adrian_turtle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle) wrote2009-07-23 11:03 pm
adrian_turtle) wrote2009-07-23 11:03 pm
it was very clever, in a sneaky sort of way
At least it would have been clever, if I thought the Globe was doing it on purpose. There's an article in today's Globe about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, who has been the subject of national attention since his confrontation with Professor Gates at Gates' home in Harvard Square. He's suspected of harboring racist attitudes that made him unusually suspicious and hostile about a black man in an expensive house, trying to embarrass him. People are saying he broke the Cambridge Police guidelines for Community Policing (by deliberately escalating the conflict) even if he didn't actually break the law. All that background sets up expectations. The headline "Officer at eye of storm says he won't apologize," made me made me think he was making a carefully neutral statement about not commenting on police procedures.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/23/officer_at_eye_of_storm_says_he_wont_apologize/
That's actually what Crowley himself said, pretty much. He "said he will not apologize and asserted, "I am not a racist." In another interview, he "said he was not authorized to discuss the controversy. "As much as I’d like to respond, I really can’t." There's not much fuel for outrage, there. It doesn't make things better, but it's not making anything actively *worse*.
So the Globe went to Crowley's family and colleagues, looking for trouble. Crowley's mother is quoted, attempting to defend him against racism. She explains Crowley was aware of black people from his childhood, encountering them in the neighborhood. (The article does not mention if he went to integrated schools. He would have been in elementary school in the 1970s.) Nobody had accused him of the kind of racism that makes a white man think blacks don't exist. One might even argue that the kind of racism that's shocked and terrified by blacks being uppity depends on believing blacks exist...only racism is not nearly that logical. Crowley's mother also told a moving story from 16 years ago, when her son was one of the first EMTs at the scene where a black man was having a heart attack. I'm not a bit surprised that Crowley tried very hard to revive him and was deeply upset when he died anyhow. I'm not a bit surprised that his mother remembers his diligence and his compassion, and thinks it shows his essential decency. It kind of appalling that the Globe reported it as evidence that he's not racist. Twice. Nobody had accused him of the kind of racism that drives deliberate murder. People die all too often as a result of racial profiling, but the driving force isn't, "kill them all" so much as, "he doesn't look like he belongs there." (A black young man on a basketball court probably "looks like he belongs there" to the most racist cop in the country. Likewise, black teenagers hanging out on the sidewalk of a poor neighborhood. That doesn't carry over to the situation in Gates' house.)
It might be as simple as Globe reporters going to a bunch of people who know Crowley, saying stuff like, "He's been accused of racism. How does that fit with what you know of him?" and just writing down the answers uncritically. Or it might be as coordinated as trying to make comment threads more active by trying to blur the distinction between racism=actively working toward genocide and racism=soaking in ambient expectations of the common culture.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/23/officer_at_eye_of_storm_says_he_wont_apologize/
That's actually what Crowley himself said, pretty much. He "said he will not apologize and asserted, "I am not a racist." In another interview, he "said he was not authorized to discuss the controversy. "As much as I’d like to respond, I really can’t." There's not much fuel for outrage, there. It doesn't make things better, but it's not making anything actively *worse*.
So the Globe went to Crowley's family and colleagues, looking for trouble. Crowley's mother is quoted, attempting to defend him against racism. She explains Crowley was aware of black people from his childhood, encountering them in the neighborhood. (The article does not mention if he went to integrated schools. He would have been in elementary school in the 1970s.) Nobody had accused him of the kind of racism that makes a white man think blacks don't exist. One might even argue that the kind of racism that's shocked and terrified by blacks being uppity depends on believing blacks exist...only racism is not nearly that logical. Crowley's mother also told a moving story from 16 years ago, when her son was one of the first EMTs at the scene where a black man was having a heart attack. I'm not a bit surprised that Crowley tried very hard to revive him and was deeply upset when he died anyhow. I'm not a bit surprised that his mother remembers his diligence and his compassion, and thinks it shows his essential decency. It kind of appalling that the Globe reported it as evidence that he's not racist. Twice. Nobody had accused him of the kind of racism that drives deliberate murder. People die all too often as a result of racial profiling, but the driving force isn't, "kill them all" so much as, "he doesn't look like he belongs there." (A black young man on a basketball court probably "looks like he belongs there" to the most racist cop in the country. Likewise, black teenagers hanging out on the sidewalk of a poor neighborhood. That doesn't carry over to the situation in Gates' house.)
It might be as simple as Globe reporters going to a bunch of people who know Crowley, saying stuff like, "He's been accused of racism. How does that fit with what you know of him?" and just writing down the answers uncritically. Or it might be as coordinated as trying to make comment threads more active by trying to blur the distinction between racism=actively working toward genocide and racism=soaking in ambient expectations of the common culture.