More on Gates/Crowley

Here's a pretty good summary of the issues on the Harvard professor, Gates, being arrested by the supposedly racially sensitive cop Crowley. This is from the site Unqualified Offerings: Looking Sideways at Your World Since October 2001:

Should the cops have shown up at Prof. Gates’ house and asked questions? Of course. They got a report of a robbery, and they need to check it out.

Did Prof. Gates act like a bit of a dick? Probably. Was it smart? Of course not. Was it understandable when he’s just gotten off a plane and struggled with his door and now he’s got some guy with a gun challenging him? Of course. Is it the God-given right of every American to be a bit of a dick to the authorities? Dude, just read my screen name!

Should the cops have arrested him over it? No. I mean, sure, there probably is and should be some sort of limit to how much you can fuck with cops doing their duty before they call you on it, but once they’ve figured out that you aren’t a burglar and this is in fact the house you own, they should really just leave you alone in all but the most extreme cases. Unfortunately, the whole “Rispek mah authoritay!” thing is WAY too prevalent.

Did race have anything to do with it? Well, I can’t do a Vulcan mind-meld with the cop and answer for sure, but every known pattern suggests that the cops are likely to treat you worse if you’re black, so I’m going to go out on a big freaking limb and say “Probably.” I’m bold like that.

Is there an irony-licious twist on privilege here, with Gates pulling the “Do you know I am?” game. Yes. Is it a bit dickish? Always. But if we want to see fewer cops pull the “Rispek mah authoritay!” card then they need to learn that they can never be too sure who they’re dealing with. That old black man might be a Harvard professor. That young black man might be a lawyer. That 48 year-old black guy might have a nuclear arsenal. And so forth. Sure, in an ideal world they’d respect everyone, but in reality they will respect power more, so pointing out that power might lurk less obvious places is one way to keep them on their toes.

Finally, should Obama have weighed in on this? Well, leaving aside the obvious fact that he’s a Harvard alum and hence has a personal stake in seeing Harvard folks treated well by authorities, and the obvious fact that as our first half-black President people are going to look to him on racial matters, he just happens to command a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies. I, for one, am glad to see a person in his position calling cops out when they screw up.

And if it distracts him from crafting large, expensive policies? Dude, double points!

I'm generally happy with everything up to the last sentence. Obviously this guy is a right winger, but I'm happy with what he says up until he shows he is an idiot about health care in the US. He obviously doesn't clutter his mind with economic facts. The US spends almost twice as much as the average developed country and has worse health outcomes. That is "expensive". Putting a system in place to cut the waste of a private insurance system gone crazy is not "crafting large, expensive policies".

Oh well... I appreciate the bits where he says things that I find thoughtful and correct. I'll just have to overlook the nutty stuff.