It was painful to sit and listen to the tv commentators after President Obama's new conference last night. They had very little good to say about him and his performance. I thought he did a wonderful job of laying out the issues and explaining what he is trying to do. But to hear the "talking heads" you would think they had been listening to a different news conference altogether. I suppose that I am prejudiced to some extent because I think so closely to the way the President does.
I did feel some discomfort with the comments the President made concerning the unfortunate incident where a black Harvard professor was arrested in his own home. While I understand how it is easy to judge that incident as racially motivated on the surface, I think we all need to know more about the circumstances before we pass judgment on the policeman who arrested him.
If the professor was belligerent and uncooperative about showing his ID, then I would not characterize it necessarily as racial. I have had experience with policemen where they have become threatening to me, a white woman, just for going into the police station to report an accident I was involved in. You would have thought I had threatened one of them! A friend, another white woman, had a similar experience of her own with the police.
I believe that too many policemen are quick to promote a defensive attitude without warrant, and perhaps blacks have seen more of this than whites, but to some extent I think the police attitude comes with the territory of carrying the burden of protecting society. And this is not to excuse the police behavior. I have long thought that we need to train police better as to how to handle themselves when interfacing with the community.
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