Who Blew It? President Obama, Professor Gates or Sgt. Crowley

I'm still thinking about this. I've been following comments on it in the Obama thread. (I particularly appreciated Cyclo's link to commentary by the conservative black writer, John McWhorter). My gut reaction is pro Gates, whom I've read articles by or about and liked, and my final reaction is apt to be pro Gates. I can understand rage or something like it on both sides. I haven't yet read Crowley's comments - I might understand him more if I do.

Whatever, I do see it as a tableau for talk about our divisions.

I'll add that I agreed with Cyclo's posts on the Obama thread. My interest now is in understanding more fully. I have some air room to change my mind as I read more.
Re Obama, whom I just plain like, he shudna commented with that press question (he was treating the press like friends in his kitchen, which I can understand, but, heh, is stupid), and was apt in doing a recovery step.

Watching

Making a mountain out of a mole.
The police was probably wrong in the first place, Gates wrong in the aftermath
and Obama in talking about it nationally. Then again, Gates is his friend and
he's only human - even as a president!

We have more important issues to conquer than this trivial pursuit.

Obama was wrong to make it personal. Good god, there's a huge amount of eyes on this event.

He could have said that he trusts there will be a fair and impartial investigation by the authorities. I predict a backlash for his calling the police acting "stupidly".

My fast and dirty understanding is that a neighbor called the police to report a breaking and entering in progress. So, some guy tells them he lives there. Well, yeah, maybe he does, but that would be a good time to be cooperative with identification, while refraining from argumentative behavior.

I would bet there were words and body language we aren't going to ever know of, so the main message may be "Don't screw around with the President's friends, whether he knows what's going on, or not.

How quickly the "disorderly conduct" charge was dropped speaks some to the issue.

If a suit is filed, it will fill in a lot of the holes unless it is settled out of court which will make it's own statement.

That's the lesson, don't screw around with the president's friends?

Well, there has been. It did happen to be personal and he backed off. Keep up, Sully..

I suspect all three did.

I'm not interested in repeating cyclo's arguments on the obama thread.

Read them for yourselves.

Here's a link, and to find the start of the foofuraw, read back.

http://able2know.org/topic/71145-1359#post-3714111

Has there been any published details? I'm following this nationally and locally. I LOVE the discussion happening about race relations, even if some people may be saying stupid things. IMO, the saying-of-the-stupid-things is sort of part of it.

Also following.

Too bad, my Gatesgate lost out on the tagging.

I am inclined to agree with you Robert. I was sort of flabbergasted. But some folks can be so sensitive, but if you have crawled out of the ghetto and have become a success you don't want your parade rained out.

There's some truth to that, I get what you are saying. Still, I take this as a case in point.

I can't know exactly what happened on the scene, but Gates looks in a rage even in the photo of him being led off in handcuffs. The police were summoned and had to make some kind of sense of the situation. When the police try to identify and question someone who flies into a rage and refuses even to provide identification, isn't it perfectly normal for them to arrest him? Should he get a pass where another person would be arrested because he's black, or because he has a prestigious job, or should he be treated like any other hostile, aggressive, uncooperative person who yells and refuses reasonable requests?

At his own house. Brandon?

He wasn't arrested for burglary or tresspassing. He was arrested for disorderly conduct. If he flew into a rage at the police and refused even to say who he was, isn't that a common grounds for a disorderly conduct arrest? What do you expect the police to do with people who are loud and aggressive and won't comply with reasonable requests?