Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Arrest

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JDR13 said:
Right....and that only happens in the US. :rolleyes:
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Of course not only in the US. However, it does happen more in the US than in many similar countries -- Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and so on.
 
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dteowner said:
http://www.freep.com/article/20090724/NEWS07/90724013/?imw=Y

Some more thoughtful musings.
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Uh oh, not the Detroit Free Press. ;)


I didn't know this about Crowley...

The officer is himself an icon of sorts in the Boston area: 16 years ago, he tried to save dying Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when the basketball player crumbled on a practice court with heart problems.

"I wasn't working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn't working on a black man. I was working on another human being," Crowley, then a Brandeis University police officer, told the Boston Herald at the time.
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I remember when that incident happened. Ironic coincidence I guess...
 
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dteowner said:
http://www.freep.com/article/20090724/NEWS07/90724013/?imw=Y

Some more thoughtful musings.
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Indeed. This bit in particular caught my eye:

"If one conducts a survey, one will find that overwhelmingly blacks feel that this was an example of something that is part of their DNA — police discrimination, oppression, racial profiling. It's likely that you'll find a much larger percentage of whites believing, just instantly, that it was Gates who behaved intemperately," Dorn said. "It's an example of how the races still view things very differently."
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Prime Junta said:
Of course not only in the US. However, it does happen more in the US than in many similar countries -- Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, and so on.
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A rather broad accusation. How would one go about documenting that sort of theory?

Convictions? All that guarantees is that we're better at catching bad apples than you are. Investigations? Looking beyond the simple difference in quantity of officers and the more complex societal differences, you've got a populace that loves to make unfounded accusations to save their own asses which is going to skew the numbers. Broad perceptionas fact? Yeah, right. Unworthy of discussion given the obvious and clear demarcation between enlightened Euro society and stupid American cowboys? Ah, now we're getting somewhere.
 
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one will find that overwhelmingly blacks feel that this was an example of something that is part of their DNA — police discrimination, oppression, racial profiling.
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I don't doubt that to be true, and it probably had a lot to do with the way Gates (over)reacted.


It's likely that you'll find a much larger percentage of whites believing, just instantly, that it was Gates who behaved intemperately
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"Instantly"? And the majority of blacks didn't "instantly" start producing the race card in this matter?
 
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JDR13 said:
Uh oh, not the Detroit Free Press. ;)
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They've got good Wings coverage, so I swing by daily (actually, I hit the News most days as well even though their Wings coverage isn't nearly as good). This article was in their "most read" block on the side, so I gave it a swing.
 
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dteowner said:
A rather broad accusation. How would one go about documenting that sort of theory?
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Since I don't have the research to back up my claim, I hereby withdraw it. Consider it uninformed speculation. Do you think it's entirely without merit, though, in your equally uninformed opinion?
 
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Prime Junta said:
Indeed. This bit in particular caught my eye:
"If one conducts a survey, one will find that overwhelmingly blacks feel that this was an example of something that is part of their DNA — police discrimination, oppression, racial profiling. It's likely that you'll find a much larger percentage of whites believing, just instantly, that it was Gates who behaved intemperately," Dorn said. "It's an example of how the races still view things very differently."
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Funny, I have the same respect for officers over here as I do in the states, but but OMG they're asian. Oh wait, my girlfriend is asian too. Eeeccckkk God, this whole island is filled with asians, but I view everything differently because I'm white and have respect for officers. Oh no, I should go get a bigot cap immediatly and get my little white butt home. :p

That was said in tongue in cheek style, but seriously I don't really know how to respond to such an article. Have they taken into consideration the progress America has made in just the last 50 years. Segregation was alive and kicking when my mom was a child and now look at the states. If that isn't progress I don't know what is.

Of course there will be growing pains, but it seems to be getting better with every generation.
 
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JDR13 said:
"Instantly"? And the majority of blacks didn't "instantly" start producing the race card in this matter?
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That, JDR, was the gist of the quote, as I read it anyway. Both sides of the debate reacted in a knee-jerk way. I certainly did, and I'm fairly certain a number of others on this thread did as well.
 
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skavenhorde said:
That was said in tongue in cheek style, but seriously I don't really know how to respond to such an article. Have they taken into consideration the progress America has made in just the last 50 years. Segregation was alive and kicking when my mom was a child and now look at the states. If that isn't progress I don't know what is.

Of course there will be growing pains, but it seems to be getting better with every generation.
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I think the point of it was that even though there's been a lot of progress, the USA is nowhere near a "post-racial" society yet, Obama notwithstanding.
 
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Prime Junta said:
I think the point of it was that even though there's been a lot of progress, the USA is nowhere near a "post-racial" society yet, Obama notwithstanding.
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post racial? Naahhh that'll never exist unless all the races mix together to become just one which could happen given enough time. We're all different, but that isn't a bad thing. What I do think is that there has been lightning fast progress since the 1950's and I do think that it is getting better even with this latest batch of OMG news.
 
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skavenhorde said:
post racial? Naahhh that'll never exist unless all the races mix together to become just one which could happen given enough time. We're all different, but that isn't a bad thing. What I do think is that there has been lightning fast progress since the 1950's and I do think that it is getting better even with this latest batch of OMG news.
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There are examples of societies where race isn't a significant cause of discrimination or prejudice. There's no reason I can see that the US and Europe couldn't eventually become them.
 
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Prime Junta said:
There are examples of societies where race isn't a significant cause of discrimination or prejudice. There's no reason I can see that the US and Europe couldn't eventually become them.
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That, my friend, is something I would like to see as well.
 
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Prime Junta said:
Since I don't have the research to back up my claim, I hereby withdraw it. Consider it uninformed speculation. Do you think it's entirely without merit, though, in your equally uninformed opinion?
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I do know from personal experience that there are a lot of a$$hole police over here. But it wouldn't surprise me if many people in other countries feel the exact same way about their police.
 
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Prime Junta said:
I think the point of it was that even though there's been a lot of progress, the USA is nowhere near a "post-racial" society yet, Obama notwithstanding.
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I'm not sure we'll ever get there. There's certainly some drag from whites on this (and it probably goes beyond the obvious fringe types), but I think the real hurdle is that the minorities don't appear to want it that way. From hispanic immigrants to inner-city blacks, these folks are holding their culture above the melting pot. I'm fine with that, but if you insist that you're different and celebrate it, it's a little hypocritical to complain when others view you as different. Just as there's people like me that won't acknowledge racial factors until it's impossible to ignore, there's people that scream racism because the clouds are white. So they keep searching for something to get insulted about and I keep dismissing everything as trumped up BS. Not really a recipe for getting "post-racial".
 
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JDR13 said:
I do know from personal experience that there are a lot of a$$hole police over here. But it wouldn't surprise me if many people in other countries feel the exact same way about their police.
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Oh, for sure -- compared to Ukraine or Russia, for example, your cops are rainbows over a society of unicorns.

But I do think that in many countries, relations between cops and the communities making up their societies are a good deal better, too, with a great deal more trust and respect on both sides. I believe Finland to be one such country, and I believe that one of the reasons is that we take potential and actual police abuse of authority very seriously. IOW, I see these things as two sides of the same coin; however, I get a feeling that some people on this thread (dte, skaven, perhaps you) feel that they're at odds with each other.

Simply put, I do trust the police -- but not blindly. I trust the shopkeeper to give me the right change, but I'll count it anyway.
 
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dteowner said:
I'm not sure we'll ever get there. There's certainly some drag from whites on this (and it probably goes beyond the obvious fringe types), but I think the real hurdle is that the minorities don't appear to want it that way. From hispanic immigrants to inner-city blacks, these folks are holding their culture above the melting pot. I'm fine with that, but if you insist that you're different and celebrate it, it's a little hypocritical to complain when others view you as different. Just as there's people like me that won't acknowledge racial factors until it's impossible to ignore, there's people that scream racism because the clouds are white. So they keep searching for something to get insulted about and I keep dismissing everything as trumped up BS. Not really a recipe for getting "post-racial".
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Almost every immigrant group that's come to the US until now has managed it, though. Irish, Italian, Chinese, Jewish, and Japanese immigrants all used to be discriminated against, but are no longer -- and many of them have retained, and continue to celebrate, their particular identity. Celebrating your differences doesn't necessarily result in discrimination based on them.
 
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JDR13 said:
How many completely "post-racial" societies do you believe actually exist?
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That would depend on your definition of "post-racial." Some South American and Caribbean societies are remarkably color-blind, for example. Nepalese society is ethnically extremely diverse, yet there's almost no racial discrimination. And, as just stated above, American society has become post-racial about a great many racial or ethnic groups.
 
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