Last night, Larry King interviewed Colin Powell.
Here's a shock: They talked about race!
WASHINGTON -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Barack Obama.
Powell, interviewed by CNN's Larry King, criticized the way Gates dealt with Sgt. James Crowley, a white officer who responded to reports of a possible break-in by arresting the black professor at his home on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was soon dropped.
Gates "might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it," said Powell, one of the nation's most prominent African Americans.
"I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal," he said.
So Powell thinks that Gates should have been more cooperative with Crowley and "reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal."
In other words, Powell is saying that if Gates would have controlled himself, the racist Crowley maybe wouldn't have arrested him.
Powell says Gates should have realized that this was not the "time to make that big a deal," meaning this was the wrong battle for Gates to pick. He should have been the bigger man and sucked it up.
Powell isn't really suggesting that Gates didn't have reason to be upset. Powell's just saying that he should have let it go.
However, Powell does explain why Gates reacted the way he did. Gates was tired from traveling and he wanted to get to bed.
...But, Powell said, Gates was just home from China and New York and "all he wanted to do was get to bed."
Yes, well, if that's what Gates wanted, then why would he pick a fight with a police officer?
Gates started screaming racism instead of remaining calm and explaining the misunderstanding.
Powell is wrong about Gates wanting to get to bed. Gates wanted to play the race card.
...Powell said he was the target of racial profiling many times and he sometimes got mad.
On one such occasion, he said, he tried to meet someone at Reagan National Airport "and nobody thought I could be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy."
Asked how he dealt with the situation, Powell said "You just suck it up. What are you going to do?"
"There is no African American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation," Powell said.
That's quite a generalization.
In effect, Powell is saying that America is a racist country, and EVERY African American has been treated poorly because of his or her race.
I suppose I could say that every woman in America has been degraded based on gender.
I've experienced sexist behavior and religious bigotry, but I don't see any reason to claim victim status. I don't see any point in being dramatic about it. Like Powell, I "just suck it up." Who hasn't had to suck it up because someone is being a jerk?
Powell concludes:
But, he said, "when you are faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child.
"You don't argue with a police officer," Powell said.
That's not a racial thing.
I was taught as a child the importance of cooperating with police and respecting officers, too. That had nothing to do with race.
It's not a good idea to escalate an argument with a police officer. Period.
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Video.
2 comments:
Powell is a skunk. Do some research about his role in Viet Nam and you'll understand. The man doesn't deserve the time of day or the pedestal that he puts himself upon every day.
I just don't get him.
He's become so terribly inconsistent.
He claims to be a Republican but then he orchestrated that carefully timed endorsement of Obama just before the election.
He says he's a Republican but then he says stuff like, "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."
What is that?
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