gates crowley whalen redux
i swear i just turned on the TV to get the weather at that exact moment of noon yesterday, (how convenient for it to coincide with the noon news), and didn't go looking for this one, but i noticed that lucia whalen's attorney's remarks about the mischaracterization of lucia's 911 call included a jab about the "guy thing" of barack, skip and jim having beers at the white house. i don't know if she was also trying to say that things would have been different if it hadn't been two men on that porch, (measuring cop vs. black dick), but i believe that if she wasn't, she should have. (regarding the measurement, i still say we all lost).
and, in a related note about how profoundly lost and stupid some people can still be, huffington post has the details of a city of boston cop slash national guardsman slash ultra plus ultra idiot emailing the boston globe, along with all his cop and national guard buddies, his opinion on the gates/crowley/whalen matter for which he was compelled to include the sobriquet "jungle monkey". (really, justin? the BOSTON GLOBE?) i think we all need to reflect on this for a moment, because somewhere you know there's a guy like this with a gun and a badge taking out his private personal politics on an innocent homeowner of whatever color, and no amount of sgt crowley's profiling training is going to help this kind of thing until we all stand up and insist upon being counted. (makes one wonder if the profiling courses they're giving some cops are teaching them how to, instead of how not to).
where i work we have an acronym for things like this: CLM. as in, career-limiting move. fired is the least of the penalties deserved, but, seriously, the BOSTON GLOBE? i'm guessing it was one of the newspaper staffers that forwarded it straight to ed davis. not quite up there with dismembering your own baby and eating its brain, but close enough to make one wonder if somebody's mom ought to have at least considered it.
and, in a related note about how profoundly lost and stupid some people can still be, huffington post has the details of a city of boston cop slash national guardsman slash ultra plus ultra idiot emailing the boston globe, along with all his cop and national guard buddies, his opinion on the gates/crowley/whalen matter for which he was compelled to include the sobriquet "jungle monkey". (really, justin? the BOSTON GLOBE?) i think we all need to reflect on this for a moment, because somewhere you know there's a guy like this with a gun and a badge taking out his private personal politics on an innocent homeowner of whatever color, and no amount of sgt crowley's profiling training is going to help this kind of thing until we all stand up and insist upon being counted. (makes one wonder if the profiling courses they're giving some cops are teaching them how to, instead of how not to).
where i work we have an acronym for things like this: CLM. as in, career-limiting move. fired is the least of the penalties deserved, but, seriously, the BOSTON GLOBE? i'm guessing it was one of the newspaper staffers that forwarded it straight to ed davis. not quite up there with dismembering your own baby and eating its brain, but close enough to make one wonder if somebody's mom ought to have at least considered it.
Labels: rant
posted by kad barma at 8:49 AM
3 Comments:
Kad,
I'm normally a bit sympathetic to the "taken out of context" and "never meant to cause offense" lines because, well, sometimes they're actually true.
In cases like this, however, I'm just not buying the defense. Unless he also uses the term "jungle monkey" to refer to white people (somehow, I doubt that), this, much like the comment from the GOP organizer who talked about Michelle Obama's ancestors being monkeys or gorillas, is pretty cut-and-dry.
Way more cut-and-dry than the Gates-Crowley incident in the first place. Unfortunate in that it's racist, unfortunate in that it will be used to *prove* the existence of widespread racism in certain institutions, and finally unfortunate in that it undercuts the positions of people who are moderate on race issues and want to see racism end, REGARDLESS of the source.
The media wins (the Globe has run this as a non-stop lead, and now has some steam to carry beyond the beer summit), and the racists and race-baiters on both sides win.
Everyone else loses.
best,
gp
What this does prove to me is that there are still social circles within the Boston Police, and the National Guard, for that matter, where people can both maintain these perspectives AND the frightening notion that it's not widely offensive.
This, to me, points out the collective failure of the rest of us to stand up and express ourselves clearly. Malcolm Gladwell's concept of a "tipping point", and "the law of the few", is highly applicable--"the success of any kind of social epidemic [e.g. racism] is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts". Now, I would never describe racism as a "gift", but I do take his point to mean that it won't take a whole lot of racists to tip the balance into a bad direction, if those on the other side aren't pulling their weight.
Race has an extremely high "stickiness factor", as Gladwell would put it. We also live in a time where race is constantly part of our "context", and we need to always understand the "bystander effect" if we are ever to escape this spiral that we're in.
We're ALL conscious of race. That makes us ALL susceptible to tendencies of racism. Gates showed his when he went postal on the white cop in a way we know he wouldn't if the investigating policeman had been black. Which means, to my mind, we wouldn't have had a situation where a hard line "respect the badge" cop would feel the need to arrest a man on his own front porch, regardless of his color. We can only take Crowley's word that he'd have arrested a white guy just as quickly.
Kad,
Great points about acceptability and the law of the few. Being just two months away from membership into one of those organizations (yup, about to start dancing like an idiot when I turn the calendar page tomorrow, even though liberation now isn't coming until Sunday morning) it's a point especially worth taking -- to always stomp racism when you see it, so that no one ever thinks it's okay to send you an e-mail like that.
And as for who can be considered one of the "few" it would seem that those in leadership positions are automatically there, because other people will take cues about what type of behavior and speech is considered "okay" from what they're witnessing of those at the top. Haven't seen anything come out on Barrett's MOS or rank, but I'm a bit curious..
Still wondering how much of Gates' behavior can be attributed to his having reached a point of stature/prominence where he was, almost literally (among the circle he worked in, that is) beyond reproach. When you get to a point where every joke you tell is hilarious, every idea you have is brilliant, and every argument you make is unassailable, it must get to your head at some point..no *regular* person I know would ever make that big a deal of being asked to show ID, regardless of skin color..and his case, that comes on TOP of his desire to make a big deal of something like this, as you've noted before in a couple of entries..
best,
gp
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