Am I the only one not mad at her?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, there is not way you haven’t heard about Henry Louis Gates. If you haven’t, he is a preeminent member of black academia, rather conservative and right winged, and who was arrested on the porch of his own home after his neighbor called the police on what she thought was a burglary or home invasion.
Now there has been much debate about who was wrong between the cop and good ole Skip. Some people say the cop is a racist. (I don’t think so, I just think he’s a bit of an arsehole. Anytime a white person does something dumb or stupid to a person of color, it doesn’t qualify as racism.) For some reason I think that if Skip was white guy who yelled at the cop he would have went to jail too. Some people say that Skip shouldn’t have acted the way he did. Bump that, a grown man should be able to scream at whomever he pleases inside his own house; warrant he doesn’t pose harm to anyone there. (However, where Skip eff’d up was when he stepped outside of his house on to his porch. Now since his actions are in plain view, despite the porch being covered under the same legal protection, he can and was arrested for disorderly conduct). Nonetheless, I still black people shouldnt yell at cops, it makes me nervous.
None of the above bothers me. What bothers me is the way some people are blasting the women who called the cops, Skip’s neighbor Lucia Whalen. She saw two men walking into a house trying to essentially force their way in and she did the right thing by calling the cops. Imagine if they were actually burglars and then she had to explain to Skip when returned from China, that she saw who broke into his house and didn’t do anything about it. Was that a better idea? She didn’t even notice the Skip trying to get into his own house at first and had to be alerted by an elderly old lady who probably was an actual racist. (I believe that 95% of white people over the age of 75 are racist and 90% of black folk over that same age are prejudice as hell). People argue that she should know what her neighbor looks like and that she had to be racist b/c she called the cops on a well known black man. This is a crock of sh!t. 1) I bet there are more people than you would think that don’t know their neighbors or couldn’t recognize them from a distance. To be honest, I would fail this test b/c there are times when I don’t recognize my own father. 2) She didn’t call the cops on two black men. She called the cops on two men who she thought was robbing her neighbors, one of which she actually though was Spanish. I personally think she did the right thing. I would love to live next to her; especially I know better to yell at men with guns. It just bothers me that so many people of color are turning into the boy who cried racism. I really think by over using racism and racial profiling we are taking away power from the terms. So now when an actual instance of racism or racial profiling occurs, we won’t be taken serious. People yell racism or racial profiling anytime there is a white guy and a person of color involved. I’m not saying that racism and racial profiling doesn’t exist, I think we all would agree that we are NOT in a post racial society. However, what I am saying is hold the term for when we are sure it’s true.
So how do you feel about what they doing to Lucia? Is it right? Do people of color cry racism too much? Lemme know
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