Just a few short days ago, headlines and news stations from coast to coast were reporting about how a white cop, who arrested distinguished Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Junior, was refusing to apologize.
The dye was cast. This was a powerful story on racism in America. This was a story about white cops profiling and harassing a black man; only this time that black man was a distinguished Harvard Professor with powerful connections.
One angle being initially pushed was whether this incident would open up a much needed dialogue on race and racism in America. We were lectured by everyone from the local reporter to the President himself about the need to have that dialogue on race.
Well, dear sirs and madams, I’ll see you and I’ll raise you a pound of flesh.
Those who once demanded ‘that dialogue’ have quickly changed their tune. The new tune from Obama, Gates and the pundits is ‘lets put this behind us’. How convenient.
I guess ‘lets have a dialogue on race’ means ‘lets have a dialogue on race only when it serves the purpose of supporting our narrowly constructed worldview and advancing our liberal political agenda’.
But they let the genie out of the bottle and once you let it out, you cannot put it back just because it inconveniences you. They asked for it, they got it.
This is about race. Lets talk about racists who cry racism to mask their own insidious racism. Lets talk about how racists see every life circumstance that involves a degree of negativity, discomfort, confusion, hostility, inconvenience, or agitation as a matter of race.
Lets talk about the pure, unadulterated racism of Henry Louis Gates Junior; a man who assumed the worse in another man, who has spent his life fighting hatred and racism, only because that man was white and wore a uniform.
Lets talk about Obama’s immediate reflexive support for his racist friend. A reaction so strong that the cool collected President felt the need to ignore facts, go off script, assume the worst about a white police officer, and abuse the office of the presidency to denigrate that police officer on national television.
Lets talk about good people living in fear of racists. People living in fear of the bigoted self-anointed guardians of the race issue, who harass, criminalize and destroy people who do not submit to their gross intimidation tactics and their rigid constructs of proper racial behavior.
Yes, Mr. President, let’s have that dialogue on race.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
Just another Emily Litella moment in Obama's
janis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 2:07PM EST (link)career. He didn’t get away with his ignorant and racist behavior so we’re supposed to all say “Never mind.” and let him off the hook. Yeah, I don’t think so. He started this crap along with his buddy, Skip Gates, and both of them should reap every little bit of whirlwind that they deserve.
Quite frankly, I’m pretty tired of hearing blacks talk about how they and they alone are targeted by law enforcement because of their skin color. There are many groups that law enforcement keep an eye out for and that includes young men of any color driving certain cars, or wearing certain color clothes, or sporting certain kinds of tats. They are also apt to size up someone who has the obvious signs of meth use or other drug abuse. Aside from that, anyone of any color who behaves the way that old Skippy did is just asking for an arrest.
Years ago, I was doing a wedding (as a florist) for someone who worked at one of the local banks. I was given permission, along with a key, to put stuff in the basement of the bank until I needed to take it to the church the next day. However, the bank personnel forgot to tell me that their new silent alarm system was going to be activated the next day and, you guessed it, I set off the alarm when I dropped by to get the stuff after banking hours. Not knowing that, I was confused by seeing the blue lights behind me when I was just pulling up to the church. I got out and asked the officer what I had done and he explained that the alarm at the bank had gone off and I was the only one caught on the parking lot camera. Thinking only that I had a limited amount of time to get the church decorated, and knowing that I had the key from the bank president, I informed him what I was doing at the bank and suggested he call the bank president at home for confirmation. Then I went on to inform him that if the alarm at the big church went off, it was me and I had a key to THAT as well.
The real kicker was that when he asked for my license, I couldn’t find it and ended up giving him one of my business cards. Fortunately, another police officer pulled up for backup at that point and he laughed and said, “I know her and her husband. She’s no bank robber, just let her go.” Thank God for small towns! Had that happened in someplace like Nashville, I doubt that I’d have been able to laugh about it these many years later.
Obama needs to keep this one handy...
TNJim (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 2:13PM EST (link)Racism may still exist among some idiots
Lloyd Davis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 2:41PM EST (link)but to say someone is a racist just because they have a different skin tone is the height of IGNORANCE. They hold up the example of a great man, Martin Luther King, Jr. and then ignore the fact that he wanted equal treatment of all. As he said in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Unfortunately, his dream of a color-blind nation is being destroyed by many of the same ones he fought and died to help. When you have a man accuse a cop of racism just for doing his job, he shows a profound degree of IGNORANCE.
As I said, racism still exists in this country, but can someone point out how Henry Louis Gates Jr. has been denied because of his skin color. THE MAN IS A HARVARD UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR.
No racism there.
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When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.
-Ronald Reagan
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It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority
keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.
-Samuel Adams
what about the high % of blacks involved in crime and low income entitlement programs?
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 2:53PM EST (link)What %of black children recieve public assistance and lets break it down to TANF & fs and medicaid vs just food stamps and mediciad, housing assistance? There has to be a much higher % of black families recieving TANF and the rest vs white families. With white families I’m guessing you see more support food stamps and mediciad only and less of a % of white families on any entitlement programs. I’m 100% sure there is a much higher % of black families that are in some time of subsidized housing if it be projects or section 8.
What % of black families with children recieve the ETIC vs % of white families with children?
What % of blacks earn enough to pay federal income tax vs what percent of whites? Who is paying for the crime resources and low income entitlement programs? From my experience it’s totally amazed me at how many blacks there are vs whites in projects and recieving public assistance and in crime. Where are these things like never discussed? Why is the % black men in prison for violent crime out of the population of black men never discussed?
Because if you bring up issues like this
izoneguy (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 3:07PM EST (link)You are labeled as a RACIST. But facts are facts. Calling people racists won’t change the facts. Human behaviour is very difficult to change. Just as a poor person born into a poor family will probably stay poor. If you grow up around a culture of entitlement then you expect things to be given to you. The young person growing up in section 8 housing sees big brother rolling in the dough because of the drugs he sells. Why go work for $7.25 per hour at MacDonalds if you can make $1000 a day selling drugs? Of course selling drugs is a risky business but going to prison is a small price to pay. I have worked with at risk youth and have seen this story over & over again. You have to get to them when they are 8-10 years old or it is too late. Many kids growing up in Section 8 housing are not supervised because the mother is usually gone while working at the MacDonalds on a double shift.
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
and to make it really ironic
bk (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:01PM EST (link)Isn’t a lot of the crime in America black on black? But if there’s a crackdown in a housing project or some area of town that’s overwhelmingly black it’s called racist, even though it would really protect lots of potential black victims if you got rid of the black criminals in their neighborhoods.
And that, bk, brings up a phenomenon that I've
janis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:31PM EST (link)watched grow in intensity over the past few years. The frequent cries of “Racism!” that get flung at whites so often, and so often unfairly as in this particular case, have given rise to a single thought every time there is a crime committed and the victim is black. And that thought tends to a very short prayer, “Please God let the perps be black, too.” And that’s just pathetic.
That cemetery in Illinois that was on the news a couple of weeks ago where some 300 or so of the interred were dug up and disposed of so the workers there could resell their plots involved mostly black families from what the news reports showed. Can’t tell you who relieved I was to learn that the workers were also black. Yet when a guy whose family owned and ran a crematorium in Alabama some years back was found guilty of doing something just as horrible, there was never any question of his race. His victims were black, white and every other race. He was black and just didn’t bother to do the cremations and return the ashes to the families. He sent them ashes from whatever he felt like burning and returning.
Being a sorry human being is one of those things that crosses all gender and racial barriers quite successfully.
I don't think cops even care
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:36PM EST (link)about projects unless they have to go there to do a report. That was at least what I saw when we lived there. Now this might be some kind of huge misconception on my part, I have never worked in law enforcement but that is what I saw. When I reported my car being stolen in the projects it got a lot less of a response when I reported it was stolen years later in a better area. Now there could be a lot of variables to that, so who knows?
I still remember when we moved in, I saw cops that were leaving and they said flat out my electronics would be stolen and they were right. Could you imagine if a cop said that to someone moving into a gated subdivision? LOL
bk I agree wtih you, it’s crazy why don’t people see it? I have no idea why women support grown low life men either, these men are destroying their peace and community! I think if women would have no tolerance for low life men like they don’t get to visit, sleep in their beds, eat their food, sleep on their couch, watch their tv, no creature comforts, things would be totally different in projects. Women are the first to help the criminals, if it’s their son, boyfriend, brother, they really enable these men destroying their community.
Those things are discussed, mom2.
janis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 3:11PM EST (link)As to why there are more black families on welfare programs, you can thank the Dems. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs were all about seeing to it that black families in particular were given housing, food stamps, Medicaid, etc. And that’s exactly the time that black families started coming apart at the seams. Welfare moms didn’t get as much money if they were married, so up goes the number of kids without dads. If you don’t want to pay for your housing, then you live in gov. housing, and up goes the amount of crime, especially crime involving blacks. And if you have a couple of generations of kids raised without dads and without an intact family structure, then you’re going to have a lot of kids and young men getting into trouble.
izone and janis
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 3:30PM EST (link)It makes me sad
when I read what y’all write about the excuses for people to be criminals or raise up criminals. Look at all the widows through the centuries that raised good men alone and sometimes in poverty. Look at the women that do it now. Some aren’t even the child’s parent but an Aunt or grandma and they do an excellent job.
Maybe this is just a hot button for me, growing up in a city I guess I got tired of hearing the excuses when many kids did not make those same choices and then when I was older,seeing so many resources go into bad kids when goods kids and families I thought should be helped suffered hardships that would have taken a very very very small % of the same resources (that went into the bad kids) to help them. Do we ever look at what juv lawyers and the juv court system for criminal things cost taxpayers?
My whole point with my post was that they bring up that whties are so racist so much but what about all of the crime and low income entitlement programs?
kowalski
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 3:35PM EST (link)I know the part about being upset about where the resources are going to (bad kids vs good things) was socialist, so you don’t have to call me out on that.
mom2, you need to try and understand that
janis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 3:52PM EST (link)we are speaking in generalities, not in specifics. Yes, many, many people have been raised by single moms– or dads, as well– through the centuries and often in poverty. And many of those kids turned out well. But you’d also have to look at the culture they were raised in to see how much support it offered to single parents, particularly to single women, that made it easier for those kids to have a chance at turning out well. Was it a culture that supported and made it desirable to attend church and school and did it support obeying the authorities in school, church and community?
You often defend welfare programs and those who live in poverty without ever mentioning what welfare programs cost us socially. I’m not judging those who live in poverty as being “less than I”, nor am I saying that there is not a place and time when a person or family needs help. But that help should be brief and it should be just a bridge to self-reliance, not a way of life for generations to come. It is that “the gov. will take care of me” attitude that is demeaning and that destroys initiative and the desire to work hard. It is not noble to live on charity forever, no matter whether it’s the gov. charity or the private sector.
As to your remarks about the resources being given to the “bad kids” instead of to the good kids, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. And the good kids will more often than not work hard to lift themselves up and out of hardship.
generalities
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:21PM EST (link)I didn’t mean that you and izone were applying it to all.
I see the problem as being moral, it’s not poverty, entitlement program, lack of a father, a bad big brother, living in projects that is an excuse for criminal activities. Especially with young adult men, they are the healthiest and strongest in our society. If a person with a physical disability or too mature to work was dealing drugs cause they could not work I would be more sympathetic
I don’t agree with blaming welfare for crime, it’s still a moral decision on how to raise a child and a moral decision to be a criminal or not. I don’t agree with blaming welfare for people on welfare. Everyone has decisions that have to make to do the right thing when it would be easier not to, it’s not specific to the poor raising their families.
(Also I don’t understand the so called incentive not to be married because it’s income and family size that it is based on, not marriage or not, if the men are unemployed or employed at a low wage to where they would still qualify for many things, perhaps more due to the EITC and ACTC and more food stamps and if a man is giving them cash and the applicant isn’t reporting it, it’s fraud.)
When I defend welfare on here, I’m usually talking in the context of the program existing. It’s usually the application of it or miconceptions of it that I have such a hard time with. If anything I think it hurts the poor the most becase it raises the prices of things.
I'm not blaming welfare for people on welfare.
janis (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 5:00PM EST (link)I’m blaming those who find it a convenient way of gaining and keeping power over others. As to blaming welfare for crime, not exactly. More like blaming the results of welfare for crime. As others have mentioned, drive through the projects and you will find many people just sitting on stoops, porches and curbs when they should be out looking for or working a job. A few years ago, there was no reason whatsoever why someone should be unemployed when even fast food places were begging for employees. Any place where you have large numbers of people, particularly young men, with no productive work to do, you will have a fertile area for crime.
As for the morality involved in welfare, as I mentioned above, there’s no shame in needing a hand up at some point. But if you consistently believe that living off the fruits of someone else’s labor is the right thing to do, then your morals have already been corrupted. Yes, the rich can certainly be corrupted as well, but the topic here was welfare and black crime. By the way, black crime is certainly not confined to the projects anymore than white crime is confined to the suburbs. Just take a gander at Charlie Rangel and Al Sharpton, not to mention Obama in cahoots with Tony Rezko. There’s also Michael Jackson’s doctor, the one who apparently gave him the shot that did him in. He’s black,too.
Janis
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 8:51PM EST (link)Thank you for explaining. I’ve seen what you are talking about first hand. I agree with you about it crime crossing all socioeconomic levels.
Mom- I have a much better understanding of you now
Scope (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:31PM EST (link)In the past, I misunderstood your comments about entitlement programs. I was of the impression that you supported them whatever they were, or whatever they were to accomplish. From your above post, I agree that there will always be a need in this country to help some that have terrible disadvantages, particularly the impressionable children. We will never live in a country of perfect parenting. The money doled out should go to those that show promise, a willingness to educate themselves, and who have the ability to overcome their hardships. There are no guarantees, but, if you do some real monitoring, and follow-up, you can put the resources into those that keep with the program.
Obama talked about his grandma, being a “typical” white woman, who was afraid of the black men passing on the street. This typical white woman, will never go into the “projects”, that exist in all cities, at midnight, for a million dollars. I’ve driven through them during daylight, and witnessed the mostly black faces sitting on their porch couches or on the curb. They weren’t even trying to get jobs to earn their way. A few years ago there were numerous reports that in certain Philadelphia neighboorhoods, the blacks were shooting and killing each other, even during daylight hours, and on every street corner. I see it as an indication that some, and by far not many, blacks have no respect for life. It is those children that grow up as entitlement hogs, and Obama/Liberal supporters. Shoot, they will register to vote 16 times just for a cigarette.
weren't even trying
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 4:58PM EST (link)That is what I saw when we lived in projects. It really struck me at how many young presumably able bodied men did nothing all day. There was a community college that had a votech campus literally across the street too. They could have gotten trained to do anything from EMT to auto mechanics, carpentry, hvac, all kinds of stuff and even ged and basic literacy and math if they needed that. There was bus service and the downtown with all kinds of jobs was not a long bus trip either.
)
I grew up in Philly, I will respond more later, you are so right about the gun fire during the day! (My son is almost ready to go play tennis!
Write A Diary On It
Swamp_Yankee (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 5:44PM EST (link)first hand accounts matter. I gre up with friends in the projects. Now I literally live 50 yards from the projects. And about 40% of them have satellite dishes. The horror of poverty in American.
They gaze at you with their cocaine beamed eyes. They think just because they are a minority, a white person has to step aside and walk across the street just because they are congregated there. I dont. But I can hold my own and dont mind ruffling feathers.
The laziness of project is pathetic. Pundits, econominsts, and bloggers can write about, but first hand accounts have much more weight.
I’ve seen it my whole life. Race is inflamatory, but the ‘do nothing’, Ill just sit here and collect checks and maybe strike gold by screaming racsim often enough is offensive, pathetic, destructive, if not evil.
Swamp
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 9:25PM EST (link)I’ve included my experiences in a lot of the discussions about the DC Voucher threads when I discuss homeschooling.
I do get sick when I read these accounts of the homeless, poor, for the most part they are so clueless and their dumb solutions are really dumb. What upsets me the most is the things are don’t need solving (already been solved) get dramatized and the real things that there needs to be help wtih, my point of view would be private help, but anyway real unresolved problems get ignored. I wish I knew how to write and had better grammar. I would write a lot about homeless children and children growing up in the system.
kowalski
mom2oneson (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 9:07PM EST (link)just to clarify, I don’t think we need to bring up these things for the heck of it or with some ill intentions. When the racist people start sayin how whites as a group oppress blacks as a group I think we should answer back showing how a high % of black children are supported (food, housing) with low income entitlement programs and other things I posted above and all the opportunities that are available to the poor to increase their earning ability.
This is.....awesome
speciallist (Diary) Sunday, July 26th at 6:25PM EST (link)5
Democrats, race and things that tick me off.
randy streu (Diary) Monday, July 27th at 9:30AM EST (link)I’ve said it before: the majority of my anger toward the Left regarding race comes from the fact that, in this PC culture, I am literally unable to treat race as a non-issue. I want to. I’ve tried to. But our culture pounds into my brain that there IS a divide along racial lines. I don’t see one. I know there isn’t one there. And yet, the more I try to ignore it, the more it seeps in. It isn’t racism, but a distinct awareness of difference and of how our culture treats those differences.
As usual, the Good Intentions of Democrats have made the situation worse, simply because they don’t know when enough is enough.
I take my children as an example: they notice if somebody is a ‘different color’ than they are. But now that they’re older, and they’ve seen more diverse people, they’ve come to understand, instinctively, that we’re all just people. If you were to ask them if they thought a certain race deserved to be treated differently, they’d just look at you like you were an idiot.
My oldest two are almost five. Public school, I’m quite certain, will be pounding “diversity” and “understanding” into their brains until this simple, instinctive understanding of Truth is all but destroyed. Just like our culture did to me. And THAT pisses me off.
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Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Tuesday, July 28th at 6:42PM EST (link)this incident has prompted me to prepare a comprehensive look at the effect of Obama’s election per se and his actions in office on race in America coming w/i 48 hrs
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
It appears the sunlight has Mr. Gates "fixing" his tax returns....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Wednesday, July 29th at 3:51PM EST (link)http://www.webcpa.com/news/Henry-Louis-Gates-Foundation-Revise-Tax-Return-51156-1.html
My favorite part is the part where he says it’s just a minor mistake because ALL of The One’s friends seem to have these “minor” mistakes you know the kind that kills us “little” people and would cost us a hell of alot of money in fines!
“Gates also told the Boston Globe that it was simply an error. “It’s a very minor issue, just a simple mistake from the account,’’ he said. “It will all be rectified, and all is well.’’
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