Solidarity with Prof. Gates! Say NO to Racism!

[Psy]

Why is the G.O.P sabotaging the police departments and Democrats attempt to downplay the incident? Is the G.O.P so racist that they can't see the state is trying to protect itself from being seen as racist and that it is in the best interest of the state and the capitalist class for the story to just get buried and forgotten?

[Sarah Palin]

The G.O.P is a club for white supremacists.

[Yehuda Stern]

Is the G.O.P so racist that

Yes. The answer to a question that starts with that is always yes.

[Communist]

sent via email from http://www.BailOutPeople.org (http://www.bailoutpeople.org/)

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Stand in Solidarity with Prof. Gates! Say NO to Racism!

http://www.bailoutpeople.org/images/stopracialprofiling.jpgStop Racial Profiling and Police Brutality!

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Was Right!

The Cambridge Cops Must Apologize!

Youth Need Jobs & Schools - Not Jails!

Demand a Justice Department Investigation
of Racial Profiling Across the US


Sign the Online Petition here (http://www.bailoutpeople.org/gatespetition.shtml). Let President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick, Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders and members of the media know you stand against racism with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and you want the Obama administration to launch a national investigation into racial profiling and police brutality NOW! http://www.bailoutpeople.org/gatespetition.shtml (text of online petition (http://mail01.mail.com/scripts/mail/read.mail?folder=JunkMail&order=Newest&mview=a&mstart=1&pbox=1&msg_uid=1248896194&mprev=&mnext=&referer=mailbox&multiattach=1#text))

The arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer after showing two forms of identification after he, along with a Black limo driver, had unjammed the lock to the front door of Gates' own house in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood known as "Harvard Square" has brought the struggle against racism to the front pages of newspapers throughout the US and around the world.

The Cambridge Police Department and their racist allies have worked overtime to slander and vilify Prof. Gates. But his only crime was in fact to resist the racist arrogance of the Cambridge Police and not acquiesce to their racist and unjust treatment of him. The torrent of racist vitriol targeting Prof. Gates as well as the absolute racist arrogance displayed by the Cambridge Police Department in demanding that Pres. Obama and Gov. Patrick apologize for expressing support for Prof. Gates, cannot go unanswered! It is time for all poor and working people, and particularly whites, to come out against these racist attacks and stand foursquare in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality.

Cambridge, Harvard University and Boston are seen around the world as bastions of liberalism, hotbeds of progressive ideas and prestigious places from which cutting-edge research emanates. But the racial profiling and arrest of Prof. Gates have re-raised the question of how much has changed since the 1970s when, in the wake of court-ordered busing for desegregation, white racist mobs were stoning buses carrying Black school children and attacking Black people on the streets and in their homes.

Gates was Right! The Cambridge Police Department was Wrong!

Racial profiling is another _expression of institutionalized racism. In the U.S., racial profiling and police brutality have become an unfortunate reality of life for people of color, especially youth. It doesn't matter whether it occurs in the inner city, a small town, or an upper-middle class suburb.

In a 2004 report entitled "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security and Human Rights in the United States," Amnesty International documented that in a year-long investigation, an estimated 32 million people had been racially profiled--the vast majority of them from nationally oppressed groups. One can only imagine how much these numbers have increased over the last five years, not only for those born in the U.S. but also for immigrants. Since 9/11 there has been a corresponding increase in racial profiling targeting the Arab and Muslim communities.

The police have been, by far, the most feared perpetrators of racial profiling, and understandably so. Police harassment and brutality is an epidemic. According to a 2008 report by the Washington, D.C. based Campaign for Youth Justice entitled ”Critical Condition: African American Youth in the Justice System” African American youth make up 30 percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population. Additionally, African American youth are 62 percent of the total number of youth prosecuted in the adult criminal system and are nine times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.

One only needs to remember how the Somerville 5 (5 Black youth from Somerville who were arrested on racist frame up charges by the Medford Police) or the Jena 6 were treated. Not to mention the racism that followed the devastation of the 9th Ward in New Orleans as a result of hurricane Katrina.

As the economic crisis deepens the ruling class will use all means at its disposal to foster artificial divisions between white workers and Black, Latina/o, and immigrant workers. It is our responsibility to build a movement based on anti-racist, class-wide solidarity--as workers of all nationalities are losing their jobs, homes, health care and pensions in rapid numbers; and as the economic crisis becomes even m

Text of online petition:

To: President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick, Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders and members of the media

I deplore the racist treatment of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by the Cambridge police on July 16. Professor Gates was arrested simply for being in his own home and insisting on his right to have the name and badge number of the arresting officer, rather than standing silent in the face of blatant racist injustice inside his own home. I demand an immediate apology to Professor Gates from the Cambridge Police.

The Gates affair throws a bright national spotlight on the reality of racial profiling and police brutality in the United States, as Professor Gates himself said at the time of the incident. President Obama acknowledged this in his comments on it at his national press conference.

I call on all justice-loving people to stand in 100% solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality, and to stand up against the barrage of right-wing hate spewing forth from law enforcement and police unions and fanned by news media outlets and commentators, having the arrogance to demand that President Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick apologize for supporting Prof. Gates and speaking the truth.

I further demand that the Justice Department take up an immediate robust investigation of racial profiling and police brutality nationwide, and bring perpetrating police officers to justice and withdraw funds from police departments which practice racial profiling and police brutality. What happened to Professor Gates is not an individual incident. Racial profiling and police brutality must be dealt with in a serious and systematic way.

Sincerely,
(your signature appended here).

Bail Out The People Movement
Boston
617-522-6626
bopmboston(AT)gmail.com
(http://mail01.mail.com/scripts/mail/compose.mail?compose=1&.ob=018c0ad94e1774a1a6ee0f10909134e08f63a50e&[email protected]&composecc=&subject=&body=)http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com (http://bopm-boston.blogspot.com/)

National Office
212-633-6646
bailoutpeople(AT)safewebmail.com
(http://mail01.mail.com/scripts/mail/compose.mail?compose=1&.ob=018c0ad94e1774a1a6ee0f10909134e08f63a50e&[email protected]&composecc=&subject=&body=) http://www.BailOutPeople.org (http://www.bailoutpeople.org/)

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[jake williams]

Unless I really haven't been paying attention, racial profiling mostly only upsets Mr. Obama when it targets elite, privileged black people, like himself and Gates. If Obama were more concerned about the police "stupidity" that hurts the black and white working class as we type, I'd be more concerned about his buddy.

Of course none of us like racist cops (which this particular cop probably is), or even police "stupidity", although it's also hard to like cops even when they're being "intelligent".

[Communist]

Unless I really haven't been paying attention, racial profiling mostly only upsets Mr. Obama when it targets elite, privileged black people, like himself and Gates. If Obama were more concerned about the police "stupidity" that hurts the black and white working class as we type, I'd be more concerned about his buddy.
Of course none of us like racist cops (which this particular cop probably is), or even police "stupidity", although it's also hard to like cops even when they're being "intelligent".

Whatever the particulars of this incident, it has raised the issue of racial profiling in a very high-profile way. As you said, Mr. Gates is elite. If he must suffer through this, the injustice inflicted upon working-class, poor black citizens has got to be a thousand times worse.
This is a major problem that must be stopped.

[Communist]

found here (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/boston_0806/)
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Gates arrest: Part of Boston’s racism, then & now

By Frank Neisser
Boston

Published Jul 29, 2009 3:16 PM


The July 16 arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home in Cambridge, Mass., is but the latest glaring incident in the long history of racism permeating Boston, going back to the 1970s desegregation battles and before.

http://www.workers.org/2009/us/henry_gates_0806.jpg

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

From the end of Black Reconstruction following the Civil War until the 1970s, there was never a single African American on either the Boston City Council or Boston School Committee.
These all-white committees ran a segregated, separate and unequal school system in Boston up through 1974, 20 years after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Topeka Board of Education declared segregation unconstitutional.

Black parents had to go to federal court to obtain an order in 1974 mandating racial balance through busing to gain equal access to educational resources in Boston. That same year Boston became famous worldwide as a focus of racism. A right-wing white supremacist movement called “Restore our Alienated Rights,” led and organized by Boston City Councilors like Louise Day Hicks directly out of Boston City Hall, organized racist marches.

Buses carrying African-American children to schools in South Boston and other white neighborhoods were stoned. A picture was flashed round the world of a Haitian man being dragged off a porch in South Boston by a racist mob. Another picture showed African-American attorney Theodore Landsmark suffering a broken nose as he was assaulted with a U.S. flag by racists on Boston City Hall Plaza.

In 1974 progressive forces mobilized from all over the country to answer the racist forces. A 25,000-strong national march against racism took place in Boston on Dec. 14. Busloads of antiracists came from all over the country, including the Deep South. It was the largest civil rights demonstration to take place since the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The 1974 march put a halt to the racist mobilization, encouraging the people of Boston to come out against racism.

In subsequent years, antiracist forces defended African-American homes from racist attacks. African Americans, Latinas/os and Asians have gained representation on the Boston City Council. But racists, championed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino, have continued to try to return to “neighborhood” unequal schools and eliminate school transportation.

After forming the Coalition for Equal Quality Education, community, labor and progressive forces beat back the attack again this year. The school committee was forced not to take action on a plan that would have drastically cut school transportation and limited access of the Black and Latina/o communities to quality educational opportunities.

But the fight will continue in the fall, and racist right-wing forces will only be emboldened by the attack on Professor Gates and the right-wing chorus supporting this latest racist police conduct.
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[jake williams]

Whatever the particulars of this incident, it has raised the issue of racial profiling in a very high-profile way. As you said, Mr. Gates is elite. If he must suffer through this, the injustice inflicted upon working-class, poor black citizens has got to be a thousand times worse.
This is a major problem that must be stopped.
I totally agree.

[Stand Your Ground]

I did the petition. No racism!

[Black Dagger]

Merged the three threads on this topic.

[Misanthrope]

I guarantee that if a white male and female couple were trying to open the door they wouldn't even have been questioned. I think there was sexism and racism practiced here.

[Psy]

Yes. The answer to a question that starts with that is always yes.

But why isn't the G.O.P more interested in the integrity of the bourgies state? The Cambridge police is spewing a smoke screen to try avoid inciting militancy in the black community by saying it is was unfortunate incident with all sides faultless and they will review their policy. It is obvious the Cambridge Police department just wants defuse the story so they can avoid reforms by simply promising they will think about reforms. The G.O.P seems to not be with the program and actually sabotaging the state in this case.

[mikelepore]

The media are generally avoiding the subject that the police can't even say what they arrested the man for. "Disorderly conduct" - but specifically what did he do? Did he throw something? No. Did he start a fight? No. All he apparently did was "talk back" to the cop instead of saying "yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir."

(Just guessing, what he probably did was correctly observe that the cop must be an idiot if the cop couldn't see the significance of the fact that the man's driver's license showed that his address was the same as the house's address.)

So I don't say that the cop should "apologize." I say the cop should get the mandatory minimum of ten years in prison for kidnapping. Knowingly arresting a person who didn't do anything illegal is kidnapping. The penalty in Massachusetts for kidnapping someone with the use of a gun but when it doesn't result in an injury is imprisonment for a minimum of ten years. I can't think of one reason why that law shouldn't apply here.

[Sarah Palin]

I don't think we have to look at this just as a racial issue. What does it say about police power in general? They arrested a man is his own home. It doesn't matter if the prof was yelling and what not, it was in his home, and there is no law against that.
But the problem won't be solved with a beer in the rose garden either. The police department needs to be reprimanded. There is an awful facebook group expressing solidarity with the police department and their actions. If you look at the posts, they are just as authoritarian as you can be. It's disturbing that people, and some people in government, think that police should be able to do fuck all. I don't care how much you want to advance your far right agenda, it is flat out disturbing that police officers can arrest you in your own home for doing nothing but yelling.


But to say it as succinctly as I can, fuck tha police.