The quote is just the start. This is one blistering editorial. - sm
Op-Ed Columnist - Small Beer, Big Hangover - NYTimes.com
"I’ll return to the larger picture, but before the battle of Cambridge fades entirely, let’s note that the only crime Obama committed at his news conference was honesty (always impolitic in Washington). He conceded he did not know “all the facts” and so wisely resisted passing judgment on “what role race played” in the incident. He said, accurately, that “separate and apart from this incident” there is “a long history” of “African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcing disproportionately.” And, yes, the police did act “stupidly in arresting” — not to mention shackling — “somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.” If Obama had really wanted to go for the jugular, he might have added that the police may have overstepped the law as well."
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Queries for Beltane / May Day
5 months ago
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From what we’re bring shown in the uk . . . it just seems so juvenile. Hollywood films make *jokes* about US police using appalling force if their dignity is even slightly threatened. Every country in the world, including the UK, knows that the police are a barely controlled mob and need to be kept on a short lead, it’s the nature of the kind of person who’s attracted to the job. (Thank goodness there are police, BTW, but let’s not get sentimental about it when they simply do the job they’re paid for.) I’ve heard a white commentator yell “Obama hates white people.’ This is so childish, so raw that I can’t believe this person is given airtime. Presumably people want to hear this?!
Wait til you see what I just posted from Leonard Pitts...
It's about fear-mongering and vote-mongering.
I grew up in a large city where there were serious racial tensions with the police. I saw these play out in my neighborhood. I then lived in another large city with racial tension.
And then I started volunteering for the Red Cross, which meant I had lots of interaction with first responders, including police.
So police are no longer "other" to me. I understand and respect them more, and fear them less.
But they are still forced to deal, in a much more intense and time-shortened way than most of us, with the fact that we live in a society that doesn't deal well with things like race, mental illness, homelessness, etc.
We get so pissed off by what happens in police interactions b/c their split-second decisions reflect society as a whole so damned well. And we don't like the mirror that holds up to us.
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