Obama Takes Race Relations Down a Peg

You would think the only and first black president in the western world would have the sensibility to not race bait the nation. The arrest of a black Harvard professor has set the wheels in motion for the next national race crisis and Obama is only adding fuel to the fire. On July 16th Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested outside his Cambridge Massachusetts home for disorderly conduct by a white officer. Officer James Crowley responded to a call from a neighbor who witnessed the man later identified as Gates breaking into a home. As it turned out, Gates was breaking into his own home. When approached by the officer Gates immediately accused the officer of being racist and the situation escalated to Gate's arrest.

The police report published on thesmokinggun.com clearly shows the arrest of Gates was deserved. Gates is probably lucky he wasn't tazed, bro. If it isn't bad enough the usual suspects are getting bent of shape (Sharpton, etc) Obama has to chime in like a CNN pundit. Instead of waiting until he knew all the facts (which in his statement he admitted he did not) and if necessary releasing a sensible statement, our fearless leader goes off-prompter and tells the world:

1) "any of us would be pretty angry"
2) "the Cambridge police acted stupidly"
3) "there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately"

Really? First, if you locked yourself out of your house and had to break in, wouldn't your first thought be "I hope no one sees me and thinks I'm breaking in." I think most people would be grateful if not understanding that a neighbor and the police were so quick to respond to a situation like that. Wouldn't most people tell the police officer "yeah, ya know...funny story...here's my ID." That's not what Gates did. He immediately assumed he was being questioned because he was black and initially refused to show the officer his ID.

Obama's assertion that the police acted stupidly is reckless and ignorant. To make that statement without knowing the facts, to undermine a police officer doing his job, and to ignore the childish and disrespectful behavior of Gates is astounding coming from a president and will only perpetuate the claim that this was a racially motivated incident. In his remarks Obama stated that Gates was a friend of his so he was probably biased. Fine. Then, maybe you're not in the best position to offer your opinion to the country.

And, unfortunately blacks and Latinos are stopped by police disproportionally because they cause commit a disproportionate amount of violent crimes. That's not opinion. It's just a simple fact. Pretending that isn't the case is absurd and only further damages race relations. Instead of pretending, isn't it more productive to examine why it's disproportionate and work on solving that problem.

Now, Obama "is surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement. because I think it was a pretty straightforward comment that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home." If that's true and everything is that simple, let's apply that logic to airports as well. I would like Obama to explain to me the reason why my old Jewish grandmother in a wheelchair has to go through hours of security at an airport while they examine her walker and the corns on her feet. Oye vey - what a shanda.