If there was going to be any stereotyping, it would have been towards the white officer. Professor Gates immediately thought he was being arrested by a white racist cop and couldn’t been farther from the truth. He cried racism toward a white cop who apparently doesn’t have a drop of racism in his bones!

Maybe that was a good post after all about stereotyping. The subject of the post was just the wrong individual!

My apologies for stating that information as if it was ‘new’!!. I had better brush up on reading comprehension skills before ever posting again.

I believe that God has a purpose for everything (I’m sure others agree).

Realizing that everyone here has the same capacity to do an internet search for background information, I’ll offer the following only as my relatively speaking “local” observations – having gleaned them from listening to reports presented (at least so far).

My first reaction is based from my own experiences of having two(!) attempted breaking and enterings in two(!) different locations – one in a neighboring city of Cambridge, MA where the Gates/Crowley incident took place; the other here in Maine. That for me put things into a different perspective. It should have for Prof. Gates as well, because his Harvard residence had already ‘experienced’ a previous attempted breaking and entering!

I would WELCOME any officer which was responding to such a call – given the fact that I had just arrived home, which is KEY to this incident – to search EVERY inch of my house, EVERY inch of my premise, inside and out. No one – not Crowley, the other police officers [including the Harvard officers who also responded] – not all of them white – or Mr. Gates and his limo driver knew if anyone could have been hiding in a closet, or in a back room – a very real possibility.

Secondly, Sgt. Crowley – for what it’s worth – has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell [MA] Police Academy for five years. He was appointed by the previous Police Commissioner, ‘Ronny Watson, who is black’:
http://www.wral.com/golo/blogpost/5649027/
He has received ‘stellar’ reviews from others in the department and from those who have worked with him and taken the class. That includes people of all colors.

Another point which is not receiving much air time over national radio talk shows is just how ‘progressive’ (it ‘pains’ me to use that word) in race relations the Cambridge Police Department is, and that is an assessment that comes from liberals as well as conservatives; African Americans as well as Latinos, Caucasians and others. (And I must admit I hate having to parse out the human race in this manner as we are all one blood!).
This does NOT mean that the CPD is perfect or not subject to making mistakes or being flat out wrong.

Here is and interview with Prof. Gates – in his own words, from July 21, of what happened:
http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks?page=0,0
From all reports, Prof. Gates is well-respected and well known in the community – also by people of all colors – and I would have absolutely no reason to doubt that.

Another fairly unknown fact about Sgt. Crowley is the following:
“Crowley was a campus police officer at Brandeis University in July 1993 when he administered [mouth-to-mouth] CPR trying to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis. Lewis, who was black, collapsed and died during an off-season workout.”

I remember this incident well (although we were not living in MA, but AZ, at the time). It should make NO DIFFERENCE – and doesn’t to me – what the color of a person is who needs rescusitation. It obviously didn’t for Crowley when Reggie collapsed. This is as it should be, in God’s eyes.

Given this past attempt to save Lewis’ life, can it rightly be said that Crowley is a racist? Certainly one isolated incident doesn’t ‘define a man’, however this leads me to the following ‘pondering’….

My question for Prof. Gates (or ANY of us) would be – if trained in CPR – would we have done the same to a person in need, regardless of color?
More specifically for those of us who claim Christ as our Lord and Savior, what would we have done?

This country (its citizens) still grieves God in its inability to come fully to repentance for its racial divides. I believe we can all agree with this. I don’t know any other solution than the saving grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

I believe (just my opinion) President Obama should not have commented in the manner he did and believe this has exacerbated the issue, particulary over here on the ‘right coast’. President Obama did not know the specifics of this ‘local’ police issue and probably would have served ALL of America by stating that until he had more information he would withhold comment.

My son is not a trouble maker, but just forgot that particular day what his mother taught him about respecting the police. Sounds like Gates forgot what his mother taught him too!