The Gates of babble-on ~ By Doug Powers

By Doug Powers Posted: July 27, 2009 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Years ago, I worked at a grocery store, and at the end of each day part of my job was to go into the office, balance the tills and prepare the evening's bank deposit. One particularly slow evening, I decided to flip through the job applications that were filed in a cabinet below the desk. One in particular has stuck in my head all these years. On one of the completed applications, someone – I assume it was the store manager – had written in marker, "No! Black." This was back in '90. No, not 1890 – but 1990. That personal brush with racism has always served as a reminder for me that real obstacles still exist for a whole lot of people, and why such skepticism still exists. This is why "race pimps" in America need to be confronted and exposed as frauds and counter to the cause for which they claim to be fighting. My optimism for the future of race relations in the United States took a hit last week when even the president of the United States got in on the act by assuming that the officer who arrested Harvard professor Henry Gates "acted stupidly." Obama then went into a diatribe about race relations in America, implying that the arrest was racially motivated and an exercise in profiling – because hey, all white people profile. All indications are that the officer wanted to make sure the home belonged to Gates for his own safety after a neighbor called the police to report a burglary, and Gates, who apparently has a bigger chip on his shoulder than an ant carrying a Dorito, wasn't playing along. According to the police report, Gates was also upset that the officers didn't recognize him. Since when did university professors start thinking they're Madonna? In any case, President Obama has invited Henry Gates and officer Crowley over for a beer, because everybody knows that any racial dispute can be defused by adding alcohol to the situation – it's just common sense. Crowley, to my knowledge, has yet to accept the invitation. In the name of helping end all racial bias, I hope officer Crowley does not accept the invitation, because to do so would be tantamount to an admission of guilt to a charge of racism. This much is certain: Crowley isn't being invited over to be the recipient of an apology or even to engage in meaningful dialog – but for an intervention, community organizer-style. [CONTINUE READING]