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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (277469)	7/18/2002 2:04:57 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Bill Stamps, a Probation Officer in Los Angeles (His picture appears in the paper and he is black.) Thursday, July 18, 2002 Rushing to cry 'racism' Inglewood police case demonstrates how race divides us as a nation Get out the wine and cheese. It is time to celebrate again. A white cop in Inglewood assaulted a black, 16-year-old kid. Let the dancing and jubilation begin. We have another racial incident on our hands. The race war is yet alive, and we love it. On July 6 an Inglewood police officer was caught on videotape slamming a handcuffed teen-ager into the back of a car and then punching him in the face during an arrest. Because this incident was caught on tape, it immediately received national attention and it has literally become the talk of the town. Some have even called it "another Rodney King." Like baseball and apple pie, in America, we are in love with our racial problems. I can't think of anything else that can get the juices flowing more than a good old-fashioned racial confrontation. What more could one ask for on a hot summer day. The incident happened on Saturday, July 5. By Monday, the incident was on all the network news programs. By Tuesday morning it made the front-page headlines on many of California's leading newspapers. By Tuesday evening, the politicians had gotten involved. The mayor of Inglewood, a former judge, had not only exposed his own personal biases, he publicly convicted the officer before any hearing has taken place and has called for the officer's termination. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters has sent a letter to U. S. Attorney General John Ashcroft demanding an investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a civil rights investigation. The Inglewood Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff and district attorney also are investigating. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors now says that it wants to investigate the matter. Dozens of angry protesters accompanied by civil-rights activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, descended on Inglewood City Hall, demanding an end to police brutality and the ouster of the involved police officer. What is this all about? Is this incident this big that it demands this much attention? I hardly think so. Was this an incident of police brutality? Or was it a case where an officer overreacted and used excessive force? I don't think the two are necessarily the same. As it appears on the videotape, this was definitely an incident where the officer exceeded the expectations of his job. However, at the risk of appearing to minimize the incident, it was far from the worst I have seen. After such a confrontation, some arrestees would love to have escaped with such few injuries as Jackson. Yes, law enforcement officers are professionals, and they should always be held to a higher standard than the average citizen. However, they are humans, like the rest of us. Some are going to error and sometimes go astray. And when they do err, they should be disciplined accordingly. Conversely, isn't calling on the U.S. attorney general in this case also an overreaction and going to the extreme? Was this really a racial incident? There is no indication that it was. When a white officer abuses a black arrestee, is racism always the cause? I don't think so. But who cares? The incident becomes what we want it to be. A white policeman mishandles a black arrestee - and for many, this makes it racial. The question has been asked, would this incident have received the same attention if both parties were white? No! White on white doesn't excite us. It doesn't sell newspapers. It doesn't attract television viewers. It doesn't elicit angry conversations and bring out the worst in us. It would not have been the same, if both parties had been black. As I alluded to earlier, the incident itself was not that big. Race and our fascination with it made it big.