Upper-Class Gates and No-Class Ambinder
If you read the police report of the Gates’ arrest, the story is pretty simple. The officer responded to a report of a break-in and when he got there he saw someone inside the house. That person said he was the owner and the officer asked him outside to confirm his identity. This, by the way, happens hundreds of times (or more) around the country and the situation is resolved without any further hullabaloo.
Except the person inside the house decided to get what police officers call “a case of the ass”. He refused to come out and talk to the officer. The very first words he said the officer were an accusation of racism. The officer still has a job to do. He needs to confirm Gates’ identity. He needs to make sure that there aren’t two strange men inside Gates’ house waiting to rob and kill him. He needs to figure out who the second man was.
Gates had all of that information and he could have resolved the situation peacefully in less than five minutes. All he needed to do was to come outside and speak to the officer. But he didn’t. He decided to play the “do you know who I am” game — the same game officers have been subjected to for decades upon decades by people whose wealth and social status lead them to believe they can treat police officers like maidservants.
That sort of class bias is why the normally intelligent and reasonable Mark Ambinder, decide to write this execrable pile of idiocy. If Ambinder had read the report, he would have seen that every single assumption he made about the arresting officer was exactly wrong. Of course, it’s possible that he did read the report and decided that the officer is a bald-faced liar, which would make his piece the kissing cousin to slander.
I”m not surprised that Ambinder decided to side with the abusive rich upper-class guy who decided he would take his bad day out on an unsuspecting and entirely innocent police officer. Cops are pretty much used to being treated like personal servants, not just by upper-crust grandees with a sense of entitlement so big you could photograph it from space but also by plenty of other people. If I had a dime for every time I, in my twenty years of working for police departments, heard a variation on “But I pay your salary”, I wouldn’t have a tip jar (and you did hit it today, right?). The truth is that cops are one of the few professions it’s still okay for normal, respectable people like Mark Ambinder to treat like crap because they have absolutely no recourse. If a cop has a bad day and takes it out on Joe Citizen, he catches twelve different kinds of pluperfect hell. If a rich Harvard professor has a bad day and takes it out on a cop, he’s just Sticking it to The Man and fellow upper class twits like Ambinder and Barack Obama get his back without hesitation or actual fact.
William Jacobsen is exactly right. The Gates case isn’t about race but class. Gates felt at liberty to abuse a working-class police officer not because the officer was wrong but because Gates, in his elitist might, believed he has the absolute right to treat the proles like garbage. His outrage came not because he was a black man but because some blue-collar public servant dared to discomfit him more than he felt was necessary. Mark Ambinder, as a supposed journalist (they’re still blue-collar, right?) should recognize that sort of treatment since, if he’s done his job well in the past, he’s seen it before. It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t see the real problem past the tip of his own upturned nose.
(Link via Stacy, who suggests Ambinder watch his back around the cops he very nearly slandered)
UPDATE: Jules Crittenden’s piece is a must-read. He lines up several nails and hits every one of them squarely on their flat heads.
UPDATE 2: Linked by Sister Toldjah!
UPDATE 3: Is the Gates story hiding some real ugliness underneath? Given President Obama’s association with some very shady characters, it’s well within the realm of possibility!
Other Posts of Interest:
- Welcome Back, Officer Shifty McIncompetent!
- The Reason We Don’t Get Stoners to Write Laws
- LA County Sheriff Threatens to Release Prisoners Early if He Doesn’t Get His Way
Category: The Good Old US of A, The Social Issues
Obama knew exactly what he was doing when he answered that question. Even when asked about it the day after he didn't retract one word. This man is dangerous.
We have three observations about the Harvard professor incident:
1. We find it interesting that the fact that this was the professor's home was evidently not established early on way before the dispute escalated;
2. We find it fascinating that the versions of two members of society, who most would ordinarily view as responsible and honest citizens (this obviously does not include politicians), would vary so dramatically from a factual point of view.
3. Finally, considering that the reading and viewing public were not present at the scene (and thus have no first hand knowledge), and that there is no video tape to our knowledge of the sequence of events and what was said, how so many have formed conclusions, and made assumptions, about who did what and who was wrong.
There are some things which Professor Gates might have considered upon the arrival of the police, no matter how incensed he may have been.
"Obama knew exactly what he was doing when he answered that question."
That's what I've been thinking all along. Everyone seems to be buying this line that he just sort of stumbled into it & spoke without thinking. Bull! That was planned well in advance and for one purpose only. His government forced death care bill is tanking so he wanted to remind us what a bunch of racists we all are.
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