Sensitivity Training Now
The Cambridge cop accused of a racist arrest on Harvard Prof Henry Louis Gates Jr says he’s no racist and he won’t apologize. Gates has called James Crowley a “rogue cop,” though it’s not clear whether he knows much about this cop or his history. Meanwhile, the president of the United States, while acknowledging that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, calls the Cambridge cop “stupid” on national TV.
I’m beginning to think some sensitivity training is in order.
First, here’s the cop. The Boston Herald, in an extensive search of the man’s background, discovered that a cop of the same name had performed intensive and intimate lifesaving techniques on another prominent black man, Celtics star Reggie Lewis, 16 years ago. Turns out it was the same James Crowley. On that occasion, he also had to fend off accusations of racism…
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…
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…
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.”
OK, here’s the president of the United States, who acknowledges he doesn’t know the facts, and in his brief recitation of them makes that clear by omitting any reference to Gates’ disorderly conduct. Boston Herald:
President Obama ripped Cambridge police for acting “stupidly” in the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and said the noted scholar, a personal friend, was justified in being “angry” at his treatment.
The president said he does not know whether, as Gates maintains, race was a factor in the controversial case now making national headlines. But he said racial profiling is a “fact” in America today.
His remarks came in response to a question at the end of last night’s press conference on his health-care initiative…
The complete article, with embedded links, is at Sensitivity Training Now!
