'Banana-eating Jungle Monkey'
Posted on 07/31/2009 4:53:25 AM PDT by suspects
We’ve finally found the cop Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been looking for.
Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett, the overachieving 36-year-old with two years on the force, was caught engaged in the kind of uber-stupidity we’ve come to expect from drunken teenage pop stars, not police officers.
If you missed the Herald story yesterday, Barrett is the Boston cop who sent an electronic message to The Boston Globe - then forwarded it to his fellow National Guardsmen - calling the Harvard professor a “banana-eating jungle monkey.” He also said the paper’s reporting was “jungle monkey gibberish,” and wanted to “ax” a question.
But, he claimed in a television interview, “I didn’t mean it in a racist way.”
Of course not. He meant “banana-eating jungle monkey” in its more positive sense. Something to do with the benefits of a high-fruit diet, no doubt.
Mayor Thomas Menino has declared Barrett “G-O-N-E” and let’s hope he’s right. Setting aside the overt racism, anyone dumb enough to send out that e-mail on purpose is too stupid to be allowed on the streets with a gun and a badge.
Barrett’s lawyer, Peter Marano, is already playing the “context card,” arguing that Barrett’s being punished for just “two words” and wasn’t using them to describe Gates based on race.
But this is a case where reading the entire e-mail makes Barrett look even worse. He’s not just a raving racist. The guy in that e-mail is an arrogant, angry, condescending jerk.
In other words, he was everything Gates and President Obama assumed Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley was going to be.
Which is why we may finally have reached that “teaching moment” Obama keeps talking about.
What Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick could learn is...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
Again the guilty white guy mentatality. Had the guy been black (and there are plenty of examples of blacks using inflamatory language) his “explination” woudl have accepted and even justified by the left wing media. But because he is white he has to go.
This cop is an idiot and should be disciplined.
That sentence tells more than the author, I think, wanted to tell. Ever since Crowley's side of the story came out I bet they were all looking for a cop they could call "racist" to somehow show Gates was right.
This is just too convenient for the media.
I feel that the Fed.gov bailout & coverup of the Black Panthers who were threatening the white voters (and maybe some black ones!) in Philly during the Nov 2008 election is the REAL stain of racism in this society.
Sorry, but cops can (and should) know better. Companies fire employees for far less than this. Hell, even the waste of company time/resources is usually enough to get one shown the door at a lot of places.
I think the whole concept of racism, unless it involves physical, societal or financial loss to the aggrieved party, should be discarded into the dustbins of history.
Bricks and stones may break your bones, but words SHOULD never hurt you.
A black cop writing an equivalent email about sausage-grillin’, beer swillin’ “cracka’s” would NOT have been fired. We ALL know that. Therefore, Mr. Barrett was fired because of the color of his skin. THAT is the simple case his lawyer needs to make.
Is Harvard going to fire “Professor” Gates, then? So far, he is the WORST offender yet to surface in this entire incident. He is an extremist. Will Harvard FIRE him? Why not?
'Banana-eating Jungle Monkey'
The cop was stupid, but in America we have a thing called "The First Amendment". Bet that he won't lose his job. Punished but not fired.
He probably was drunk and that is when people go for the jugular and go as offensive as possible. They see someone who offends them and try to find the thing that would offend them most.
Because he wasn’t representing the university or using their resources when he was arrested. And in response to Post 9, uh, yeah, they would. Management would just have to cross their “T’s” and dot their “I’s” more closely is all—but he’d still be looking for a new job.
I guess more like this fine example published in the Herald?
Can’t excuse Officer Barrett’s comment. Not at all.
I can however say that the knee-jerk reaction to cry racism by Gates and Obamma pours lighter fluid on these situations. They need to clearly and unconditionally apologize. It needs to be done.
If Gates, Sharpton, Jackson, NAACP, etc. truly wanted to see a sharp decline in racial tensions they would put the race card back in the deck with Joker. They would instead promote strong family structures, education, personal responsibility, and acheivement. Maybe if this was the focus decades ago, Obamma would have been the 2nd, 3rd or 4th black president?
In this country, the true “race cowards” are the black “leaders” who cry and cry over one poor cop making a racial slur.
I guess the people calling him a Monkey didn't read the rules of racist language.
The “whats wrong with this picture” moment is why did he send this to one of the most liberal newspapers in America? Its very similar to the Hollywood Fla police leaving their microphones open to discuss fixing an accident scene and falsifying an official document to try and save one of their own from at most, a reprimand. Its like cops who get square in front of their own cameras to beat the hell out of someone. Its a “wtf” moment that just leaves you shaking your head in disblief.
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