What gets me is the way CNN covered this. They gave two options: either there was a misunderstanding, or there was racism. They didn't stop to think maybe this guy deserved to be arrested. CNN, like the Washington Post did in the attached article, repeatedly insists this guy is "renowned." CNN suggested that the neighbor who called police and the cops themselves should have recognized this guy on sight and left him alone. I am pretty knowledgeable about current events, and I've never heard of this guy before. If he's like most ethnic studies "scholars," I'm sure he's a quack. He probably saw the cop approaching and knew he could get some headlines by getting himself arrested. That's probably why he's "renowned;" he knows how to play the media.
I'm glad to see the cop in this situation is standing his ground. I hope his superiors don't hang him out to dry.
I have actually heard of this guy, and I don't like him. I recently saw a PBS show he hosts/produces, tracing the ancestry of famous African-Americans, which actually looked sort of interesting. But I first saw him in a special he did in the 80's--I took an undergrad world history class year before last, and the prof showed it to us.
ReplyDeleteThe idea was that Gates went to Africa and traveled around looking at big slavery landmarks. What was annoying about it was that he portrayed himself (and, by extension, other Americans of African slave ancestry) as a victim. This Harvard professor, who makes tons of money and was in Africa filming his own TV special kept going up to Africans (descendants of the Africans who colluded in the slave trade)--people who can NEVER realistically even aspire to live the lifestyle Gates lives--and asking them about whether they felt guilty about what their ancestors had done to his ancestors. He kept bemoaning how he had been ripped from Africa and it "left a hole in his heart." Not that he ever intended to move there, as he clearly could if he wanted to, but whatever.
The other annoying thing was that he kept asking how black people could have sold other black people into slavery. And that's pretty racist. I doubt he would ask how white English people could commit atrocities against white French people, but he was totally willing to lump all black people together, ignoring the fact that different peoples would have seen each other as, hey, different peoples. They didn't see every single African person as a "brother" as Gates wanted them to (anachronistically), they saw their enemies as enemies.
Sorry this was so long, but that was a super annoying video. It also leads me to assume that, although there are still black people suffering from racism today, he was just waiting, his whole life, for "the man" to treat him badly. That means my guess is that he totally blew the incident out of proportion as an excuse to let out his bottled-out righteous indignation.
Didn't expect you to agree with this, so that's nice. Thanks for providing that example of Gates' conduct. Also, I wasn't surprised to see Obama blindly weigh in on Gates' behalf last night.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not sure that whatever he did was definitely cause to get arrested, but I do dislike him. And just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean their opinion is "blind."
ReplyDeleteI think Obama's opinion was blind, since he himself admitted he wasn't familiar with the facts, and as president, I assume he doesn't have a whole lot of time to read stories about the case.
ReplyDelete