Bill Cosby comments on Obama’s statement on Harvard prof’s arrest

[SMOKE 1,426]

On the news here in Chicago it is apparently harder to get your kids into magnet high schools than it is for people to be accepted at Harvard.

Diagnosis.... Ivy League resentment. kthxbai B)

For undergrad I got into Harvard.

you did??? Certainly because they had to fill in the Puerto Rican quota... right???? Not because you are bright and dedicated. I mean, really.

don't give Ivy league schools to much respect. Bush graduated from Yale yanno.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

On the news here in Chicago it is apparently harder to get your kids into magnet high schools than it is for people to be accepted at Harvard.

Diagnosis.... Ivy League resentment. kthxbai B)

For undergrad I got into Harvard.

you did??? Certainly because they had to fill in the Puerto Rican quota... right???? Not because you are bright and dedicated. I mean, really.

I also went to one of those magnet high schools.

Must be true though... another uppity minority according to some jerkoffs out there.

No, but really....

[HAL 9000 96]

On the news here in Chicago it is apparently harder to get your kids into magnet high schools than it is for people to be accepted at Harvard.

Diagnosis.... Ivy League resentment. kthxbai B)

For undergrad I got into Harvard.

you did??? Certainly because they had to fill in the Puerto Rican quota... right???? Not because you are bright and dedicated. I mean, really.

don't give Ivy league schools to much respect. Bush graduated from Yale yanno.

Princeton is better.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

don't give Ivy league schools to much respect. Bush graduated from Yale yanno.

Dude was a legacy... which are mostly pretty fvcked up and I don't even count them. OMG!!! It's like affirmative action for rich white people!!! OH NOES!!!

[HAL 9000 96]

uppity Ivy leaguers.

going home.

[alienlovechild 75]

Because the process of being an academic of his stature, in such an area as his; takes a lot of credibility put to the test every single day.

That doesn't make him an expert on policing. If you can't tell the difference in skill sets involved you don't what your talking about no matter how well you know Prof. Gates.

Being a police officer, as deserving of respect as it might be, does not entail any of the above implicitly.

I wouldn't want that cop teaching a class on African-American studies either.

Therefore, in an academic setting I'd say Gates is more credible but on a B&E incident, I assume the cop had far more experience. Even more so when Gates himself said his door was inoperable from a previous break-in.

This wasn't a major incident but it got the attention of the press and the President so it was fair game for a discussion.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

I never said it was not worth discussing. I said -and repeat- that in this particular case, I believe Skip over the cops.

[Heracles 417]

cosby is one of the few well known black public figures who has no teloerance for those that play the race card. he has been of this mind for many years, and has been willing to go on record about the issue on many occasions.

he seems like a decent guy who just doesn't tolerate bull$hit.

Which is exactly why I have the up-most respect for him. He neither buys nor plays the race card, ever. Rather than throw in bias, he calls it like it is.

Give it a few days and I'm sure Jesse Jackson and co will show their face by this professors side.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

On the news here in Chicago it is apparently harder to get your kids into magnet high schools than it is for people to be accepted at Harvard.

Diagnosis.... Ivy League resentment. kthxbai B)

For undergrad I got into Harvard.

I did, too. I'm sorry.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

cosby is one of the few well known black public figures who has no teloerance for those that play the race card. he has been of this mind for many years, and has been willing to go on record about the issue on many occasions.

he seems like a decent guy who just doesn't tolerate bull$hit.

Which is exactly why I have the up-most respect for him. He neither buys nor plays the race card, ever. Rather than throw in bias, he calls it like it is.

Give it a few days and I'm sure Jesse Jackson and co will show their face by this professors side.

I'm with Cosby :thumbs" Nothing wrong with a Black man having high expectations of other Black people.

[doodlebugg 10]

Why are people assuming that Obama didn't have all of the facts? Maybe he did and maybe he thought it high time that this issue gets taken care of, if at all possible. Reminds me of that movie Crash. Let's be honest, if it were a couple of white males, one with a cane, etc. same scenario the cop would have just let it go. There are DEEP resentments in Boston still today due to the whole bussing issue that went on when I was a kid. This stuff goes real deep and unless you've been in it you really can't understand.

My opinion? The cop was stupid. Obama needs some pc coaching but he was spot on imho.

[Heracles 417]

I would be interested in hearing what the cop on the bottom right of the picture has to say.

The reality is that this Gates character has something to gain from all of this. Especially when factoring in his area of expertise. His first comment to the police officer was conformational. His second comment accused them of being racist.

Edited July 24, 2009 by haza

[Heracles 417]

I'm with Cosby :thumbs" Nothing wrong with a Black man having high expectations of other Black people.

"but but cosby is talking down to black people."

[mendeleev 67]

As I understand the cops side of the story, they talked with Gates and he ended up producing ID showing that he was in his own house. Police persisted in talking with him. Yeah, maybe Gates was a bit ticked off.

I would bet that most of the right-wing (and left-wing and center-wing) wingnuts around here would be pretty pissed off it a cop comes by, demands you provide proof you are in your own house, and doesn't *immediately* apologize and back off. If that happened to me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I ended up outside my home, in my front yard, loudly engaging in what I thought were my first Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression, and express myself rather loudly that these guys had better stop hassling me and get of my property about five minutes ago! And if a cop had the stupidity to arrest me for the free expression -- well my characterization of his action I guess would be similar to the President's.

I guess my town is not the only town in the USA where the greatest threat to peaceful enjoyment of one's home by law abiding citizens comes from the police. I thought that was not what the USA was supposed to be like. I was disabused of my delusion personally earlier this summer, and the treatment Gates got reinforces my recently learned lesson that the right-wing, law-and-order tendencies of our country these past few decades have eroded our freedoms more than I realized.

[doodlebugg 10]

I would be interested in hearing what the cop on the bottom right of the picture has to say.

The reality is that this Gates character has something to gain from all of this. Especially when factoring in his area of expertise. His first comment to the police officer was conformational. His second comment accused them of being racist.

conformational? what is that?

If you meant confrontational well you know what? Has anyone here ever flown overseas? To China? And back? Are you in the greatest of moods wanting to hold hands with everyone singin' kum-bay-ah or do you just want to get the heck home and to bed for the next 24 hours??? Maybe you drank the water and have had the runs for days, maybe you sat next to someone on the airplane who was twice the size of his/her seat and wouldn't stfu the entire flight. Maybe your ride didn't show at the airport so you had to hail a cabbie.

Then when you do get home, let's imagine your friggin door won't open so you ask the cabbie to give you a hand, all the while thinkin' of that nice cozy bed you've been missing.

Suddenly this cop is inside of your house, without a warrant, and asks you to step outside.

I could go on but lemme tell ya I'd be po'd to the max and would have ripped the cop a new one. Never mind the cops in Cambridge have a reputation of being wicked blatantly prejudice.

And if all of this was done per proper procedure by this cop, why were the charges dropped?

Seriously is it a crime to yell in your own home when you've just been accused of breaking into your own home? If so I wonder how any one of us would have done given the same scenario.