Obama: Police 'acted stupidly'

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-02-2009
Obama: Police 'acted stupidly'
684
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 3:07pm

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/harvard.gates.interview/index.html


First, he says he doesn't know the facts, then he says the police acted stupidly. No comment on how the professor acted.


If he was smart, he wouldn't have commented. I think he acted stupidly on this.


I wonder how many other topics he talks about without knowing the facts? Heath care? The economy?

"Resist, we much. We must, and we much. About that, be committed."

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 5:25pm

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2009
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 5:30pm
I guess I have to add a third option - what would it be?
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 5:34pm

I'm just baffled by the outrage.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2009
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 5:49pm

Well, if you recall I was accused of being a hurtful person in another thread because I refused to answer a personal question asked by a poster I didn't know so maybe I wouldn't be the one to ask. But this has gotten me thinking about a time when I used a word I didn't know was a racial slur.

Never having watched Little Rascals as a child I was not familiar with the character Buckwheat. While in college I had an acquaintance who use to say "You thought wrong Buckwheat" when someone make a mistake. I picked up the habit as well and after a few years someone took me aside and explained that it was considered a racial slur - naturally I was quite embarrassed but apologized and never used it again. I felt even worse because I had named a cat Buckwheat, and while she was a beautiful tortoise shell I worried that people would be offended by that as well. My friend, the one who educated me, was African American and she was ok with the cat since she knew I hadn't meant anything by it but still I felt terrible.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 5:59pm

and never used it again


That right there is the key point.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 7:44pm

Check this out.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2009
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 7:53pm
OMG! Now we will probably hear from at least one person that they didn't know, or couldn't figure out, that 'jungle monkey' was a racial slur either. Truly unbelievable, and yet strangely not at the same time. I actually have spent enough time in Boston in the last few years to not be too surprised though. :(
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 8:02pm
I knew this was a racial slur even at a young age.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2009
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 8:07pm

Doesn't surprise me a bit - here's another example of how Boston works - Charles Stuart.


Charles Stuart (murderer)

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Charles Stuart in the hospital after the incident
(from Rescue 911)

Charles "Chuck" Stuart (December 18, 1959January 4, 1990) was a Boston man who murdered his pregnant wife and inflamed racial tension by concocting a fictitious African-American assailant.







Contents






Murders

On October 23, 1989, Stuart, manager of the upscale Kakas Furs on Newbury Street, and his pregnant wife Carol (born Carol DiMaiti, March 26, 1959), a lawyer, got into their car after attending childbirth classes at Brigham and Women's Hospital. According to Stuart's subsequent statement, a black gunman with a raspy voice forced his way into their car at a stoplight, ordered them to drive to Mission Hill, robbed them, then opened fire, shooting Charles in the stomach and Carol in the head. Stuart then drove away to escape, calling 911 on his car phone.


A film crew for the CBS Reality television series Rescue 911 happened to be riding with Boston Emergency Medical Services personnel and was able to capture the scene as police and paramedics assisted Stuart.


Carol Stuart died that night, after her son, Christopher, was delivered two months early by caesarean section. The infant suffered seizures due to oxygen deprivation and died 17 days later after his father authorized discontinuing life support.


Boston police searched for suspects matching Stuart's description of the assailant. Police suspected a man named Willie Bennett and on December 28, Stuart picked him out of a lineup. Though investigating officers did ask doctors whether Stuart's wounds could have been self-inflicted, they were told that this was very unlikely given the severity of the injuries.


The case against Bennett abruptly collapsed when Charles Stuart's brother, Matthew, identified Stuart as the killer. Matthew admitted that he had driven to meet Stuart that night to help him commit what he'd been told was to be an insurance fraud.


Upon arrival, Matthew said that he had seen that Carol had been shot, and that his brother, also wounded, had apparently shot himself to support his mendacious story. Matthew took the gun and a bag of valuables, including Carol's wedding rings, and threw them off the Pines River Bridge in Revere. The items were later recovered.


Police later learned that Stuart had been interested in (but allegedly not involved with) an intern at the fur salon and was also having financial difficulties. An article in The Boston Globe alleged that a $480,000 check was issued to Charles Stuart in payment for a life insurance policy on his wife, but this was later found to be false, as no such check was ever found.\


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-08-2009
Wed, 07-29-2009 - 8:13pm

Funny, I lead a walk out in my 6th grade Home Ec class when a teacher said that to another student. I got suspended for 3 days and my parents weren't even mad. I did have to write a letter to the teacher apologizing for being disrespectful - which I didn't think was fair, but the principal explained that I should have handled it another way. In the end I did, but when I returned to school she was no longer teaching that class. They had transferred her to another school.

I think what amazed me was that she was saying this in a class of mostly African Americans, it was in 1970 in Detroit and by then most of my white classmates had fled to private schools in the suburbs so our classes were about 90% African American. The following year we moved to NC.

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