I've read a ton of comments from (white) people on various liberal blogs that say something like this: Yes, Gates was innocent, but everybody knows you don't talk back to the police. Why didn't he just put his head down and say yes, sir, of course sir, here's my ID sir? What kind of fool is he? Or they say something like, well, your sympathies might be with Gates, but the police deal with lunatics and jerks all day long, and many of them are dangerous, and they can't afford to take chances, and the police do this for very little money, the police are there to protect us, which Gates should have realized, so--
This is the problem with these comments, as Obama knows, and those writing here do as well: Two different Americas exist. Rich/Middle class white folk get to live in one, and maybe there the police exist to protect "us"; people of color, particularly, and to some extent poor white folk live in a different America.
Maybe you should shut up and listen to what you're getting told about that place, just one time. How would that be?
2 comments:
Oh yeah. I am one of those people who never has to worry about police brutality because I am white, middleaged, female, and can pass for middle class. Little do they know. But, I've seen the police at the finest when they were not talking to me but talking to someone else and they do have an attitude and they are loud and they say shut up a lot. I watched the cops harrass a guy in front of my house one day. They pulled him over and he pulled into my driveway because, well, you've seen my street. And they yell at him, he gives him his paper work, and every time he tried to talk, they ordered him to shut up and one said shut the fuck up. I took my garbage out and lingered and watched and kept watching cause I wanted them to know that I was watching. I even had my phone as if I were going to take a picture. When it was over and they left, the man, a hispanic, got out of his car. His wife and kid were upset. He said he thought they were going to arrest him and were asking for his green card and he said I don't have one cause I was born here. Anyway, they were very rude to him and loud and cursing and did I mention he had his kid with him? So, yeah. I was ready, though, to take pictures. I hate bullies.
Driving While Brown.
But that's not profiling, see, because...
Well, I forget why it's not profiling, but Rushbots keep explaining it to me. It makes perfect sense to them.
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