Saturday, July 25, 2009

The Bigot Bomb Explodes Into a Tar Baby

This post is dedicated to Louie:

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them…[Malvolio, in Twelfth Night]


Rosita has the best summation I’ve seen on the arrest of “Skip” Gates for disorderly conduct by the Cambridge police earlier this week. She puts two and two together and…surprise, comes up with FOUR. Too bad the press can’t add.

Dr. Gates had plans for a tidy little race war in which he would be the beneficiary. Instead, the Bigot Bomb went off in his hands before he could toss it off to the dumb white cop he’d spotted as the fall guy in this venture.

Had the whole scenario played out correctly, the Harvard professor would have:

  • a wonderful, center-stage part as the offended Negro;
  • an opportunity to get attention from The Choir (those credulous journalists who already have a prefabricated meme for White Racism — oops, a redundancy. Only Whitey can be racist);
  • a chance to grab President Obama for a “Black Brothers United Against Whitey” photo op;
  • more donations for his purported charity “Inkwells”;
  • a good basis for a resentful/outraged documentary on race in America (with Gates as the star, naturally);
  • a gathering of prominent black Personalities to talk about the eternal evil of whiteness in America;
  • and so on — back to the first, second and third motives captured in a Mobius strip of Offended Negro, breathless attention from The Choir, and a tidy profit to be made off the guilty White suckahs.

It almost worked. In fact, his scheme looked real good before the bomb of reality went off in his hands. Now it becomes obvious who was the villain here. Hint: it was not the white arresting officer.

This is a good example of the devil being in the details. Here, the devil is played by the Tar Baby, and the latter is about to grab aholt to the professor, spoiling his Great Opportunity.

Tar babyWhen the Professor saw a white policeman at his door, sent there in response to an emergency call by a neighbor about a possible break-in at his home, Gates danced the racist rag he’d perhaps rehearsed — one he may well have considered using should the opportunity ever arise. What he needed was a foil, a sucker for the role of Villain in his little morality play. Opportunity knocked in the form of Officer Crowley, tapping on his door. White police officer = Racist, right?

- - - - - - - - -
If you don’t believe the outraged Gates, just ask President Obama, who jumped in with both feet, giving great details about the plight of being black in America, at the mercy of police who “act stupidly”: Yep, “we” just have seen too much of that profiling, folks. Black victims like Barack and Michelle have had to endure endless suffering at the hands of the Man…(soft chorus singing “Nobody Knows The Troubles I’ve Seen” plays in the background while white reporters stand abashed and ashamed).

But the touch of the Magic One wasn’t enough. Gates’ concoction exploded, or unraveled, or started to smell — choose your own metaphor for what happens when that old demon, Details, grabs you by the short hairs and commences to chewing big holes in your beloved script.

It turns out that even though all White Men look alike to Dr. Gates, the “racist” officer in question has an exemplary record. Just to put a bit of frosting on the cake, he once performed CPR on another famous black man, even though Officer Crowley wasn’t able to resuscitate him.

To make matters worse for Gates, a fellow officer at the scene, an African American Cambridge policeman, thought the good Professor was acting strangely enough to justify his arrest. The black officer unwittingly jams Gates' face further into that Tar Baby when he opines that had he, a black officer, been the first at the scene, there might not have been a problem. He's exactly right: “black on black, jump back”.

But hey, what happened to racial solidarity? Turns out that not every black man in America buys Gates’ line:

The black leader of an organization dedicated to “rebuilding the family by rebuilding man” rebuked Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and civil rights activist Al Sharpton on Thursday for their “unfounded and reckless” allegations of racism against police in Cambridge, Mass.

“Henry Gates and Al Sharpton are abusing police while black,” said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny. [my emphasis — D]

“What’s regrettable is that the city of Cambridge and the police have allowed themselves to be intimidated by a race hustler like Al ‘The Riot King’ Sharpton,” he added. “The race card has once again been used to unjustly smear law enforcement and thwart justice.”

Amen, brother.

Rosita’s conclusions answer Occam’s Razor when it comes to ascertaining motive in this incident. Here, she speaks for Dr. Gates:

Hi, I’m going to theatrically break into my house along with my “cab driver.” We’re just going to forcibly enter through the front door, like physically bust it open. No big whoop. Then when the police come, I’m going to refuse to tell them who I am, and I’m going to refuse to give them identification. Finally, I’ll give in, but then I’ll demand to know why I’m being arrested, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” [Yeah, because, as recent history shows, black men do sooo badly in America. Not like his cushy Harvard sinecure teaching African-American history is the result of him being a black man or anything. -Ed.] When an officer warns me I’m acting disorderly, I’ll follow him out of the house, acting more disorderly and yelling at him until he arrests me.

Why, do you ask, would I do this? What am I- crazy? Like a fox, my brethren, like a fox. With this ritual dance, any ethics problems that might be floating around regarding me have dissipated, I am getting tenure for sure, I have the subject of my next book, let’s face it, I have fodder here for the entire rest of my career, I might just have a new career. Some people use opportunities, some people make them.

Excuse me, I have to go and take this call, it’s a sympathy call from the White House. I’m gonna wrangle a spot in their poetry jam while I have him on the line. (Wink.)

She may be right. Anyone who bases his whole career on race is bound to get stuck to that Tar Baby eventually. This is especially true for a man who is willing to assume the rôle of Director the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Du Bois hated America. This man has devoted his whole academic life to finding racists under the bed.

Gates is a sad case. Obama, jumping in with both feet, has proved beyond doubt that he is not the post-racist black man he claimed to be. But then, Obama is proving that much of what he said in his campaign wasn’t true. Most presidents wait a week or two after their inauguration to start breaking promises. Obama began stomping on them before he even got the chair warm in the Oval Office.

As for Officer Crowley? He thinks Obama should butt out. But Obi Wan is a compulsive peace-maker. It’s part of his shtick. No doubt he’ll force a semi-public reconciliation between the arresting officer and the perp.

One thing is sure: Gates and Obama created one big mutha of a sticky Tar Baby. They both need liberal applications of Goo Gone to extricate themselves from this one. As they are both discovering, hot tar burns like the dickens.

Just ask any southern child who ever hot-footed it (without shoes on) across a street in July.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have not read any reports that Mr. Righteous Black Professor took pains to thank her neighbour for watching closely after his house while he was away, and calling the police when she thought it was being burglarised.

A white woman, it's worth noticing.

A white woman actively protecting from burglary the house of her black neighbour.

Which shows how racist Whites are in America.

spackle said...

This just proves to me once again that Obama still does not understand that he is or what his duties as President of the United States are. We might as well have plucked um, lets say a Harvard professor of African American studies and made him president.

You can take the man out of "community organizing" but you cant take the "community organizing" out of the man.

Dymphna said...

I remember that area of Cambridge. Lots of Harvard "housing".That is, Harvard buys up expensive real estate and then rents if for below the real estate costs to its higher echelon of professors. Believe me, it really is a mandarin culture.

I found it interesting that the woman didn't recognize Gates. I doubt he fraternizes with his white neighbors.

It varies from street to street there,but some folks are friendly with those who live around them. In Gates' case, he's friendly with blacks. I haven't seen any white person beyond the MSM come to his defense.

He also has a summer place on exclusive Martha's Vineyard.There, he'd have to talk to white folks -- there are fewer blacks to be exclusive with.

Bill Cosby doesn't like what he did, and I'll bet Alvin Poussaint is none too pleased. Here's an editorial by both of them:

Blacks must drop victimhood and reclaim dignity.

Dr. Poussaint is a revered child psychiatrist at Harvard. Dr. Cosby received his PhD (NOT honorary; he worked for it) in Education years ago.

Neither of them is politically correct. They put out a book on the subject of black responsibility and gave copies away for free. I sent off for a package of them and distributed them in our area. The schools got some, the historical society and the NAACP each took a copy and I gave the rest to black churches.

One thing about rural America (at least here): there's lots of public mingling and neighborly friendships, but church is segregated. I think it's mostly because individual rural churches, white and black, are often made up of kin groups.

Unknown said...

Thank you for linking to me- it's an honor! I'm very excited to find this blog.

Zenster said...

The black leader of an organization dedicated to “rebuilding the family by rebuilding man” rebuked Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and civil rights activist Al Sharpton on Thursday for their “unfounded and reckless” allegations of racism against police in Cambridge, Mass.

Any attempt to associate with or be associated with race baiting wannabe warlord pimp Al Sharpton should have ended all credibility on the part of Dr. Gates.

Sharpton, along with Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright all have worn out their fifteen minutes years ago.

Dymphna said...

Rosita--

You're quite a find yourself! I sure like your smack-down style.

And you're right: 2+2 does equal 4. If we all just stuck to reading the MSM, who'd have ever known?? They do Alice in Wonderland math.

ChrisLA said...

As a white who has lived in a mixed neighborhood for 30 years, I must offer a different point of view to this rather one-sided discussion. Blacks are continually harassed by the police even today, and it gives them a very short fuse in such circumstances. I have also lived as a minority in foreign countries, and I know first-hand the feeling of cold disdain. Dr. Gates had just returned from a long flight, he couldn't get into his own house, and then the police show up. That's a heap of frustration on a tired man with a disability. If he made a snap judgement about "racial profiling," at least he did it in his own home.

On the other hand, the police officer is (or should be) trained on how to diffuse hostile situations without using force. Particularly when no crime has been committed. If the officer wasn't acting stupidly, at least he didn't act with the calm, self-discipline we expect from our men in blue. Where was his thick skin? Did this police officer show valiance in arresting an old man with a cane on the porch of his own home for charges that were immediately dropped? I think not.

Sol Ta Triane said...

ChrisLA,

Like, yeah, Chris. We all know there are some bad cops, but you are the one who limited in your thinking.

You are assuming the cop wasn't acting with calm self-discipline? Why do you assume you know what went on? Isn't it possible that Gate's didn't come out and say that it was his residence, and wouldn't that be an intentional form of screwing with the cop and his job to protect the home?
If Gate's did that then he should get sued for obstructing the police in an investigation.
I've seen what I think is happening here many times in my life as I lived in black communities and making it hard for the cop is a common problem. Let's call it what it is when it obstruction of justice.
It is a form of Jackelism that GOV hasn't discussed. Yes we have black and white jackels just as we have bum cops.
Cosby for president.

Dymphna said...

@ Chris LA,

So you know black people who've been given a hard time by the police? And?

I know lots of them, too. What's your point?

Look at the tapes, Chris. Read Gates' academic record. The man is a professional race monger.

Do blacks still get harassed? You bet. But this grievance collector wasn't harassed. He tried to set this cop up, though.

It smells to high heaven. Harvard manages the house he rents. All he needed to do was get on his cell phone and get someone from maintenance over there. Which is what he did...eventually.

But first he made a suspicious public scence by trying to break into his house. He was so bizarre that a woman in the neighborhood called the police. If Gates didn't look down on white people as he does, he might have known his neighbor and she might have recognized him.

Read.the.police.report.

I live in a black area. I've taken elderly black neighbors into court when they've had to deal with the legal system because it makes them anxious. They're afraid they won't be heard. It's an old fear, and no longer current, but after a certain age you go with what you know. My presence is reassuring; I don't try to talk them out of their feelings.

My story is one-sided because I want to balance the one-sidedness of Gates and Obama and the MSM. I am sick and tired of the resentful grievance collectors who devote their lives to keeping grievances going. That's what Gates has done.

Give me Bill Cosby any day. He was (to use his term) "shocked" by Gates' behavior. So was everyone present.

The officer hasn't decided whether or not to sue Gates for defamation. I hope he does. The professor's hubris is breath-taking.

Dymphna said...

@ You New--

I just saw that comment, "Cosby for President". I've often thought the same thing, especially since reading his and Poussaint's book.

But don't forget that organized grievance groups like the NAACP won't invite him back anymore. He doesn't preach the liberal party line.

Besides, the MSM would feed him to the alligators because of his private life, so he'd never do that to his wife. They will *never* cover for him as they have for Barry.

It's a fun idea, though. I hope he gets involved to the point of getting behind politicians he respects. That would do a great deal of good.

Félicie said...

Dymphna: "Dr. Poussaint is a revered child psychiatrist at Harvard. Dr. Cosby received his PhD (NOT honorary; he worked for it) in Education years ago."

I go to this article, and what do I see? The same old invocation of "systematic racism." Are we supposed to applaud Poussaint and Cosby just for the fact that they are a little bit less extreme than Gates in their victimary rhetoric? They don't get a "pass" from me.

I think I know where this leads. As long as there is a gap in performance between blacks and whites, there will be a claim of "systematic racism" and a demand to do something about it. And, of course, no government policy, no amount of money will solve this disparity of performance. What remains then? There is only one way to solve this intractible problem - eliminate the white man. Yes, I believe this belief in the existence of systematic racism will eventually lead to genocide.

Zenster said...

ChrisLA: Blacks are continually harassed by the police even today, and it gives them a very short fuse in such circumstances.

Come back with an explanation for the astronomical disparity of per capita black criminality in America versus any other ethnic category and then tell me more about racial profiling of blacks.

PS: I would happily substitute Bill Cosby for BHO in a New York minute.

Zenster said...

Bill Cosby's speech on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. The Board of Education

This has to be one of the most courageous and responsible self-indictments heard from any man of color in human history. PERIOD.

FluffResponse said...

Gates was tired and upset and acted badly, regurgitating old sayings. Have a little charity for the old guy. After all, it became so quickly (and so publicly) evident that Crowley is the superior man.

But Obama --- wow! How many Presidents of the United States take sides in a local police issue, within a few hours of the event and without knowing the details? The President is from the great state of ACORN.

I hope people come to see the President as a twit -- will help during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

And now, dear reader, enjoy Mark Steyn's insight:

http://tinyurl.com/lehg7q

FluffResponse said...

From Rosita's blog to this!:

http://tinyurl.com/mymrys

Dymphna said...

Félicie -

Perhaps you would have had to follow the careers of both men and to have read the book, "Come On, People", which was the product of their collaboration to understand what I'm attempting to convey with my comparisons.

It's a tough read because it lays the blame for the current condition of the black underclass where it belongs: with the members of that class. Both men are blunt and to the point. Politicos and professional race baiters are angry at them as a result.

Cosby's comedy routines, recorded live in the 1960's, are still funny -- my son has the whole collection. Cosby never relied on race for humor and he never belittled anyone.

He was the first black performer to get equal billing in a TV show with his white partner, Robert Culp. He was extremely funny there, too, and he bridged a whole lot of gaps all by himself.

Dr. Poussaint never relied on his race to build his reputation as the head psychiatrist of the Judge Baker Clinic in Boston. Some of his research on children remains definitive.

I have followed the careers of these men for many decades, both while I lived in Boston (where Poussaint worked and Cosby studied) and later on.

I've been aware of Gates, too, but more from a position of avoidance. He is an unpleasant man; he deliberatley worsens the relationships between black and white Americans. Gates' vocation is race resentment. It's never about laughter or healing or asking people to look at the consequences of their behavior.

Is Cosby defensive about being black sometimes? Yeah. But he has passed up many opportunities to be bitter. His only son was killed by a white immigrant (from Eastern Europe, iirc) when the boy's car broke down on the freeway. What Cosby may have thought or what he said in private, I don't know. But in public, he didn't rant about the white race and he didn't blame his son's death on racism.

Those of us who knew Cosby's deep feelings about his kids wondered if he could come back from his grief at the sudden death of his only son. He did an amazingly graceful job of that, certainly better than I have done with the death of my only daughter.

IOW, the comedian and the child psychiatrist are iconic figures for many in the US, both white and black. But Gates, the W.E.B. Du Bois race promoter, is not. Gates has used his position to enrich himself. In the latest update, he wants us to forget all the fuss -- too late, he realizes his Inkwells scam is being scrutinized and the police have a recording of his arrest.

Listen to the speech Zenster left in the comments. The sound quality is poor, but that was a defining moment for many people. Cosby gave us all permission to point to the naked Emperor.

I’m close to the limit on words for this comment. Obviously, it calls for another post.

Tomorrow.

PatriotUSA said...

Dymphna,
I was going to comment BUT I will wait and see what else is posted tomorrow on this matter. Hope you will follow up on this as it does deserve more commentary and time.

One shot for the dude from LA:


To ChrisLa: Give it rest
and read the other comments.
All we ever hear is the leftarded MSM commentary on such events. When the idiot Obama jumped
in on this, well that tar got
even deeper and blacker. I have lived in mixed neighborhoods
and have had many black friends
who treated unfairly BUT
this is not the case here.
Gates is a race baiting
creep who has a long,
documneted history of such
behavior. Like Dymphna said:

"I'll take Bill Cosby any day."
Nuff said for now.

laine said...

Zenster beat me to it, but I think it bears reinforcing since even whites seem confused on the issue of racial profiling falsely portrayed as being hassled by police "simply" for being black, Muslim, fill in the blank with a minority".

The black community's criminality, statistically documented as way out of proportion to their percentage in the general population and the fact that most terrorists in the world today are Muslim is what drives the profiling, not racism.

Just as any rational person plays the odds about his personal safety (even Reverend Race Hustler Jackson once admitted that when he hears footsteps behind him at night and he turns and sees a white instead of black man he feels safer) so do the police with additional experience and crime statistics play the odds.

When they're investigating a rape, and a man and a woman run from the scene of the crime, are they going to stop the woman to be "even handed" and not sexist?

The black community commits more crime, mostly black on black. Educated blacks (and Muslims) should EXPECT to be questioned in certain settings and any resentment they feel should be directed at the law-breaking members of their communities, not the questioners who are merely trying to keep EVERYONE safer.

If tomorrow, all police started questioning blacks in only 12% of cases according to their percentage of the population instead of 30% of the time according to their crime rate, what would the upshot be?

Law abiding blacks would be questioned less frequently. Law abiding blacks would be victims of black on black crime more frequently.

Law abiding Muslims would be questioned less closely at airports. Law abiding Muslims would be blown up more frequently along with the rest of us.

Any supposedly intelligent educated black who carries on like Gates and tries to cow the white police officer into ducking his head next time a black suspect comes in view is more interested in grinding his racist axe than actually protecting blacks from crime by other blacks.

Félicie said...

Dymphna: "I have followed the careers of these men for many decades, both while I lived in Boston (where Poussaint worked and Cosby studied) and later on."

OK, I'll withold my judgment for now.

"He did an amazingly graceful job of that, certainly better than I have done with the death of my only daughter."

I am very sorry.

Dice said...

Google color of crime and see the Federal statistics on crime by race. I forget is they lump Hispanics in with whites(makes the white crime rate higher) but notice that Hispanics are not counted as white for the purposes of "hate crimes"/crimethink.

VDare's Steve Sailer and Nicholas Stix, among others, write extensively about this.

Gregory said...

Good article. Best on the net about Gates. I really liked the 'occams razor' part.
It really is time for blacks to stop playing the race card.
Morgan Freeman soundly trounced some ignorant news guy about the black-white issue too. He was outstanding--and I bet, far more intelligent than this Gates jerk.

babs said...

Can I jusat say that my husband and I have been the victims of racial descrimination several times because we are white?
Did we rant and rave and file some kind of claim? No, we moved on because our success was much more important than any grievence we might have brought against the labor board...
I will however say to ChrisLA that if blacks are "unfairly stopped" in LA I have a particular perspective on that.
I was a commercial property analyst in LA from 1987-1997. I distinctly recall showing up at a job site for a small shopping center in Compton and being met by two black men in thousand dollar suits that stepped out of a limo. They wanted a bridge loan for their project. I could see the progress of the construction on the ground but, what these business men really wanted to show me was still in the plans. They had designed and were going to build a police sub station right in the shopping center for LAPD. They were particularly proud of the fact that this substation, being erected with their own money, even contained a holding cell!
Now, I don't know about you ChrisLA, or any of the other readers of GOV but, I have never shopped at a center that has its own police substation...
The fact is that these black entrepenures knew that police protection was the only way they could attract a food store, shoe store, etc. to their project.
So now go on and tell me that black America is unfairly targeted while two black businessmen absolutely know what is going on...
A residential project I worked on in Riverside County in a black neighborhood the apartment complex boasted a "panic button" in each room of the unit. I had never seen this before... Have any of you ever lived in a complex that thought they needed this kind of security for their residents?
ChrisLA, I site these examples as just two of many I could tell you about in the LA basin. Do you know that most police depts in LA and the surrounds will not release as public record the crime stats unless forced?
Here's a hint that I learned from a co-worker. Go into a McD's and try to use the bathroom. If you have to ask for a key you are in a high crime area.

Dymphna said...

Thanks, Gregory for your compliment. I was surprised more people didn't mention Occam's Razor - either in the comment section here, on in the wider reading I did on this subject. Rosita implies it, or one could at least infer it from her little "unspoken thoughts of Dr. Gates".
___________

Joshua--

The long conversation this country has had about race and crime, or race and achievement, has marginalized important writers like Steve Sailer.

I may eventually join his side of the court, but it will marginalize GoV, further. We're already beyond the pale for (1) focusing on European issues (America being the center of the universe); (2) talking about the endemic problems in Muslim culture (all cultures are 'good'); and (3)describing dystopic outcomes for the future based on the continuance of the currently ascendant magical thinking (describing is prescribing to those who cannot discern the difference).

And then, there is (4), our belief that Christianity is a force for good, both historically and in the present (religion is just a crutch and intelligent people are beyond all that).