Analysis: What they saw during the Gates arrest

by Yizuman 51 Replies latest social current

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  restrangled

  Prejudice shows up in many different ways and within every race.

  My husband was a District Manager for a large Audio Video chain in the 80's. At a store in white suburban U.S.A. one day, he was taking care of a customer with his back to the door.

  In walks a large 6'3 250 pound biker. Long hair, chains, leather, you know the get up. The store manager panics. Runs up to my husband and tells him he his calling the police, because there is a customer in the store that "looks" like he is going to be trouble.

  My husband turns around, takes one look and tells the store manager, "Thats my brother inlaw."

  Easily this could have turned into a horrible situation based on assumptions. I think this is what happened with the Gates scenerio. Things can escalate out of control very quickly.

  r.
• 

  JWdaughter

  So, because some have had bad experiences with cops, then Gates should get to tarnish a man of good repute with the label of racist? He is accused of racial profiling for responding to a 911 call? The man encountered a person who had all kinds of preconceived ideas of the danger he was in-from a cop in Cambridge Mass. on the campus of Harvard. His personal property and person were being protected by the police and he assumed that he was going to be abused-and apparently tried to ask for it.

  I was almost amused at his description of the trauma of arrest and being booked. Does he think there is any less trauma or humiliation for a white, hispanic or asian person who is arrested? Does he think they changed procedure to pick on him? I say almost because having volunteered in a jail, I know it is a humiliating and scary and depressing place to be. It is meant to be all that. I wonder if he ever got arrested before? I am wondering if he had ever experienced "the man" in the way he had learned of and written about his entire adult life? Is this an experience he kind of wanted to give his black experience some cred?

  I am frustrated by this. There is enough real racism without people grasping to find some.