Help us find Annie
Open letter to President Obama
Mr. President. Dude. When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, it is time to quit digging.
I hope you actually apologized to Sergeant Crowley, without weasling about it.
Let's turn things around for a moment: suppose the people forcing their way into Professor Gates' house actually were burglars, and suppose the police department decided not to respond to the call. What then would Gates have had to say?
As for the arguments that the neighbor who called the cops "should have known" Gates, why? I have lived in the same house for 35 years, and some of my neighbors--even people living within sight of me who have been here a year or more--do not "know" me. Some of these neighbors are black people who have no interest in socializing with me, and by my observations do not have any white friends who visit. Are they racists? Some of them have children who are foul-mouthed louts, who shout racial epithets at me for no good reason.
You mentioned today that race is "still a factor" in American life. Can you understand the frustration of white Americans who never seem able to do enough to accomodate the social disparities between themselves and that tiny minority of black soreheads who think they define their entire race?
As it happens I despise and pity white supremacists. But since I don't know of any within my family and circle of friends, I bear no responsibility for their actions.
You, sir, need to make up your mind whether your presidency is race-neutral (as you claimed in your campaign that it would be), or whether in fact things are as they have come to appear to be with you. The black voters of the USA could not alone have elected you. It happens that I voted neither for you nor Senator McCain, but I had hoped that you would act as President of every category of American citizens. Both your legal and your extra-Constitutional appointments have created the appearance of ethnic/racial favoritism. And you have certainly done yourself no good this week, meddling in a local police matter on behalf of a personal friend, regardless of the race of the people involved.
To paraphrase [the execrable] Keith Olbermann, Mr. President, shut the hell up.