Obama and Gates are the real race baiters

ITS NOT A RACE ISSUE, ITS A EGO ISSUE!
I think we can agree on that, but what makes you think Gates is right and Crowley is wrong on this, when all of the corroborating accounts show that not to be the case? So far, the best accounting I've seen of what happened was during the Panel Discussion on Friday's Special Report with Bret Baier (they have a rough transcript posted here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534754,00.html ). Notably, Juan Williams thinks the Cambridge Police did what they were supposed to do.

I'm guessing that Gates had probably had a bad day, and the screwed-up door was just the icing on the cake. I can easily see getting PO'd at being asked to prove that you are legally in your own house, particularly if you're having a bad day, and pushing it to the point that you get arrested for disorderly conduct. I'd also bet that the DA understood that, and that's why he dropped the charges.

What I don't understand is why Gates didn't calmly reflect on this, accept the fact that his poor behavior contributed significantly to the situation, and just let it go after the DA dropped the charges--no harm, no foul. I think that's how most reasonable people would have reacted.
 
Frog, I have repeated many times that the cop wasn't racist in this situation, I said his ego was hurt, you are the one making it a race issue, I said Gates was wrong for bringing race into the issue. ITS NOT A RACE ISSUE, ITS A EGO ISSUE!

Alright. In that case, if you didn't make it a race issue, I stand corrected.

Its funny you say I wouldnt make it past the first day in academy, I just recieved a invite from the Austin Police Department to test starting off at 58K, i just might take that offer to prove you wrong, if i pass all drinks on you?

Oh? Who's your recruiter with Austin PD? I know a few of them Old Boys with APD. And if you did get a letter asking them to consider working for them, you should 1. not feel very special, as lots other soldiers have received the same letter, and b. you will still need to go through the academy. And 58K a year is hardly worth putting up with all the chit cops put up with in their daily duties. But hey... if that's what gets your cookie soggy, go for it.
 
Alright. In that case, if you didn't make it a race issue, I stand corrected.



Oh? Who's your recruiter with Austin PD? I know a few of them Old Boys with APD. And if you did get a letter asking them to consider working for them, you should 1. not feel very special, as lots other soldiers have received the same letter, and b. you will still need to go through the academy. And 58K a year is hardly worth putting up with all the chit cops put up with in their daily duties. But hey... if that's what gets your cookie soggy, go for it.

I only make about 50K a year and my job is way more dangerous at times. I pmed the officers name
 
A great point Mark Steyn made in the opening of this article....
By common consent, the most memorable moment of Barack Obama's otherwise listless press conference on "health care" were his robust remarks on the "racist" incident involving professor Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge police. The latter "acted stupidly," pronounced the chief of state. The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Chávez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power. And thank God the leader of the free world had the guts to stand up and speak truth to municipal police Sgt. James Crowley.​
 
You certainly didn't have this same opinion of cops a year ago.

Ah, the wonders of living in a police state
2nd Amendment? 4th Amendment? Who needs 'em?

I'm not trying to pick a fight, and yes, I know the circumstances are different. I'm just pointing out that much of this depends on your personal point of view. What one person may consider abuse of power may sound perfectly reasonable to someone else and vice versa.

And for the record, I think Gates was probably out of line based on what I've heard.
Protesting too much? So you're just stirring the pot, and your self contradiction confirms that. If not, then why even post?

Any more noncontributions you'd like to add? :rolleyes:

Care to opine on the actual subject instead of making Crackerjack Box Psychoanalyses?
 
Frog, I have repeated many times that the cop wasn't racist in this situation, I said his ego was hurt, you are the one making it a race issue, I said Gates was wrong for bringing race into the issue. ITS NOT A RACE ISSUE, ITS A EGO ISSUE!
Yep. It's Gates' ego that's the issue. He's upset that the cop didn't know who he was, so he made a scene. He TRIED to get arrested so he could get national attention. And it worked. And Obama had to throw him under the bus eventually.
 
im almost convinced people like that want there to be racism to make themselves look better. i don't get where people like him get the idea that they are the next best thing to Martin Luther King Jr. King was about bringing people together and equal rights, not blaming everything on white people
 
Gates wrote this on his Yale application:

"As always, whitey now sits in judgment of me, preparing to cast my fate. It is your decision either to let me blow with the wind as a nonentity or to encourage the development of self. Allow me to prove myself."
 
Adam Winkler
Professor at UCLA School of Law
Posted: July 25, 2009 03:35 PM

Obama Was Right About the Gates Arrest

On Thursday, President Obama weighed in on the arrest of African-American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, saying a Cambridge police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested Gates for disorderly conduct. The next day, Obama backed down from his harsh comment.

Obama was right the first time.

I don't know if the police officer arrested Gates because of the Harvard professor's race. A lot of white people would say that if they mouthed off to a cop, they too would be arrested.

But one thing is clear: Gates did not violate any law. Under Massachusetts law, which the police officer was supposedly enforcing, yelling at a police officer is not illegal.

There are clear decisions of the Massachusetts courts holding that a person who berates an officer, even during an arrest, is not guilty of disorderly conduct. And yet that is exactly what Gates was arrested for.

The Massachusetts statute defining "disorderly conduct" used to have a provision that made it illegal to make "unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display," or to address "abusive language to any person present." Yet the courts have interpreted that provision to violate the Massachusetts Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech. So police cannot lawfully arrest a person for hurling abusive language at an officer.

In several cases, the courts in Massachusetts have considered whether a person is guilty of disorderly conduct for verbally abusing a police officer. In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, a 2004 decision, an appeals court held it was not disorderly conduct for a person who angrily yelled at an officer that his civil rights were being violated. In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct.

So Massachusetts law clearly provides that Gates did not commit disorderly conduct.

The Cambridge Police should be training their officers to know the difference between legal and illegal conduct. What Gates did was probably not so smart -- in general, be nice to people carrying guns -- but it wasn't disorderly conduct. At least not in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That explains why the charges against Gates were dropped. It wasn't because the police were trying to defuse the situation. It was because Gates had done nothing illegal.

Arresting someone for doing something that isn't illegal is pretty stupid.

Then again, perhaps Obama was wrong. Maybe the police officer wasn't acting stupidly. He was just acting abusively. That is even worse.

Bottom line: YES, Gates was too sensitive and went off too easily, but he was clearly already having a bad day. BUT, he was clearly within his lawful rights to get pissed in his own home at this police officer. Thus, this was a false arrest and is why it was dropped. Is Gates a "race baiter" for what he yelled at this cop? Hard to argue against that. But is Obama a "race baiter" for calling the the arrest of Gates "stupid"?? Clearly NOT.
 
Bottom line: YES, Gates was too sensitive and went off too easily, but he was clearly already having a bad day. BUT, he was clearly within his lawful rights to get pissed in his own home at this police officer. Thus, this was a false arrest and is why it was dropped. Is Gates a "race baiter" for what he yelled at this cop? Hard to argue against that. But is Obama a "race baiter" for calling the the arrest of Gates "stupid"?? Clearly NOT.

I know Detroit cops would not arrest you for cursing at them, I know from experience.
 
I'm a little wussy girl hiding behind this ignore list because I have nothing to contribute and can't defend any of my positions!

Try actually contributing, instead of spewing hate and flaming, for once. You might earn a smidgen of credibility.
 
Bottom line: YES, Gates was too sensitive and went off too easily, but he was clearly already having a bad day.
So, you're acknowledging that Gates was the source of the problem here.

BUT, he was clearly within his lawful rights to get pissed in his own home at this police officer.
Within his rights within his own home.
Absolutely. But, unfortunately, Gates didn't limit his free expression to the confines of his home.

Outside of his home? That falls into the murky realm of law and judgment.

Thus, this was a false arrest and is why it was dropped.
That's a big presumption on your part. There are countless, pragmatic explanations to explain why it was ultimately dropped without calling it a "false arrest."

Is Gates a "race baiter" for what he yelled at this cop? Hard to argue against that.

But is Obama a "race baiter" for calling the the arrest of Gates "stupid"?? Clearly NOT.
Not only did Obama say the police acted "stupidly" when there is absolutely NO evidence to support such a claim, he framed the issue in terms of race. And thus, it's fair to associate this with "race baiting."

This WAS NOT a racial issue at the time Officer Crowley approached the scene or arrested Gates. The only racist on the scene that day was Gates. And the only people inserting race and using racist language are Gates, many who have taken up his cause, and, arguably, the President.

Obama didn't frame this as a first amendment issue.
He didn't call into question the application of laws regarding "disturbing the peace" as used by most LEOs. That's a compelling and interesting constitutional and civil liberty discussion.

Instead, he framed it in terms of racist terms. And worse yet, it wasn't as though he were caught off guard by this question. THEY PLANNED FOR IT. He knew it was coming. He WANTED to answer that question with the national audience associated with his prime time news conference.

So don't give him a pass.
And doing such a thing is consistent everything in Obama's personal and political history.
 
Bull. The cop had his ego bruised, as was said before. Gates provided ID before he left the confines of his house, yet after the cop had his ID in hand, he continued to ask Gates out onto his porch. WHY?? He should've said, sorry, my bad and left, or asked permission to look around the house. There was NO REASON to ask Gates out of his own house onto his porch, other than to set him up to attract attention and create the appearance of a legitimate "disorderly conduct" arrest. Was this a race issue on the cop's part? I don't think so.

But Obama's elaboration on the race issue was NOT to make it a race issue, it was to help explain Gate's sensitivity to the issue of cops entering a black man's home uninvited. This may be a surprize to you, but there IS a long "history" of problems with white men pulling black men out of their own homes for "god knows what", and Obama was attempting to explain that tidbit of history. He was NOT calling the cop a "racist", so your claim he was race baiting is false. He merely called his actions "stupid", which they were.
 
Bottom line: YES, Gates was too sensitive and went off too easily, but he was clearly already having a bad day. BUT, he was clearly within his lawful rights to get pissed in his own home at this police officer. Thus, this was a false arrest and is why it was dropped. Is Gates a "race baiter" for what he yelled at this cop? Hard to argue against that. But is Obama a "race baiter" for calling the the arrest of Gates "stupid"?? Clearly NOT.

You CANNOT judge Obama's actions in light of information HE DIDN"T HAVE WHEN HE MADE THE COMMENTS! Given the info available to Obama at the time of his comments, it is clear he did inject race by stereotyping those cops.

Also, it was unclear at the time of the incident if the house truly WAS Gates house. Technically, it wasn't. He was renting it from the university.

The ID Gates presented to the officers (Harvard ID) apparently didn't have any indication of Gates address on it. Gates, in an interview with his daughter claims he also gave the officers his Mass. driver's license which had what he called "my address" on it. But, I have yet to find that corroborated in anything. Also, he claims "my address". It is unclear weather or not that means the address he was renting from Harvard.

You cannot forget that the burden of proof in this incident was on Gates to prove that the house was in fact his residence. It is unclear, as far as I can tell, weather or not he in fact did that.
 
Bull. The cop had his ego bruised...

Proof?

FYI; speculation on the part of others doesn't count as proof.

Gates provided ID before he left the confines of his house, yet after the cop had his ID in hand, he continued to ask Gates out onto his porch.

It is unclear weather or not the ID presented actually proved that the house was Gates residence.

There was NO REASON to ask Gates out of his own house onto his porch,

Besides the fact that Gates very likely didn't provide ID proving that the house was his residence (as was his obligation in that instance), there is also the fact that they had heard that there were possibly 2 people trying to break into the house. If the house was in fact Gates, it would get him out of harms way if there was in fact someone else in the house that Gates was unaware of.

But Obama's elaboration on the race issue was NOT to make it a race issue, it was to help explain Gate's sensitivity to the issue of cops entering a black man's home uninvited.

So, it wasn't to MAKE it a race issue, but to defend it AS a race issue after his "friend" Skip had made it a race issue. Either way, Obama was irresponsibly perpetuating a false stereotype that makes the job of every police officer, corrections officer, etc. more dangerous. That is extremely irresponsibly, and the fact that Obama was willing to publicly assume the worse about those cops gives a strong indication where his sympathies lie.

This may be a surprize to you, but there IS a long "history" of problems with white men pulling black men out of their own homes for "god knows what", and Obama was attempting to explain that tidbit of history. He was NOT calling the cop a "racist", so your claim he was race baiting is false. He merely called his actions "stupid", which they were.

Calling the cops actions into question then speculating on racial issues is race baiting. He was not directly calling the cops racist, but, was clearly implying that it was very likely when there was no information concerning it. Maybe you should look up what race baiting truly is.
Race baiting is an act of using racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical to their personal or group interests.

This can also be accomplished by implying that there is an underlying race-based motive in the actions of others towards the group baited, where none in fact exists. The term "race" in this context can be construed very broadly to include the social constructs which define race or racial difference, as well as ethnic, religious, gender and economic differences.

Thus the use of any language or actions perceived to be for the purpose of exploiting weaknesses in persons who can be identified as members of certain groups, or to reinforce a group's perceived victimhood, can be contained within the concept of "race baiting." Many people who practice race baiting often believe in racism, or have an interest in making the group believe that racism is what motivates the actions of others.​

Obama's actions where exceedingly irresponsible because it made the job of every law enforcement officer in the country harder and riskier solely for the purpose of defending Gates' belligerent diatribe and to race-bait.
 
I just question the "disorderly conduct" was it or was it not? In Cambridge, maybe yelling at cops is the worse crime that can be committed, we have to look at it from that point of view also, If you grew up in Mass, maybe yelling is an arrestable offense.
 
I just question the "disorderly conduct" was it or was it not? In Cambridge, maybe yelling at cops is the worse crime that can be committed, we have to look at it from that point of view also, If you grew up in Mass, maybe yelling is an arrestable offense.

I would say not simply "yelling" but harassment. Also, has it been confirmed that the arrest was due to "disorderly conduct" and not something else, or in addition to something else?
 
only what the (bias) media has posted. The only people who know what happened are God, the officer, and Gates, everything else is "hearsay"
 

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