A teachable moment
The furor created by the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates is starting to die down. Mainly because of President Obama's effort to call Professor Gates and the police officer Sgt. James Crowley and offer them a beer and a chance to discuss the issue. Both men seemed to have had a good conversation with the President.
President Obama and Professor Gates have called this incident a teachable moment. But President Obama and Professor Gates language suggests that they are coming from a perspective that Blacks are the victims. Now I am sure that there are cases where that is true and those issues should be addressed. But who is speaking for the side of the police officers regardless of race? Police officers have a dirty job. They have to go in to dangerous situations such has a domestic dispute, orconfronting a violent armed person. Even in a routine traffic stop, they can be taking their own life in their hands.
Now take that kind of day to day stress and add onto it the kind of verbal abuse that they are trained to ignore, and I think you can understand why a police officer gets tired of the threats, tired of the racial and personal slurs, and tired of being threatened with law suits. There is an Indian saying that says, "In order to truly understand a person you must first walk a mile in their moccasins". So if Professor Gates really wants to make this a teachable moment, then he should agree to ride withthe police in a low income black neighborhood to see just how far the police go to avoid the charge of racial profiling. He should see first hand the kind of verbal abuse that the police put up with. Then maybe he could judge better for himself if his action in this case were unwarranted and contributed to his arrest. Maybe part of the teachable moment is to help the Black community understand that the police are just trying to do their job, and the way they react to the police, has a large influence on the way the police treat them.
- Thomas Paine 2
How not to get your ass kicked by the police!
President Obama and Professor Gates have called this incident a teachable moment. But President Obama and Professor Gates language suggests that they are coming from a perspective that Blacks are the victims. Now I am sure that there are cases where that is true and those issues should be addressed. But who is speaking for the side of the police officers regardless of race? Police officers have a dirty job. They have to go in to dangerous situations such has a domestic dispute, orconfronting a violent armed person. Even in a routine traffic stop, they can be taking their own life in their hands.
Now take that kind of day to day stress and add onto it the kind of verbal abuse that they are trained to ignore, and I think you can understand why a police officer gets tired of the threats, tired of the racial and personal slurs, and tired of being threatened with law suits. There is an Indian saying that says, "In order to truly understand a person you must first walk a mile in their moccasins". So if Professor Gates really wants to make this a teachable moment, then he should agree to ride withthe police in a low income black neighborhood to see just how far the police go to avoid the charge of racial profiling. He should see first hand the kind of verbal abuse that the police put up with. Then maybe he could judge better for himself if his action in this case were unwarranted and contributed to his arrest. Maybe part of the teachable moment is to help the Black community understand that the police are just trying to do their job, and the way they react to the police, has a large influence on the way the police treat them.
- Thomas Paine 2
How not to get your ass kicked by the police!
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