Cops on Campus

I am not sure if you have heard the latest hullabaloo to come out of Cambridge, MA. But if you haven’t here’s a link to the story.

The long and the short of it is that a Harvard Professor, who happens to be black, was arrested for trying to get into his own house.

Well, OK, he didn’t get arrested for trying to get into his own house, he got arrested for being a jerk to a police officer, who just so happened to be white.

I only bring it up as it was quite a hot button issue on the Sunday morning political pundit shows.

The pundits weren’t debating who was in the right, the cop or the professor, they were debating President Barack Obama’s reaction to the incident.

Obama said he thought that the policeman acted ‘Stupidly,’ which it sounds like he may have. But I, like Obama at the time he made the comment, don’t have all the facts.

But for these pundits to get upset that Obama is being bothered with such ‘trivial’ matters gets me pretty fired-up.

Here’s my point- Just because America finally elected a black man to the Presidency doesn’t mean America’s long-standing racial ills have been corrected.

Obama was asked about the situation because racism is still alive and well in America. I being a white guy, have been the beneficiary of racial profiling many times. I have many minority friends who have been victims of it. So I have seen first-hand that the problem still exists.

Granted, we have Russia making some worrisome moves and North Korea threatening to drop bombs like Hiroshima. And damn near everyone seems to either be unemployed, in foreclosure or worse.

So a guy getting arrested, without and charges being pressed, seems pretty trivial by comparison.

But it isn’t.

America took a big step forward in electing Barack Obama, but it was only a step. Addressing America’s deep-seeded racial issues/divide is going to take a Lewis and Clark-esque expedition, not just a couple steps.

Should the guy have been arrested? Is it ever OK to talk to a policeman with anything but respect? Did the cop over-step his bounds?

The one black person on the panel of ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’ noted that from an early age, she was taught to talk to police officers with nothing but respect. She stated that as a black person in America, you had to be trained to do so, in order to avoid any problems with police…the insinuation being that cops were looking for any reason to bust a black person.

While that may be the case, I’ll just add that as a (white) kid I was raised to interact with police the exact same way the black woman described: With Respect.

While I’ll agree with the sentiment and have personally witnessed bias on the part of the police depending on race, I will also note, that I am never combative or aggressive towards police. Which is part of the reason why I think I have gotten out of a couple tough situations with police, not that I get a pass solely because I am white.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have seen cops who are simply power-abusing jerks. But cops are people…people who have a pretty tough job. But the cop in this case is a 16-year veteran who just so happened to be the first-responder on the day that former NBA Star Reggie Lewis died. The officer attempted CPR when he found Lewis collapsed on the floor. Hardly the actions of a bigoted power abuser.

Granted the Lewis incident was a long-time ago and people change. But there is nothing in the officer’s history that would indicate the officer is anything other than a good, decent, public servant. And if there was, you can be sure the stories would be all over the news.

I don’t know much about the professor ‘victim’ in this story, but I know that he specializes in racial profiling. While I think such work needs to be done, as it obviously still takes place daily here in America. I wonder if the gentleman allowed his passion for the focus of his life’s work to get the better of his judgment.

I think he over reacted. And while the cop is trained to deal with such situations, he is human. And if the professor got overzealous towards law enforcement, which is sounds like he did, he’s subject to the same rules as everyone else.

It’s sad that we are still having this conversation today-

Did the white cop treat the black man unfairly? But we are.

The only saving grace of this particular instance is that it looks like it was just a matter of the cops dealing with a jerk as opposed to the cops preying on a black man.

And that is a step forward. As pathetic as it is to say that.

And the fists flew...

So I recently came across an article on the front page of the Seattle Times web site, that got me a lil fired-up.

The story re-hashed an incident dating back to 1997, where tempers flared in a high school basketball game between Garfield and Redmond. The story notes that the cause of the friction wasn’t adolescent male aggression, but race. The re-telling of the story was prompted by a recent brouhaha between the two schools earlier this month.

Shocking...A media outlet playing up-the race card.

The first question that came to mind, was: “Why bring-up such an old story?”

Is it still relevant today? I mean, if race relations are as bad as this story makes them out to be, why did they have to dig so deep into the archives to find another example? Shouldn’t race-fueled acts of aggression/violence be peppering the headlines every day…and not happening once every 10 years?

I am not going so far as to say race-relations are perfect now that we are in the ‘Age of Obama,’ but why harp on the negatives?

More upsetting to me was the gross over-simplification of the cause of the fight by the mainstream media.

There are a myriad of issues that play into the grudges that do exist between Suburban and Urban schools. Not the least of which is economics.

Sure, race is an easy divider. But the one that really hurts is economics.

As a white student at a predominantly black high school, I saw the dichotomy from the other side of the coin. I shared the same angst towards the ‘Eastside’ (read: Rich/White) schools as any other Rainier Beach High School student (read: Not Rich/Not White).

The feeling of being short-changed in comparison to the ‘haves’ of the world was exacerbated when taking one of the few AP-level classes Rainier Beach offered. The class was nearly canceled as there were not enough textbooks for the class. Meanwhile, on a visit to an eastside school that same year, I saw laptops and new computer labs. (Laptops were a very big deal in 1996-1997.)

I really didn’t have an issue with any of the eastside students just because they were white, I had an issue because they were so well-off and not only seemingly didn’t appreciate it…but they acted as if it was owed to them. *Maybe those eastside kids were unwittingly on to something, perhaps every student is deserving of a top-notch education. But all I did know was that we at Rainier Beach sure weren't getting one.

Only adding to the condescension was when eastside schools would ‘adopt’ or ‘partner’ with Rainier Beach. This was when in an attempt to broaden horizons, (read: assuage white-guilt) a school would invite Rainier Beach students to their school for a look at the good life and then, in-turn would spend a day slumming on a tour of Rainier Beach.

Instead of seeing how much we had in common, these tours only magnified the differences between the haves (them) and the have-nots (us).

So what does this have to do with a fight at a basketball game? Quite a bit actually.

Over-simplifying the cause of this brawl by attributing it to race is simply wrong. The issues are socio-economic.

And as long as everyone wants to focus on attention-grabbing headlines instead of reporting on the actual root causes of problems (urban decay as wealth has left the cities for the ‘burbs and/or the fact that in cities like Seattle the average blue-collar family has been priced-out of home ownership) fights and tensions are bound to persist.

For the record, high school dudes are gonna fight. Fights happen in high schools all over the country, regardless of racial make-up. Testosterone and egos are a volatile mix (regardless of age). Add a cheering crowd and maybe a couple of cute ladies and viola- a young fella is gonna get a over-zealous and the fists start flying.

To claim race is the driving force of tension is making a mountain out of a molehill and subverting the bigger issues like offering all American youths the same shot at a quality education.
For what it’s worth, I was able to complete that AP class in high school, and though I am not sure what the subject was, I’ll never forget that I was only able to do so because the teacher was able to finagle getting the books from a ‘better-off’ school.

I used experiences like that as fuel as I paid my way through college. But looking back at stories like that, it’s easy to see why so many kids feel like second-class citizens and just give-up

I am living proof that urban schools produce reasonable members of society. But I had to work a lil harder than suburban kids as my resources were limited.

Am I still pissed about it? Hell yeah.

But seeing as I am not 16, I am not going to punch anyone in the face over it. And I don’t think any other members of my graduating class are either. We need to work together to bridge the gaps in education/opportunities given to all students.

The real question is why don't we see anything about the education gap on the front page?

What a weekend

If only Martin Luther King, Jr. had made it to see his 80th birthday…What a weekend!

What a weekend to be an African-American.

What a weekend to simply be an American.

Not only is it MLK Day, but it falls on the eve of the inauguration of America’s first Black President, Barack Obama.

Hollywood couldn’t have written it any better.

I recently heard a story from a buddy that got me to thinking about how far we’ve come from the days of MLK to the election of Obama.

My buddy, who is Black, was riding the bus when a white lady comes-up and looks at him. After a few moments, she speaks to him “You look like him…Obama.” My buddy paid the comment little mind as he bears lil resemblance to Obama…other than being Black.

Upon telling me the story, my first inclination was to roll my eyes and cite the old ‘You all look the same to me,’ mentality.

But as I thought about it, I changed my mind.

At least she engaged my buddy.

Back in college, I wrote an MLK Day column where I implored people to communicate with folks of other races and backgrounds. Communication is key.

Who knows how many people of color this lady on the bus has dealt with. Based-on the interaction with my buddy, I’d venture to guess not very many. But Obama seems to offer a bridge to start a dialogue that has been lacking for far too long.

Instead of focusing on the negative(s), look at how far we’ve come.

Blacks have gone from slavery, to Negro, to segregation, to Black, to African-American and now President…(a gross over-simplification, but I am not a historian.)

Some would think we are at the end of the road. But I caution those people, as I whole-heartedly disagree.

Obama’s election is a great accomplishment and it has now placed the issue of race on the table, in a way it never has been before, but we still have a very long way to go.

Should a Black President be a big deal? In a perfect world, No. We should be excited about the new President, not the color or his skin.

Now I am not naïve enough to talk about rainbows and seeing a world without color. MLK said it best in his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I am not knocking the truly historic and monumental shift that Obama’s Inauguration represents. I just want to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the goal in all of the euphoria.

The fact that MLK’s words are still as relevant today as the day he uttered them only proves my point.

Racism is still alive and well in America. Obama does offer hope/proof that we are moving in the right direction. But to tout Obama’s election as the culmination of MLK’s Dream is premature.

We need to see Obama’s election as a step (a very big one, at that) towards the mountain top that MLK spoke of in his speech.

And as my buddy’s story exhibits, it’s gonna be a bit awkward at times, but it looks like we are getting there.