* with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or
* recklessly creates a risk thereof
* engages in fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or
* creates a hazard or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.
Per Massachusetts Law also:
Massachusetts bars disorderly conduct through Section 53 of Chapter 272 of its general laws, the chapter devoted to crimes against chastity, morality, decency and good order. Specifically, it states that:
Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure may be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
With charges as nebulous as disorderly conduct, over time, courts refine what it means to violate the law. Certainly, there are many ways one can violate disorderly conduct restrictions. However, one requirement that Massachusetts courts have recognized is that the behavior must in some way be public.
At the very least, the conduct must be likely to have an impact on people in an area accessible to the public.
And generally, the presence of a police officer does not make the scene a public scene. In 2003, a Massacusetts Court of Appeals opinion (Commonwealth v. Mulvey, 57 Mass. App. Ct. 579) specifically held that the presence of a police officer is not enough to make behavior public. So behavior in a private setting with an officer present should not be disorderly conduct under Msssachusetts law.
And generally, the presence of a police officer does not make the scene a public scene. In 2003, a Massacusetts Court of Appeals opinion (Commonwealth v. Mulvey, 57 Mass. App. Ct. 579) specifically held that the presence of a police officer is not enough to make behavior public. So behavior in a private setting with an officer present should not be disorderly conduct under Massachusetts law.
I'll go back to one of my earlier thoughts; the sad fact that Gates and his Neighbors are that unknown to each other so as to have this event take place. Gates should have a party and invite the neighbors over for some food and drink or this will get worse over time. If I was that woman who called the police, I would go and introduce myself and invite him over for tea.
...but from what i understood, gates was outside in the front yard when the arrest happened.
this would make it a public area under this, very least, requirement: "the conduct must be likely to have an impact on people in an area accessible to the public." front yard>accessible to the public
maybe crowley walked outside to lure gates into an area accessible to the public? or maybe he really did intend to leave the scene and make no arrest. we can't be positive.
it's still a weak case for racial profiling...too speculative
and make, i don't know if old posts from malcontent affected your accusation, but it was highly offensive and uncalled for otherwise. disagreeing with someone of a different ethnicity does not make someone racist. quite the opposite really. your statement is exactly the type of (idiotic) reasoning that perpetuates racism. you owe an apology
and make, i don't know if old posts from malcontent affected your accusation, but it was highly offensive and uncalled for otherwise. disagreeing with someone of a different ethnicity does not make someone racist. quite the opposite really. your statement is exactly the type of (idiotic) reasoning that perpetuates racism. you owe an apology
He wasn't disagreeing with Obama. He is casting Obama as the "other." Trying to make Obama into an angry, fly off the handle "Black" man is or someone from another planet is what the birthers et al. are doing right now in out media. We have president that exercises supreme caution when he opens his mouth. The facts of the case are fairly simple. The interpretation is something else...
if obama was a liberal white man and made an uninformed statement as such, the conservatives would be just as eager.
as for this:
"He is casting Obama as the "other." Trying to make Obama into an angry, fly off the handle "Black" man is or someone from another planet"
i think that's extreme, and is speculative on your part. you don't know malcontent's intentions. maybe he doesn't favor obama's political agenda and is only happier now that he can use this slip by obama to support his cause. maybe he is racist. or maybe he just wants to make the point that our president was out of line with this one. either way, your comment was definitely out of line.
and this:
"We have president that exercises supreme caution when he opens his mouth"
that's what i thought too. not as sure after this debacle
Obama's statement was historic and I don't think that he intended it to come off as it did. More importantly is the followup to it with the "Beer Summit." Obama isn't perfect.
I recommend cracking a book on colonialism and you'll begin more of the context of all of this. Edward Said is a good place to start for the idea of the "other."
Roark, Gates was arrested on his porch, photos show Crowley and Gates - in handcuffs - on the porch. If you read the last bit of analysis on that link, it pretty much says that this arrest was not justified, under Mass law.
now, some other more astute writers are say that the arrest was a false arrest, primarily because the report states that the officer wrote; "he was told by the witness, two black men carrying back packs..." when not only did that not occur, but the 911 tape also contradicts the written report. top it all off with the fact that Crowley's own radio broadcast, do not indicate anything of a "tumultuous" or loud African American professor.
as for Obama, if everyone keeps holding him to some kind of god-like perfection, he'll never be allowed to make any mistakes. emotional responses, when it comes to race and this kind of experience, is something i think many will give this president some leeway on. besides, i'll take a president that admits his faults over one that never will.
"In any case, the main and most important issue in this incident is not whether the cop or Gates could have handled themselves better. Whoopee. The GIANT issue is that President Obama had NO IDEA what really happened at the time he made the irresponsible comments."
...
The Crowley / Gates scuffle and arrest itself and the excrutiating specualation over its details remains of little interest to me. That part will be handled by legal channels. The obsession to cast this arrest as purely racially-driven to help drive an invented argument that the arrest is therefore representative of racist country, is, in my opinion, wrong. Racism, is, of course, wrong in any form. Given that belief, I *also* believe that that attempts to create the appearance of racism to drive an argument or agenda is egually wrong, and is also its own form of racism. Some of that occurred within the fallout from the arrest, and is definitely occurring on this thread.
None of that had anything to do, however, with my criticism of Obama.
So back to my one and only point in all this. What has fascinated me about this incident has been President Obama's intitial comment, the public reaction to that comment, and his subsequent handling of himself due to that public reaction.
Mistakes are made, sure, and I'm hardly trying to judge the man or hang him out to dry over a single incident. But I think a pattern is forming, and for me -- and for many in his dwindling base of approval and support -- it's been disappointing. For many, the most worrisome aspect is this: Were this to be Obama's template for larger, globally-related incidents, we would indeed be in deep trouble.
I've repeated this idea several times trying to make the same point, and I no idea how else I might phrase it.
? Really? A pattern is forming? After one incident of expressing an iota of emotion? Really?
We just suffered through 8 hellish years of an Administration that apologized for nothing, went off the ranch with remarks like; Dead or Alive, You're Doing A Helluva Job Brownie, WMD, Saddam, Soddom, War on Terror, Patriot Act, Freedom Fries, i c o u l d g o o n a l l d a y l o n g.....
your panties get in a bunch over what is an emotional response to an all too frequent situation, that now that all tapes have been released, the legal standard has refuted the arrest; all proving the "stupidly" comment correct, and that one word has you fretting over the future of international relations, and possible incidents??
oh, and your seeming dismissal of the facts of the case is setting aside one possible reason for the remarks by the President. you may want to be blind to the situation, but the first African American President does not have that luxury, the press were going to test him, African Americans were testing him, and White America was testing him. so keep one eye closed, because your inability to see the depth of this issue is readily apparent.
Everyone is a racist. At least in the United States.
Sorry, tolerance just doesn't exist. The difference is more or less understanding that you are and then approaching then handling the feelings as the come.
Hell, I'd even defend the concept that you can legitimately just not like a large group of people. It's is perfectly "okay" as long as you're not attributing it their genetic or ethnic background as the cause for the hate.
Like I personally do not like muslims. I do not like muslims because they are Arabian or Middle Eastern or Persian... whatever their ethnic background is. I do not like muslims because of their "religious revival." I think it's distasteful to be so passionate over it on an international level. The only reason I say this is mostly because the areas around the Middle East have been trying to move away from religion for like the last what... 5 centuries?
I think the reactions of the professor, the cop and even the president are stereotypical. Hell, it should even be expected. This is what our society is and frankly... no one wants to change it. Everyone likes MLK and quotes his philosophy but no one ever credits his philosophy to what it was... urban policy suggestions. You know that whole "little black girl can hold hands with a little white boy" thing? Yeah, kids can't integrate unless they physically live in the same areas. And to white people, this means dragging the blacks into the suburbs.
While I am saddened by the whole situation, the race game does nothing for me. I am happy however that the cops are muscling seniors.
If we don't give teenagers breaks, we shouldn't give old people breaks either. So, throw the asshole in jail for all I care because tolerance is subjective.
Paraprhasing: This really isn't a race issue, it's a police-power issue. As in, the Cambridge police didn't like someone mouthing off to them. So they arrested him in his own home.
That seems to be the clearest statement of what happened.
"I'm not even sure this is a racial situation because I don't know if this cop is racist. But I have to say it seems to me more like a police situation. I think Henry Louis Gates was arrested for the crime of not kissing the behind of the police officer."
Kurt, my point, and you know i'm spot on is this; we have a President NOW that can comprehend that being human, fallible and if you believe he's a man of faith is not without sin, then failing to be eloquent, it would seem natural to apologize for the ill timed remark, and would seem infinitely better than we've had as a President.
As for conspiracies, the news conference was about health care, and the last question of the night was hey Mr. African American President what do you think about what happened? What did the reporter think was going to be the response? How do you think Conservative dilettantes were going to respond?
See, part of me, knowing how ridiculous the WCCWM [white christian conservative war machine] is, I thought perhaps this was a setup. A tailor made situation where the WCCWM would pull further right, and seem more extreme, the liberal elites would see this as posturing by the right, and the growing hispanic vote would move further left - especially in the light of Sotomayor.
How's that for conspiracy?
I like how we've managed to avoid the "Birthers" and for that I'm glad.
Listen, whites have always been holding blacks/minorities to higher standards. Case in point Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, MLK, Sotomayor, and the list goes on. So why should Obama be any different? Truth is Obama is bound by passed precedent to be better than any other President, if he's not we'll never see another minority elected in our lifetime.
the status quo telling others how not to be. i know you are kidding frac, but to your point, that is precisely what Republicans on the Judiciary were doing to Sotomayor; prove to us White Men that you're not a reverse racist - whatever the fuck that is....
Beta, I guess it also wasn't clear, but i was trying to make the point that I was criticizing a part of Obama's leadership skill set. That is, the ability to think quickly and not heighten the problem at hand, etc., but rather to diffuse it. Obama didn't show well in that regard.
Since that is what I consider to be the most important aspect of the entire affair, the race part is moot. Beta, you're acting like Obama can't be expected to think on his feet when in front of a hostile press. Try some North Korean upper echelon types.
Anyway, your premise that the press is against Obama -- please. They fully allowed his "apology" to serve the intended purpose.
i'm not saying the press is against him, i am saying that any question on race is going to be asked of this President, and that Kurt IS different than any other President since LBJ. and since he's African American, and therefor made to answer the question, does it not by implication make the question a bit more odd. why should this President be asked this question, was Clinton asked about OJ, was he asked about the black man dragged in Texas, was Bush asked about the Jena 8, or how about the black kid thrown in jail for having sex with a white girl, and accused of rape?
point is, if you are going to ask this President about racial profiling, when are other Presidents going to be held to the same standards? i didn't hear any questions posed to McCain about his voting down MLK holiday, why not?
i wasn't kidding, beta. i wish people would take the great words of Dr. King and actually apply them instead of clinging to the notion that whitey is holding them down.
obama had some great words to say in a recent speech to the naacp:
"We've got to say to our children, Yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. That's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school," he said. "No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands - and don't you forget that."
"No excuses. No excuses," Obama added, verging off his prepared remarks. "You get that education. All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able to compete. Yes, we can."
so i agree with my president and disagree with you, beta, that if obama turns out to be a so-so president that '... we'll never see another minority (president) elected in our lifetime.'.
Kurt the question was asked because of his race, if this had not been about a white cop and a black professor, a friend no less, then the question is not asked and you're not here disappointed.
FRaC, i just think like Jackie Robinson, this seems to be some kind of test for racial harmony, and whether or not a Black man has the skills and temperament for the job. perhaps that's a cynical take, but it took how long for African Americans to get the vote, to become more than 3/5ths, to end segregation, to become President...i just have a difficult time understanding my own race sometimes...and i don't put a lot of stock into the angels of our better nature...not yet anyway.
I guess I'm not seeing that the motivation of the questioning can be used to adjust our grading of the results. Again, will you be expecting fairness and polite discourse from the North Koreans?
I also think you'd meet with uproarious laughter if you presented your "only Obamaa gets the tough questions" premise.
Kurt, i like our dialog, but my simple point is this; asking this President a question about a racially charged and historically charged question and not others, is, by it's very nature an act of commission and omission.
it's not a matter of tough questions, because you are right, that is laughable.
like i said i appreciate an emotional response from human beings. now if he says on saturday's radio address; we will commence bombing of North Korea in the next 5 minutes, i'll say he's lost it or if he calls China the Evil Empire....
we're all missing the point here: everyone acted stupidly! The Cambridge Brewing Company is amazing brewpub right up the road from Harvard Square! A growler of their preferred beer could been acquired and enjoyed at the White House last night. Let's not lose sight of what's really important here.
gates: red stripe
crowley: blue moon
obama: bud light
obama loses on the beer choice, obviously, unless he was going for just a beer soda. maybe actually drinking a real beer is not ok for the president to do in public?
the sam adams brewer was on the radio yesterday saying he thought it would be nice if someone had picked sam adams, but not so... he also suggested that the president should have maybe had a beer by a company owned in the old us of a instead of europe.
Why Are We Not Talking About Henry Louis Gates Jr. ?
* with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or
* recklessly creates a risk thereof
* engages in fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or
* creates a hazard or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.
Per Massachusetts Law also:
Massachusetts bars disorderly conduct through Section 53 of Chapter 272 of its general laws, the chapter devoted to crimes against chastity, morality, decency and good order. Specifically, it states that:
Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure may be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
With charges as nebulous as disorderly conduct, over time, courts refine what it means to violate the law. Certainly, there are many ways one can violate disorderly conduct restrictions. However, one requirement that Massachusetts courts have recognized is that the behavior must in some way be public.
At the very least, the conduct must be likely to have an impact on people in an area accessible to the public.
And generally, the presence of a police officer does not make the scene a public scene. In 2003, a Massacusetts Court of Appeals opinion (Commonwealth v. Mulvey, 57 Mass. App. Ct. 579) specifically held that the presence of a police officer is not enough to make behavior public. So behavior in a private setting with an officer present should not be disorderly conduct under Msssachusetts law.
Perhaps The Cop Will Apologize Now? And save Cambridge a costly legal battle?
Obama is perhaps more omniscient than we all knew, and saw that stupid is as stupid does?
In case this point wasn't clear enough|
And generally, the presence of a police officer does not make the scene a public scene. In 2003, a Massacusetts Court of Appeals opinion (Commonwealth v. Mulvey, 57 Mass. App. Ct. 579) specifically held that the presence of a police officer is not enough to make behavior public. So behavior in a private setting with an officer present should not be disorderly conduct under Massachusetts law.
I'll go back to one of my earlier thoughts; the sad fact that Gates and his Neighbors are that unknown to each other so as to have this event take place. Gates should have a party and invite the neighbors over for some food and drink or this will get worse over time. If I was that woman who called the police, I would go and introduce myself and invite him over for tea.
did a posting get deleted?
Beta and Holz,
You guys are talking about this in a positive manner that moves things forward...
This is what the country needs.
I see your point about public/private, b3ta
...but from what i understood, gates was outside in the front yard when the arrest happened.
this would make it a public area under this, very least, requirement: "the conduct must be likely to have an impact on people in an area accessible to the public." front yard>accessible to the public
maybe crowley walked outside to lure gates into an area accessible to the public? or maybe he really did intend to leave the scene and make no arrest. we can't be positive.
it's still a weak case for racial profiling...too speculative
and make, i don't know if old posts from malcontent affected your accusation, but it was highly offensive and uncalled for otherwise. disagreeing with someone of a different ethnicity does not make someone racist. quite the opposite really. your statement is exactly the type of (idiotic) reasoning that perpetuates racism. you owe an apology
He wasn't disagreeing with Obama. He is casting Obama as the "other." Trying to make Obama into an angry, fly off the handle "Black" man is or someone from another planet is what the birthers et al. are doing right now in out media. We have president that exercises supreme caution when he opens his mouth. The facts of the case are fairly simple. The interpretation is something else...
make, you're sounding as crazy as the 'birthers' you're obsessed with ..
if obama was a liberal white man and made an uninformed statement as such, the conservatives would be just as eager.
as for this:
"He is casting Obama as the "other." Trying to make Obama into an angry, fly off the handle "Black" man is or someone from another planet"
i think that's extreme, and is speculative on your part. you don't know malcontent's intentions. maybe he doesn't favor obama's political agenda and is only happier now that he can use this slip by obama to support his cause. maybe he is racist. or maybe he just wants to make the point that our president was out of line with this one. either way, your comment was definitely out of line.
and this:
"We have president that exercises supreme caution when he opens his mouth"
that's what i thought too. not as sure after this debacle
don't know what happened but the first sentence should be as follows
****if obama was a liberal white man and made an uninformed statement as such, the conservatives would be just as eager to hang him out to dry.
Roark,
Obama's statement was historic and I don't think that he intended it to come off as it did. More importantly is the followup to it with the "Beer Summit." Obama isn't perfect.
I recommend cracking a book on colonialism and you'll begin more of the context of all of this. Edward Said is a good place to start for the idea of the "other."
Roark, Gates was arrested on his porch, photos show Crowley and Gates - in handcuffs - on the porch. If you read the last bit of analysis on that link, it pretty much says that this arrest was not justified, under Mass law.
now, some other more astute writers are say that the arrest was a false arrest, primarily because the report states that the officer wrote; "he was told by the witness, two black men carrying back packs..." when not only did that not occur, but the 911 tape also contradicts the written report. top it all off with the fact that Crowley's own radio broadcast, do not indicate anything of a "tumultuous" or loud African American professor.
as for Obama, if everyone keeps holding him to some kind of god-like perfection, he'll never be allowed to make any mistakes. emotional responses, when it comes to race and this kind of experience, is something i think many will give this president some leeway on. besides, i'll take a president that admits his faults over one that never will.
Hey! Who wants to talk about ferrofluids?
This is a quote from me:
"In any case, the main and most important issue in this incident is not whether the cop or Gates could have handled themselves better. Whoopee. The GIANT issue is that President Obama had NO IDEA what really happened at the time he made the irresponsible comments."
...
The Crowley / Gates scuffle and arrest itself and the excrutiating specualation over its details remains of little interest to me. That part will be handled by legal channels. The obsession to cast this arrest as purely racially-driven to help drive an invented argument that the arrest is therefore representative of racist country, is, in my opinion, wrong. Racism, is, of course, wrong in any form. Given that belief, I *also* believe that that attempts to create the appearance of racism to drive an argument or agenda is egually wrong, and is also its own form of racism. Some of that occurred within the fallout from the arrest, and is definitely occurring on this thread.
None of that had anything to do, however, with my criticism of Obama.
So back to my one and only point in all this. What has fascinated me about this incident has been President Obama's intitial comment, the public reaction to that comment, and his subsequent handling of himself due to that public reaction.
Mistakes are made, sure, and I'm hardly trying to judge the man or hang him out to dry over a single incident. But I think a pattern is forming, and for me -- and for many in his dwindling base of approval and support -- it's been disappointing. For many, the most worrisome aspect is this: Were this to be Obama's template for larger, globally-related incidents, we would indeed be in deep trouble.
I've repeated this idea several times trying to make the same point, and I no idea how else I might phrase it.
Do you know that feeling of when you're taking a dump... and then mid-log, it just shears in off in half.
You're too far committed in the whole B.M. yet you're kind-of stuck.
This is what this thread feels like.
metamucil_as_inner_beauty.png
That *is* a troublesome feeling, orochi. But so is being characterized as a racist.
Sorry for the inconvenience. Please, carry on with your important... er... work.
? Really? A pattern is forming? After one incident of expressing an iota of emotion? Really?
We just suffered through 8 hellish years of an Administration that apologized for nothing, went off the ranch with remarks like; Dead or Alive, You're Doing A Helluva Job Brownie, WMD, Saddam, Soddom, War on Terror, Patriot Act, Freedom Fries, i c o u l d g o o n a l l d a y l o n g.....
your panties get in a bunch over what is an emotional response to an all too frequent situation, that now that all tapes have been released, the legal standard has refuted the arrest; all proving the "stupidly" comment correct, and that one word has you fretting over the future of international relations, and possible incidents??
you should stop and get a plunger.
oh, and your seeming dismissal of the facts of the case is setting aside one possible reason for the remarks by the President. you may want to be blind to the situation, but the first African American President does not have that luxury, the press were going to test him, African Americans were testing him, and White America was testing him. so keep one eye closed, because your inability to see the depth of this issue is readily apparent.
Calm down, beta. So I"M the emotional one? You're the master of random, off-point tangents.
As I say, beta, the downward approval trend began before this incident and was hardly based on one word.
A trend, much to your dismay, is a pattern.
I think your second post, Beta, is at best a conspiracy theory.
Everyone is a racist. At least in the United States.
Sorry, tolerance just doesn't exist. The difference is more or less understanding that you are and then approaching then handling the feelings as the come.
Hell, I'd even defend the concept that you can legitimately just not like a large group of people. It's is perfectly "okay" as long as you're not attributing it their genetic or ethnic background as the cause for the hate.
Like I personally do not like muslims. I do not like muslims because they are Arabian or Middle Eastern or Persian... whatever their ethnic background is. I do not like muslims because of their "religious revival." I think it's distasteful to be so passionate over it on an international level. The only reason I say this is mostly because the areas around the Middle East have been trying to move away from religion for like the last what... 5 centuries?
I think the reactions of the professor, the cop and even the president are stereotypical. Hell, it should even be expected. This is what our society is and frankly... no one wants to change it. Everyone likes MLK and quotes his philosophy but no one ever credits his philosophy to what it was... urban policy suggestions. You know that whole "little black girl can hold hands with a little white boy" thing? Yeah, kids can't integrate unless they physically live in the same areas. And to white people, this means dragging the blacks into the suburbs.
While I am saddened by the whole situation, the race game does nothing for me. I am happy however that the cops are muscling seniors.
If we don't give teenagers breaks, we shouldn't give old people breaks either. So, throw the asshole in jail for all I care because tolerance is subjective.
I love reenactments.
I like Bill Maher's take on the whole incident.
Paraprhasing: This really isn't a race issue, it's a police-power issue. As in, the Cambridge police didn't like someone mouthing off to them. So they arrested him in his own home.
That seems to be the clearest statement of what happened.
"I'm not even sure this is a racial situation because I don't know if this cop is racist. But I have to say it seems to me more like a police situation. I think Henry Louis Gates was arrested for the crime of not kissing the behind of the police officer."
youtube
Kurt, my point, and you know i'm spot on is this; we have a President NOW that can comprehend that being human, fallible and if you believe he's a man of faith is not without sin, then failing to be eloquent, it would seem natural to apologize for the ill timed remark, and would seem infinitely better than we've had as a President.
As for conspiracies, the news conference was about health care, and the last question of the night was hey Mr. African American President what do you think about what happened? What did the reporter think was going to be the response? How do you think Conservative dilettantes were going to respond?
See, part of me, knowing how ridiculous the WCCWM [white christian conservative war machine] is, I thought perhaps this was a setup. A tailor made situation where the WCCWM would pull further right, and seem more extreme, the liberal elites would see this as posturing by the right, and the growing hispanic vote would move further left - especially in the light of Sotomayor.
How's that for conspiracy?
I like how we've managed to avoid the "Birthers" and for that I'm glad.
Listen, whites have always been holding blacks/minorities to higher standards. Case in point Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, MLK, Sotomayor, and the list goes on. So why should Obama be any different? Truth is Obama is bound by passed precedent to be better than any other President, if he's not we'll never see another minority elected in our lifetime.
stop judging people by the color of their skin. they should be judged by the content of their character.
nice.
fancy that.
the status quo telling others how not to be. i know you are kidding frac, but to your point, that is precisely what Republicans on the Judiciary were doing to Sotomayor; prove to us White Men that you're not a reverse racist - whatever the fuck that is....
Beta, I guess it also wasn't clear, but i was trying to make the point that I was criticizing a part of Obama's leadership skill set. That is, the ability to think quickly and not heighten the problem at hand, etc., but rather to diffuse it. Obama didn't show well in that regard.
Since that is what I consider to be the most important aspect of the entire affair, the race part is moot. Beta, you're acting like Obama can't be expected to think on his feet when in front of a hostile press. Try some North Korean upper echelon types.
Anyway, your premise that the press is against Obama -- please. They fully allowed his "apology" to serve the intended purpose.
i'm not saying the press is against him, i am saying that any question on race is going to be asked of this President, and that Kurt IS different than any other President since LBJ. and since he's African American, and therefor made to answer the question, does it not by implication make the question a bit more odd. why should this President be asked this question, was Clinton asked about OJ, was he asked about the black man dragged in Texas, was Bush asked about the Jena 8, or how about the black kid thrown in jail for having sex with a white girl, and accused of rape?
point is, if you are going to ask this President about racial profiling, when are other Presidents going to be held to the same standards? i didn't hear any questions posed to McCain about his voting down MLK holiday, why not?
i wasn't kidding, beta. i wish people would take the great words of Dr. King and actually apply them instead of clinging to the notion that whitey is holding them down.
obama had some great words to say in a recent speech to the naacp:
"We've got to say to our children, Yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. That's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school," he said. "No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands - and don't you forget that."
"No excuses. No excuses," Obama added, verging off his prepared remarks. "You get that education. All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able to compete. Yes, we can."
so i agree with my president and disagree with you, beta, that if obama turns out to be a so-so president that '... we'll never see another minority (president) elected in our lifetime.'.
your destiny is in your hands .. no excuses.
Kurt the question was asked because of his race, if this had not been about a white cop and a black professor, a friend no less, then the question is not asked and you're not here disappointed.
FRaC, i just think like Jackie Robinson, this seems to be some kind of test for racial harmony, and whether or not a Black man has the skills and temperament for the job. perhaps that's a cynical take, but it took how long for African Americans to get the vote, to become more than 3/5ths, to end segregation, to become President...i just have a difficult time understanding my own race sometimes...and i don't put a lot of stock into the angels of our better nature...not yet anyway.
I guess I'm not seeing that the motivation of the questioning can be used to adjust our grading of the results. Again, will you be expecting fairness and polite discourse from the North Koreans?
I also think you'd meet with uproarious laughter if you presented your "only Obamaa gets the tough questions" premise.
Not
even
close.
Kurt, i like our dialog, but my simple point is this; asking this President a question about a racially charged and historically charged question and not others, is, by it's very nature an act of commission and omission.
it's not a matter of tough questions, because you are right, that is laughable.
like i said i appreciate an emotional response from human beings. now if he says on saturday's radio address; we will commence bombing of North Korea in the next 5 minutes, i'll say he's lost it or if he calls China the Evil Empire....
we're all missing the point here: everyone acted stupidly! The Cambridge Brewing Company is amazing brewpub right up the road from Harvard Square! A growler of their preferred beer could been acquired and enjoyed at the White House last night. Let's not lose sight of what's really important here.
should have gone with Mint Julips.
best thing about all of this is he's drinking Red Stripe at the white house!! Whoo hoo for Jamaican beer!!
Red Stripe? who drank that at the beer summit?
gates: red stripe
crowley: blue moon
obama: bud light
obama loses on the beer choice, obviously, unless he was going for just a beer soda. maybe actually drinking a real beer is not ok for the president to do in public?
Actually, I think gates drank a Sam Adams. He did say he likes Red Stripe.
Biden: non-alchoholic bucklers, i believe?
Light beer?
PUH-leeze!
;-(
the sam adams brewer was on the radio yesterday saying he thought it would be nice if someone had picked sam adams, but not so... he also suggested that the president should have maybe had a beer by a company owned in the old us of a instead of europe.
ah, i was wrong! gates switched in a late-breaking twist to sam adams light.
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