Posted on 07/28/2009 8:52:55 AM PDT by lex33
July 28, 2009
BY JESSE JACKSON President Obama has stated that the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates in his home provides a "teachable moment" about racial profiling, and the "relations between police officers and minority communities."
The president's remarks -- that the police "acted stupidly" -- sparked a backlash that the White House has tried to defuse by inviting arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley and Gates to sit down over a beer at the White House. The meeting, slated to take place in the next few days, will no doubt result in consensus that we should all get along, and how hard it is to do so given conflicting histories and perspectives.
This will defuse the furor, but it won't provide much of a lesson for the teachable moment. Racial profiling isn't a matter that is unique to Gates and Crowley. The reality is, as the president suggested, despite the great progress this nation has made on racial discrimination -- as attested by the president's own election -- we are still a long way from a post-racial society.
African Americans across the country understood Gates' anger at being challenged in his home. Racial profiling remains a widespread reality. DWB -- driving while black -- is still more likely to get you stopped in areas across the country. Young African Americans are more likely to be searched if stopped, more likely to be charged, more likely to be arrested if charged, more likely to do time than be fined if convicted. In schools across the country, African-American boys and girls are more likely to be disciplined and more likely to be suspended for the same behaviors as their white classmates.
This isn't a secret. We have passed laws and set up agencies to remedy these practices. Police and fire departments in many urban areas have made significant efforts to overcome them. Progress has been made as police forces have become more integrated, but we still have a long way to go.
Moreover, as the president stated in his speech earlier this month to the NAACP, "The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation's legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still plaguing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect."
African Americans are more likely to go to poor and crowded schools; more likely to be unemployed, more likely to lack health insurance, more likely to be targeted by predatory lenders. These structural inequalities, as the president noted, require public action and initiative to change.
So while it would be a good thing for Gates and Crowley to apologize one to another and shake hands, that won't fulfill the "teachable moment." It wouldn't have been sufficient if the bus driver in Montgomery had apologized to Rosa Parks, and Ms. Parks had apologized for refusing to obey his order to go to the back of the bus. That would not have addressed the basic question of access to public accommodations. It's the policy that must be addressed, not just the personal interaction.
Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that this is a "nation of cowards" when it comes to discussing race. It is particularly hard for an African-American president who wants sensibly to establish that he is the president of all Americans.
But the Gates arrest -- and the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Ricci case, overturning New Haven's decision to throw out a test that had a discriminatory effect, that may toll the death knell to affirmative action -- do provide teachable moments. It is time to teach. We need a White House Conference on Structural Inequality and Racial Profiling.
We've acknowledged that racial discrimination is bad and passed laws and programs to remedy it. But as Dr. King taught us, that is not enough. We have to fund the programs and enforce the laws. So let's detail the reality of the practices and structural inequalities that the president mentioned, evaluate the programs and laws that exist to remedy them, fund and enforce the law, and set up goals and timetables to measure our progress.
Hymies not invited.
And should hand over some money.
I wonder if Reverend Wright was invited.
As long as we exclude the Jewwwwwzzz, right Jesse!?
“A teachable moment”. It should teach Obamassiah to keep his big yap shut.
Yeah, and more likely to come from a broken home or no home at all, more likely to have an absent or unknown father, more likely to have no guidance, boundaries or discipline while growing up, more likely to go to jail, more likely to drop out of school, girls more likely to get pregnant...need I go on?
"And we always will be if I have anythingt to say about it, because I need the money."
First Course: Hate Whitey 101
But then again, they’ve been teaching that implicitly at Haavahd for a while now.
“These structural inequalities, as Bill Cosby has noted, require personal responsibility and an admission of shame to change.”
Excuse me, but I only know one person who regularly uses this teachable moment phrase, and his radio show is starting right now.
ML/NJ
NO it does not require public action, it requires that the Democrats stop coddleing them into poverty, stop with the handouts and tell they CAN. It is entirely the Democrats welfare policy that is keeping them down. We Republicans don't think anyone is stupid, and in American everyone has the right to succeed. The Dems, just keep telling them no you can't.
What a butt wipe!
I’m surprised JJ weighed in. There’s no pot of money involved here...
Young black males commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime against whites. The author claims that, "Racial profiling remains a widespread reality." I maintain that random profiling is an effective policing technique which reduces crimes committed by young black men. The teachable moment therefore should be why is it better for whites to be exposed as the unprotected victims of violent crimes than it is for African-Americans to be exposed to the alleged dignity of a random police inquiry?
Hmmm ... no mention of absent fathers, dropout rates, thug culture? There’s your structural problem, Jesse.
Yeah, let's wait until we have a half black man for a president. That oughta do it, no?
The teachable moment is for the clueless that voted for him - it’s good he open up his mouth - he couldn’t help himself since black power is what he is all about - hate whitey and G*d dam America.
We need teaching from these race baiters like we need shaving lessons from Al-Zarqawi.
A quote from Booker T. Washington, who saw people like Obama, Gates and this smart ass Jackson, who is still trolling to get his son into the senate seat Obama vacated (rapidly)— he saw them as they really are. It is as true today as then.
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915.)
http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.1/html/430.html
Booker T. Washington, raised in slavery and freed— believed in the individual, not political class solutions to the freedmen. He built a personal organization that linked like-minded black leaders throughout the nation and in effect spoke for Black America, but it fell apart after his death. Meanwhile a more militant Northern group, led by W. E. B. Du Bois rejected Washington’s self-help and demanded recourse to politics, referring to the speech dismissively as “The Atlanta Compromise”. The critics were marginalized until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, at which point more radical black leaders rejected Washington’s philosophy and demanded federal civil rights laws.
How ironic that Gates is the WEB Dubois Professor of “African American Studies” at Haaaaaaaahvaaaard!! It doesn’t change the fact his response to a normal police response is both LEARNED and PRACTICED. And Booker T. knew them well!!
The only teachable moment in this mini-drama is that not all blacks are racists like Obama and his circle-jerk are.
The only teachable moment in this mini-drama is that not all blacks are racists like Obama and his circle-jerk are.
How racist of him to think that white people wouldn't also be upset if they were challenged in their home.
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