Proof that racism is alive and well Options

[THECHICKEN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090722/ap_on_...cholar_analysis

It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling — it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.

The news was parsed and Tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all Henry "Skip" Gates: Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. MacArthur "genius grant" recipient. Acclaimed historian, Harvard professor and PBS documentarian. One of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997. Holder of 50 honorary degrees.

If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009?

Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

"My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness," he said Tuesday. "Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to white law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever."

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a white police sergeant arrived.

Gates and the sergeant gave differing accounts of what happened next. But for many people, that doesn't matter.

They don't care that Gates was charged not with breaking and entering, but with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. It doesn't matter whether Gates was yelling, or accused Sgt. James Crowley of being racist, or that all charges were dropped Tuesday.

All they see is pure, naked racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Graves.

"It never would have happened — imagine a white professor, a distinguished white professor at Harvard, walking around with a cane, going into his own house, being harassed or stopped by the police. It would never happen."

Racial profiling became a national issue in the 1990s, when highway police on major drug delivery routes were accused of stopping drivers simply for being black. Lawsuits were filed, studies were commissioned, data was analyzed. "It is wrong, and we will end it in America," President George W. Bush said in 2001.

Yet for every study that concluded police disproportionately stop, search and arrest minorities, another expert came to a different conclusion. "That's always going to be the case," Greg Ridgeway, who has a Ph.D in statistics and studies racial profiling for the RAND research group, said on Monday. "You're never going to be able to (statistically) prove racial profiling. ... There's always a plausible explanation."

Federal legislation to ban racial profiling has languished since being introduced in 2007 by a dozen Democratic senators, including then-Sen. Barack Obama.

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said that was partly because "when you look at statistics, and you're trying to prove the extent, the information comes back that there's not nearly as much (profiling) as we continue to experience."

But Davis has no doubt that profiling is real: He says he was stopped while driving in Chicago in 2007 for no reason other than the fact he is black. Police gave him a ticket for swerving over the center line; a judge said the ticket didn't make sense and dismissed it.

"Trying to reach this balance of equity, equal treatment, equal protection under the law, equal understanding, equal opportunity, is something that we will always be confronted with. We may as well be prepared for it," he said.

Amid the indignation over Gates' case, a few people pointed out that he may have violated the cardinal rule of avoiding arrest: Do not antagonize the cops.

The police report said that Gates yelled at the officer, refused to calm down and behaved in a "tumultuous" manner. Gates said he simply asked for the officer's identification, followed him into his porch when the information was not forthcoming, and was arrested for no reason. But something about being asked to prove that you live in your own home clearly struck a nerve — both for Gates and his defenders.

"You feel violated, embarrassed, not sure what is taking place, especially when you haven't done anything," said Graves of his own experience, when police made him face the wall and frisked him in Grand Central Station in New York City. "You feel shocked, then you realize what's happening, and then you feel it's a violation of everything you stand for."

And that this should happen to "Skip" Gates — the unblemished embodiment of President Obama's recent admonition to black America not to search for handouts or favors, but to "seize our own future, each and every day" — shook many people to the core.

Wrote Lawrence Bobo, Gates' Harvard colleague, who picked his friend up from jail: "Ain't nothing post-racial about the United States of America."

Obviously race related...

[jonathan83]

i dont think anyone believes that racism no longer exists. racism exists in every country, by every kind of people, and will never go away completely, ever. sad but true.

it's funny how everyone talks about america being so full of racism, when most americans don't realize how racist other countries can be.

take japan and korea for example. i know for a fact there are certain shops, clubs, etc. that have "foreigners not allowed" in them purely because of race. some races OTHER THAN WHITES seriously do believe their race is superior. in china, there are tons of races mixed together, so racism exists there too. there were just reports this week about the uyghurs being killed in large numbers. the main race, the han, seems similar to the whites in america. they're the majority, don't get as much flak, etc. or so what i've read and observed. inferia, i'd like to know your take on that, since i have this hunch that you're of the han race (sorry if i'm completely off though).

[Inferia]

take japan and korea for example. i know for a fact there are certain shops, clubs, etc. that have "foreigners not allowed" in them purely because of race. some races OTHER THAN WHITES seriously do believe their race is superior. in china, there are tons of races mixed together, so racism exists there too. there were just reports this week about the uyghurs being killed in large numbers. the main race, the han, seems similar to the whites in america. they're the majority, don't get as much flak, etc. or so what i've read and observed. inferia, i'd like to know your take on that, since i have this hunch that you're of the han race (sorry if i'm completely off though).

There is racism everywhere you go in this world, it is to some degree unavoidable. America, is near the forefront of the race discussion, though I'm don't believe I would be right in saying that it is in the forefront of handling the "race issue". The majority of Chinese people you will meet in your life will be of the Han ethnicity, there are a whole bunch of other minority groups in China, but they make up only about 10% of the country. How I view China's take on race is kind of two folds, one is how people view race and the other is how the government view race. There is a slight discrepancy as to how the government want to view race and difference in race in China, but people for most part don't understand that there is an race issue. Much of what I feel like the people's understanding (include many people in the government, I don't know where the "cut off" is) of race is comparable to what of the more what I consider ignorant people in this country when it comes to race. Whereas the big difference is that at least more people here not only acknowledge race, but many actually do understand the race problem. There the number of people who would acknowledge that there is a race problem (in that the majority has a problem) is very few and far in between. Which in it self is more of the problem. Their exists to some degree affirmative action for minority, I can't remember they have a quota system or a lower of test score system (your ability to get into college is essentially based on one test score). They can have more children than rest of the city Hans, there are a few more, but I can't think of it. In Han's eyes, these are privileges that exists in for the minority and here is when things get tricky.

We should talk briefly about the concept of White Privilege. There have been extensive talk on the white privilege in this country, which is what much of the affirmative action stuff is based on. It is assumed that as a white person, we're not talking about a rich white person or a poor white person here (of course there are privileges attributed to wealth), we're talking about the color of your skin, has an easier time finding a job, a nice area to live, your kind of food in the supermarket, the assumption that you don't speak for your race, these are privileges that are not afforded to minorities. So a similar kind of privilege program works in China, though probably in a much unfortunate sense. Someone from the Han group will have an easier time finding work because it is very easy for them to find someone who is of a han background, and chances are that person will get the job over a minority. Hans are generally wealthier, they can always find a living space where is people of their ethnicity, where people will accept them purely based on race. Many do not really see this as a privilege that is unearned based on their race. Whereas for the 56 other minority groups, it will be more difficult for them to find a job, more difficult to find a place so they can have their way of life, a school where their kids can learn in their native language. The text books will talk about all the great things that Hans have done to make the country great, the tests are written by hans. In the end, you're starting at a further back starting point at birth if you were born a minority. All these problems exist in this country, but the big difference is that many people recognizes these invisible privileges, if only some of them. Whereas there, the belief is much more homogeneous.

Though I must disagree with you that many Americans don't realize that other countries or people in other countries can be racist. I think many believe that other people are too racist and try to use that as a justification for racism in this country. I've heard comments such as don't you think Mexicans are racist? Ultimately that's not the point, I personally don't think people should (or at least aim to try) justify their actions and attitudes based on the ignorance of another group of people.

[Black Bear]

...your kind of food in the supermarket...

I'm being discriminated against here in Lubbock County. I have to drive at least 40 minutes to find the nearest store that sells my comestibles on both my German and Irish sides.

I've heard comments such as don't you think Mexicans are racist? Ultimately that's not the point, I personally don't think people should (or at least aim to try) justify their actions and attitudes based on the ignorance of another group of people.

I understand your point here, but you also make another point. Growing up I always heard racism talked about like it was a disease only white people could get. Then I grew up and went to college. Fuck that. If you want to generalize--a scary proposition, I know--I find whites to be the least racist. I think it is mainly because the media and affirmative action and all the other crap has been trying for years to guilt us into feeling bad. Fuck that. I personally grew up in BFE, but a co-worker of mine was a white boy growing up in a black neighborhood. Yeah, like the song. A nine year old trying to protect a 7 and a 5 year old brother from teenagers. To this day his only comment is "Fuck those black mother fuckers." From what he went through I cannot blame him.

As far as profiling goes, I know about that, too. If you sat me on a harley I would fit right in with most biker gangs. I simply like my beard, and I like it to be the opposite of my head, which looks like a cue-ball. When people first see me they are pretty damned reserved to say the least. Now you are probably thinking that my situation is different from skin color, and I'll agree with you: I choose to look the way I do. But I've been profiled before. Is it fun? No, it isn't. Personally I hate cops, but you don't yell and scream at them, no mater how big the fucking chip on their shoulder is.

As far as white privilege, I never really felt very privileged because I was white. I worked to get where I am today. Did I do it all myself? Hell no, but I didn't lay around and expect it to be handed to me either. I busted my ass in school to get good grades to earn my scholarships. My family did without so we could participate in 4-H. I didn't have a game console till I went to college and I bought a sega genesis. My vehicles were used oil-field trucks. I was able to get them not cause I'm white, but because my old man worked his ass off doing four fucking jobs, and one of those jobs was in the oil-field. (Yeah, I freely admit I'll never be the man my dad is, but then neither will anyone else. They just don't make 'em like my old man anymore. He's the greatest god-damn man I've ever met. That's not bragging, just the facts.)

Now I know someone will probably try to misquote me, and that's fine. But the only racism I see in THIS case is coming from the black community.