Post Racial? Let’s ask the Professor!

Okay you’ve come home from a long trans-Atlantic trip. You’ve crossed times zones, dealt with TSA agents, sat around waiting for your luggage and you probably have jet lag. Finally you get your luggage and you come home. You can’t get in your house because the door is jammed so you ask your driver to force the door open for you because your 58 years old and you’re handicapped. You get in your house and you start to call maintenance to inform about the door and…I’ll let the Professor tell the rest.



It was an unfortuanate incident that at least to me quiets all the talk I've heard about this post racial world we live in now that we have a black president. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. teaches at Harvard and his known for his studies race in america. He's an author, a father, and has no prior record to speak of. Despite all of that he was coaxed out of his home and arrested by Cambridge police. He spent the weekend in jail but luckily for Gates he has the friendship and respect of many people in high places so he made some calls and got out of jail. Gates is in a luxurous postions a postion he earned but a luxurious postion nonethe less. Most black men in that situation would probably still be in jail.

Racial profiling is alive in well in America even in the age so called age of Obama. What the professor experienced is something that has happened to far too many black and latino males in the country. You can try deny it if you want to, alot of people will was part fo thier over all defense of lawenforcement in this country. Now for the sake of fareness and because I've know a few police officers in my time I firmly beleive that most police officers are good honest men and women who want fo enforce the law fairly and with compassion. There his however a small percentage that seep through that have preset notions about minorities based in racial stereotypes. Those particular offiecers of the law when thier actions prove so need to be weeded out not just for the sake and safety of black, latinos and poor whites but also for the sake police community relations.

The fact is there is crime in all of our neighborhoods, especially in these hard economic times where desperate men are more prone to commit crimes and we need police officers to work with all our communities to prevent and discourage crime. To quote the late Tupac Shakur "Them same crime white people are affraid of black people are affraid of". Law abiding black and latino citizens want to raise thier kids in safe and neihborhoods and be able to take trips knowing that thier homes and property will be relatviely safe. They also want to be able to come back to thier homes and not be arrested by police officers for what I call LNNWB, living in a nice neighborhood while black.