Take this bit of race baiting for example. He spoke out about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, after admitting he didn’t know all the facts, and said that if it had happened to us “any of us would be pretty angry.”

Those racist cops don’t know when to quit eh? Responding to a 911 call about a couple men breaking into a house, described as two black men, and then having the gall to question the men…who coincidentally had jimmied their way into the house AND fit the description given in the 911 call…for ID.

How dare they!

Patterico hits the nail on the head:

According to the police report, which I find more credible than Gates’s account, Gates started screaming about racism right from the get-go. (If he didn’t, then why did he get arrested?) And why? Because a police officer was reasonably following up on a reasonable concern?

No, it’s because Gates assumed he was being profiled. And so does Obama, who gives us a long lecture about the history of racial profiling in this country — as if that had anything to do with this incident.

It didn’t. As Jack Dunphy said at the Corner:

The claim that Gates had been “profiled” is ludicrous. Police responded to a 911 call from a witness who described two black men she believed to be breaking into a home. If contacting a black man then found inside that very home is deemed to be “profiling” then the term itself has been stripped of its meaning.

Welcome to post-racial America — where race hustlers hold sway, and all their paranoid fantasies receive official stamps of approval.

But who can blame Obama….he learned from the best in Wright, Meeks and Pfleger.

Problem is, he is no longer Candidate Obama…he is President…and if you don’t know all the facts, as he so readily admitted, you don’t proclaim to the world that one side acted stupidly.

But hey, in the same press conference he inferred our nations doctors are just after a quick buck ready to do unnecessary surgery in their quest for riches.

Cops and Doc’s…..those eeeeeviiiillllll bastards!

More here.

UPDATE

Dan Friedman has some great advice in an email:

If you think, as I do, that the sergeant deserves our encouragement and support, here’s the non-emergency phone number of the Cambridge Police Dept.: 617-349-3300.

I called this a.m. and they were very friendly, and in a neutral way (wink, wink) thanked me for my comment. Try it yourself. Couldn’t hurt.

And this article is pretty good about the officer:

The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics [team stats] superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.

“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.

It’s a date Crowley still can recite by rote – and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.

“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.

Crowley, 42, said he’s not a racist, despite how some have cast his actions in the Gates case. “Those who know me know I’m not,” he said.

Yesterday, Lewis’ widow, Donna Lewis, was floored to learn the embattled father of three on the thin blue line of a national debate on racism in America was the same man so determined to rescue her husband.

“That’s incredible,” Lewis, 44, exclaimed. “It’s an unfortunate situation. Hopefully, it can resolve itself. The most important thing is peace.”

Gates, 58, an acclaimed scholar on black history and a PBS documentarian, went on the attack against Crowley on Tuesday, demanding he apologize for arresting him for disorderly conduct last Thursday while investigating a reported break-in at his home. Gates, returning from a trip, was seen by a Malden woman trying to force his front door open. Police alleged he initially refused to identify himself.

Though he harbors no “ill feelings toward the professor,” a calm, resolute Crowley said no mea culpa will be forthcoming.

“I just have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “It will never happen.”

Brief WSJ story here, but the biggest H/T goes to Mark Levin’s broadcast of the audio on his show today.

Akron police say they aren’t ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation. But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.

It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend’s home in South Akron.

Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ”This is our world” and ”This is a black world” as they confronted Marshall and his family.

The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black.

”This was almost like being a terrorist act,” Marshall said. ”And we allow this to go on in our neighborhoods?”

They said it started when one teen, without any words or warning, blindsided and assaulted Marshall’s friend as he stood outside with the others. When Marshall, 39, jumped in, he found himself being attacked by the growing group of teens. His daughter, Rachel, 15, who weighs about 90 pounds, tried to come to his rescue. The teens pushed her to the ground. His wife, Yvonne, pushed their son, Donald, 14, into bushes to keep him protected.

I blame Bush. Obama will fix it. You just have to give him time. It’s a big mess that he inherited.

Yesterday, Curt posted on this highly racial statement by the Black Panthers at a Philly voting location:

Racially charged statements by armed black panthers who happen to work for the Dem party in Philly.  No surprise the DOJ spiked the charges against the three black panthers.

In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated former Justice Department lawyer Miguel Estrada to a seat on the federal courts of appeals. In that instance, as today, the nominee was was a Hispanic with a compelling story and impressive qualifications. And some of the very people who are today praising Sotomayor spent their time devising extraordinary measures to kill Estrada’s chances.

Born in Honduras, Estrada came to the United States at 17, not knowing a word of English. He learned the language almost instantly, and within a few years was graduating with honors from Columbia University and heading off to Harvard Law School. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, was a prosecutor in New York, and worked at the Justice Department in Washington before entering private practice.

Estrada’s nomination for a federal judgeship set off alarm bells among Democrats. There is a group of left-leaning organizations — People for the American Way, NARAL, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and others — that work closely with Senate Democrats to promote Democratic judicial nominations and kill Republican ones. They were particularly concerned about Estrada.

In November, 2001, representatives of those groups met with Democratic Senate staff. One of those staffers then wrote a memo to Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin, informing Durbin that the groups wanted to stall Bush nominees, particularly three they had identified as good targets. “They also identified Miguel Estrada as especially dangerous,” the staffer added, “because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.”

It was precisely the fact that Estrada was Hispanic that made Democrats and their activist allies want to kill his nomination. They were determined to deny a Republican White House credit, political and otherwise, for putting a first-rate Hispanic nominee on the bench.

From the Washington Times:

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

~~~

The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.

~~~

People directly familiar with the case, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution, said career lawyers in two separate Justice offices had recommended proceeding to default judgment before political superiors overruled them.

Tensions between career lawyers and political appointees inside the Justice Department have been a sensitive matter since allegations surfaced during the Bush administration that higher-ups had ignored or reversed staff lawyers and that some U.S. attorneys had been removed or selected for political reasons.

The complaint said the three men engaged in “coercion, threats and intimidation, … racial threats and insults, … menacing and intimidating gestures, … and movements directed at individuals who were present to vote.” It said that unless prohibited by court sanctions, they would “continued to violate … the Voting Rights Act by continuing to direct intimidation, threats and coercion at voters and potential voters, by again deploying uniformed and armed members at the entrance to polling locations in future elections, both in Philadelphia and throughout the country.”

To support its evidence, the government had secured an affidavit from Bartle Bull, a longtime civil rights activist and former aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Mr. Bull said in a sworn statement dated April 7 that he was serving in November as a credentialed poll watcher in Philadelphia when he saw the three uniformed Panthers confront and intimidate voters with a nightstick.

Inexplicably, the government did not enter the affidavit in the court case, according to the files.
“In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll,” he declared. “In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi … I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location.”

Mr. Bull said the “clear purpose” of what the Panthers were doing was to “intimidate voters with whom they did not agree.” He also said he overheard one of the men tell a white poll watcher: “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

He called their conduct an “outrageous affront to American democracy and the rights of voters to participate in an election without fear.” He said it was a “racially motivated effort to limit both poll watchers aiding voters, as well as voters with whom the men did not agree.”

Readers may recall the political firestorm which descended on President Bush when he fired three U.S. Attorneys. Will there be a similar firestorm for the direct political interference in this case to protect voting rights of people who might not vote for Obama?

Don’t hold your breath!

But since the middle of the 20th century, the US has made great strides towards correcting what was an undeniable wrong. As we look around and see the past and present prominent members of the Bush administration in positions of power held by those “of color”, one would think we have moved beyond race, and into competence and qualifications. Indeed, most of us thought nothing about Condi or Colin Powell being black. We thought most of, and admired them for, their competence. The same could be said for Alberto Gonzales as AG.

I have continually worried that this President-elect thinks of himself first as a hypenated “black American”, and second as an American. And that worry came not because of his mulatto skin color, but from his own words. Since his well received but (IMHO) disturbing “A More Perfect Union” speech on race, that nagging perception of mine that Obama – himself – has not risen above color increases. And if our President-elect cannot rise above race as an issue, how can we, as citizens?

[Mata Note: I say "disturbing" above because the below paragraph in Obama's speech emphatically states that he believes the dreams of the white community has come at the expense of his own, and the black community.]

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here, and deliberately… and willingly… touch the forbidden subject of Obama’s administration and race.

As of this point, we have had nothing in his transition period to turn our thoughts to Obama’s race, or his thoughts about race. His appointments appear to be based on established Clintonistas rather than color. We know he’s a huge supporter of affirmative action policies with one “improvement” – and that is to widen the criteria of the affirmative action beneficiaries. I had seen no emphasis on race, as much as I see an emphasis on class (often based on race and nationality).

So we’ve not gone down the “race” road in quite a while. Why? It’s just not come up with any issue and/or appointments at this early stage.

Until… subtlely… now. While I desperately want to believe that my new President will think of himself as an American first, I am already seeing the reality that Obama still has the race bug embedded in his own heart with his inaugural plans.

First… I must say this. I absolutely revere all our military… most especially those of the WWII generation. I am the daughter of a WWII veteran and “Rosie riverter” wife. My father, now 93 (and I am so lucky to still have them both at this writing), often speaks with unbelievable clarity of that war. He may forget names and faces. But WWII? It’s as if it was yesterday.

So it comes with a sense of pride that I see Obama plans to honor the Tuskegee Airmen with an invitation to the inauguration. I’m not sure if that includes the inaugural ball, but certainly the ceremony.

For those of you who may not know, the Tuskegee Airmen were the all black 332nd Fighter Group, formed as a result of an order by Franklin D. Roosevelt to create an all black fighting unit.

Prior to World War Two, the U.S. Army Air Corps did not employ Negroes (the respectful term in that era) in any role, a policy which found its justification in a racist and inaccurate report written in the 1920’s. However in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the Air Corps to build an all-Negro flying unit. The presidential order caused the Army to create the 99th Pursuit Squadron. To develop the Negro pilots needed for the new squadron, the Air Corps opened a new training base in central Alabama, at the Tuskegee Institute.

These American heroes didn’t get their confetti parades and the public accolades they deserved on their return because of the nation’s racial prejudice. There is no justification in my mind for this. But, today we are a different generation, and were raised with different attitudes. The bias of my parents era is unimaginable to me.

In 1948 President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military with Executive Order #9981 , and the Tuskegee Airmen troop was not only officially invited to the swearing in of Truman, but also included (today) 92-year-old Spann Watson, an airman from Westbury, N.Y., as one of the pilots honored to fly above Pennsylvania Avenue for his inauguration.

Each individual of the 332nd is fascinating… all truly trail blazers of their time. Read more of their bios here.

The honor of the fly overs, and the invitations by Truman… in that era… was timely. It was a bold and definitive statement by a President that the era of discimination that had reigned supreme should come to an end.

Is that where we are today as well? Obama, repeating Truman’s inaugural honors, makes me wonder if that is what he believes.

The Tuskegee Airmen deserve the honors awarded to every WWII veteran… and other veterans, for that matter. But why… in today’s times when race division is not, and should not be forefront… does our President-elect seek to honor a generation of men based first on color? What of the other WWII veterans of different nationalities (including Japanese) or the women?

I might have stopped there, thinking it was coincidence, had that been the only “festivity of color” planned.

Also Wednesday, Obama aides said the inauguration will be a four-day affair, replete with the traditional balls but also featuring service projects to honor Martin Luther King’s holiday.

Why does Martin Luther King now enter the inaugural festivities? Because of Obama’s “theme”…

“At this moment of great challenge and great change, renewing the promise of America begins with renewing the idea that in America, we rise or fall as one nation and one people,” Obama said in a statement released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “That sense of unity and shared purpose is what this inauguration will reflect.”

The event’s theme – “Renewing America’s Promise” – is the same one used for the Democratic National Convention in Denver and for the party’s national platform. It’s a nod to the optimism that Obama tapped into during a marathon campaign.

Does Obama see “America’s promises” – which apparently he believes needs “renewing” – as floundering for Americans of color? Is this what it is all about? And if it’s unity as a nation “as one” he seeks, why does he honor those of color, emphasizing our painful divisions that we so desperately try to leave in the past?

We’ve come a long way since the days of separating mankind. We are closer today to a nation of “one people” than we have ever been. Or at least I thought so. Apparently our President elect does not and believes it needs “renewing”… and does so in some very bizarre ways.

I could not agree more with celebrating WWII vets., and honoring citizens like Dr. King. But I also think they should be celebrated as examples of the best of America – all colors – that we’ve enjoyed. Not celebrated and singled out for their color.

Thru my life, my friends, and my work cohorts, are racially and culturally diverse. Even my family today – the first generation of native born Americans starting with my parents – is a potpourrie of humanity. I rarely think of race and culture… until someone reminds me, that is.

And I have to wonder, just why does Obama persist in reminding us, even in such non-descript ways, by choosing individuals or groups of black Americans to raise up as examples? Does not the very nature of this attention scream “race” … and not an American as one… in it’s very foundation?

Open discussion here… keep it civil please. But I suspect, with this President, we may find ourselves in this discussion more often than not over policies and events. And somehow – here in the 21st Century – I wonder if that’s not a step backward in progress.