RACIAL PROFILING: Friend or foe

PRESIDENT CLEARS THE AIR

Just when it looked like things were cooling down, President Obama said police acted “stupidly” when they arrested a black Harvard scholar outside his own home. Prof Henry Louis Gates was held last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to the top university where he teaches.

President Barack Obama said the US had a long history of African-Americans being disproportionately stopped by police. Officers were called to Prof Gates’s house after a woman reported seeing two black males – the professor and his driver – trying to force entry.

Although the exact facts of the incident are disputed, Prof Gates was asked to provide the officer with identification. He was then asked to step outside his house and was arrested. Mr Obama said: “I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. “Number two… the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

An initial disorderly conduct charge was dropped and Cambridge police called the arrest “regrettable and unfortunate”.

Maria (Maki) Haberfeld who is a professor of Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City told cnn.
We teach our children to think about what others feel before they act, but as grown-ups we frequently assume we understand what others do without ever having walked in their shoes.

President Obama expressed his opinion about a police officer’s interaction with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. “The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” the president said.

Was it stupid behavior or was it an understandable result of police procedure — the culture, or rather sub-culture, of this profession. People depend on police in a time of trouble but are quicker than lightning to judge harshly when things go wrong. But the most important question in this case is: Did they go wrong?

One needs to understand that the interaction between a police officer and a suspect is just part of a larger context.

Jeffrey Wright who is a stage and screen actor who has won a Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe told cnn.
President Obama expressed what many Americans feel regarding the recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates — that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police responded “stupidly.”

Obama is catching some flak for that, but I applaud him for having had the courage to speak his heart and mind.

I wonder if the president himself has ever experienced the blunt end of racial profiling, or if he personally knows of anyone who has. Among African-American males in this country, the small minority is those who have not or do not.

Did some prior experience or knowledge inform his response about the Gates incident? I have no facts to back this up, but, to me, it seemed personal. If it was, I understand.

US President Barack Obama has told America’s oldest civil rights organisation that African Americans should take charge of their own lives.
He told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) there were “no excuses” for minority children not to succeed.
Mr Obama’s comments came in a speech at a dinner marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP.

It is his first speech focusing on race since he became US president. The BBC’s Jon Donnison in Washington says the tone of the speech was passionate, even preacher-like.

It seems like its time to turn the temperature down on the racial issue in the country and bridge the divide and work together on dealing with larger issues that are more important to the families all across the country.