Tuesday, July 28, 2009

FWIW

This what happens when a cop arrests someone for insulting him and the case ends up in Federal Court.

CC
who hopes the two gentlemen enjoy their beers and is pretty much done with this topic.

5 comments:

LinguistFriend said...

All in all, this may have been a constructive outcome. The finding to which you refer seems to be consistent with what you have been saying all along. Goodness, you must be learning something in law school.

Robin Edgar said...

"All in all, this may have been a constructive outcome."

I am hoping that ultimately good will come of this (inter)national scandal but Henry Louis Gates really needs to tone down his rhetoric if there is going to be real progress and he should be man enough to acknowledge that racism and/or racial profiling had little or nothing to do with Sgt. Crowley's visit to his home and his arrest on disorderly conduct charges. AFAIAC he is crying wolf and I see "people of color" saying the same thing. I even waggishly suggest that he might continue to cry wolf in his beer at the White House. FWIW I suggested that Stone Brewery might want to ship a complimentary case of their Arrogant Bastard Ale to the White House for the occasion.

LinguistFriend said...

PG, having spent my childhood in a place where polite racism was considered a mark of good breeding, I don't believe at all that nothing is racist unless white people recognize it as such, or until black people recognize it as such. White people often engage in racism quite unconsciously, even benevolently, in terms of what is assumed rather than in terms of what is recognized. For instance, when my adopted black son was in the first grade, his initial difficulty in reading was simply taken for granted by the teachers, as if that was simply to be expected from black children.
I do not believe that there was the slightest malice on their part. However, it was clear from my conversation with them that it was simply their negative expectation, which in terms of educational research is known to contribute to the negative outcome. Of course, he did soon learn to read competently. But attitudes of teachers can in fact contribute to produce low achievement. The channels of action of racism may be quite indirect.

fausto said...

Well, as Dana Carvy might say, isn't that apposite.

Anonymous said...

I've been following the National Police Misconduct Research Project's (InjusticeEverywhere.com) bad cop news stories at

http://www.twitter.com/injusticenews

for a couple of weeks now and let me tell you it is disturbing how many criminals there are with a badge and the power of the state behind them. It's scary that nothing is being done about this.

Please get the word out if you can.