Post-Racial America?

It seems that many voices in this country believe that since Barack Obama, a man of color, was elected to the highest office in the country, that the country has left its racist past in the past. This is such bullshit that it is almost funny if it weren’t so tragic.

The last couple of weeks in which our Congress put on display its view of racial harmony (take a bow Senator Sessions) during the Sotomayor hearings for SCOTUS, have made this very clear. They were obsessed with this “Hispanic” lady judge. And as everyone now knows, she is an extremely militant “Hispanic.” Why you say? Well, because she is proud of being “Hispanic.” The Republicans weren’t interested in discussing for the most part her judicial record, no, they were however VERY INTERESTED though in her “empathy” for other Hispanics and therefore her lack of empathy for the downtrodden white man.

See Patrick Buchanan:

Pretty Post-Racial don’t you think?

That brings us to “World Famous Professor” Henry Louis Gates Jr.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Colleagues of Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard’s most prominent scholar of African-American history, are accusing the police here of racism after he was arrested at his home last week by an officer investigating a report of a robbery in progress.

Professor Gates, who has taught at Harvard for nearly two decades, arrived home on Thursday from a trip to China to find his front door jammed, said Charles J. Ogletree, a law professor at Harvard who is representing him.

He forced the door open with the help of his cab driver, Professor Ogletree said, and had been inside for a few minutes when Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department appeared at his door and asked him to step outside.

Professor Gates, 58, refused to do so, Professor Ogletree said. From that point, the account of the professor and the police began to differ.

According to his lawyer, Professor Gates told the sergeant that he lived there and showed his Massachusetts driver’s license and his Harvard identification card, but Sergeant Crowley still did not seem to believe that Professor Gates lived in the home, a few blocks from Harvard Square. At that point, his lawyer said, Professor Gates grew frustrated and asked for the officer’s name and badge number.

According to the police report, Professor Gates initially refused to show identification.

In the report, Sergeant Crowley said a white female caller had notified the police around 12:45 p.m. of seeing two black men on the porch of the home, at 17 Ware Street. The caller, who met the police at the house, was suspicious after seeing one of the men “wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry,” according to the report.

A spokesman for the Police Department did not return a call seeking comment. But in the report, Sergeant Crowley said that as he told Professor Gates he was investigating a possible break-in, Professor Gates exclaimed, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” and accused the sergeant of racism.

“While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence,” Sergeant Crowley wrote in the report, “I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.”

Professor Gates followed him outside, the report said, and yelled at him despite the sergeant’s warning “that he was becoming disorderly.” Sergeant Crowley then arrested and handcuffed him. Professor Gates was held at police headquarters for hours before being released on his recognizance.

Now, I hate to rush to judgment here, but, that said, do you think that Alan Dershowitz would get the same treatment in Cambridge, Massachusetts? I think not.

And just as an aside, how is it possible that the “neighbor” who called the police didn’t know who HLG was and that he was in fact her neighbor? I know, I know, many black men in their late fifties who walk with a cane take up breaking and entering in their later years. Or do all black men really look alike?

Yes indeed, electing that Negro fella to the Whitehouse just goes to prove how America is now Post-Racial!

Oliver has more. And Eugene Robinson chimes in as well.