Point out racial profiling is not about bashing police officers. In the wake of the unfortunate incident that left Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates ridiculously arrested, some have used it as a way to bash the police while others have used it as a way to portray police as being unfairly persecuted while minimizing the very painful impact of racial profiling.
This article published by CNN makes some fair points (it appears to be a probably well-intended defense of the police while attempting to be somewhat fair to professor Gates), and certainly is a defense of police and the work that police do, but misses the mark on some key points (perhaps for partisan political reasons):
- President Obama confessed his bias when he admitted that he was a friend of Gates as the question was asked at the press conference;
- President Obama admitted that he had not gotten all of the facts, but did offer his opinion on what he had learned about what happened to his friend;
- As a follow-up, President Obama said that he wished cooler heads had prevailed; and
- Racial profiling is not touched on in the article until the very last paragraph and is there kind of glossed over.
I’m not here to bash policeman, but I do agree with the president that (in this particular case) cooler heads should have prevailed and the officer should have appreciated the situation (and how it was perceived by Gates who was in his own home) and walked away after he established that Gates was rightfully in his house and safe.
Actually, this cop sounds like a decent guy. Gates sounds like a decent guy. Decent guys make mistakes, but it’s unfortunate it has ended up the way it has.
This was an overreaction by the police officer which prompted an overreaction by the professor. In a way, this officer may have made the situation more dangerous and high profile by his conduct.
The title of the article is “Obama’s rush to judgment
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