by TC on Jul 23, 2009 8:31:46 GMT -5
Isn't anyone even the least bit annoyed that our supposedly post-racial president decided to essentially characterize this as a case of, at best, stupid policing? Honestly, if you look at Obama's answer it's pretty much the same thing that everyone in this thread has said with the one difference that he started his answer off with - Skip Gates is his friend and he's biased towards that fact. It was a stupid arrest. If we were arresting old guys with canes for yelling from their porches we'd need a lot more jails and 90% of the Republican Party would be in trouble. Obama's answer steered clear of the third rail of this issue (racial profiling in this incident). Maybe people don't like how blunt he was about the policing here or how he didn't criticize his friend's behavior, but the policing was stupid. Here's what I don't understand about Gates' claim - how was the officer "racial profiling"? The person who was racial profiling was Lucia Whalen, who Gates says probably did the right thing. www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/officer_in_gate.html |
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Post by fsohoya on Jul 23, 2009 8:49:12 GMT -5
Here's a simple fact: If a cop came to anyone's house - white or black - to investigate a potential break in, and the resident of the house proceeded to berate him both in and outside of the house while a crowd gathered outside, there's a pretty good chance that resident would be arrested. Might it be an overreaction by the police? Sure. Is it also pretty understandable on the part of the police? Sure, again. Which is why Obama should have steered clear of this one instead of calling the police stupid and connecting it to racial profiling. Oh, and a lot worse things have happened recently to white people without any accusations of racism: www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/07/mayor.warrant/ |
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Jul 23, 2009 8:55:21 GMT -5
As a politician, he shouldn't have said CPD "acted stupidly. He should have said the CPD "could have handled differently."
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 23, 2009 9:01:42 GMT -5
If he was going to say that, he should have also added that Gates acted stupidly, which is the case as well.
"Everyone acted stupidly. We all act stupidly. Hey, Chuck Todd. That's right, you. Even you act stupidly. What is that on your face anyway?
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!! Why is everyone so stupid?!!!
That's it. No more questions. This sideshow is over."
;D
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Jul 23, 2009 9:12:10 GMT -5
Boz,
Don't disgaree with that. Everyone should have acted civilly. But that'd be asking for too much!
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TC
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Post by TC on Jul 23, 2009 9:50:28 GMT -5
I'm not sure why I could only see that smaller, abbreviated report. Seems kind of silly to make that available instead of the complete report if the full report is already public (though they forgot to black out the name of the person who called 911). Can someone explain why the Globe scrubbed the Police Report? The post on the first page points that out too, and the only thing I can find is some crazy conservative sites saying it was scrubbed because it was "so damning of Gates", liberal media, blah blah blah. Is there anything out there on why the original police report was removed? |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 23, 2009 10:03:13 GMT -5
I doubt you are ever going to get an answer to that question.
One reason I thought was maybe because of the error in not redacting the name of the caller. That's a pretty bad goof. Of course, that wouldn't explain why they removed the rest of the report when they re-posted the abbreviated version.
My guess is that either Gates' attorney or whoever represents the CPD is behind that.
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TC
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Post by TC on Jul 23, 2009 11:16:48 GMT -5
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 23, 2009 12:08:11 GMT -5
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jul 23, 2009 13:08:00 GMT -5
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jul 23, 2009 14:44:30 GMT -5
He's not "stupid", he just acted "stupidly". |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jul 23, 2009 14:46:15 GMT -5
Looks like Gibbsy got left out of the loop again. twitter.com/terrymoranJust to be clear, the President is a million percent correct in saying that cooler heads should have prevailed....on both sides. On the other hand, he is a million percent wrong to use the word 'stupid' (or 'stupidly') to describe the actions of the police in this case on national television. As always, IMO. |
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on Jul 23, 2009 14:54:24 GMT -5
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Post by Coast2CoastHoya on Jul 23, 2009 15:16:00 GMT -5
Everyone got a little stupid ... ladies
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