From the letters to the editor in this morning's Chron...
I often read Leonard Pitts' column as it usually makes me think. Sometimes it makes me think he is a racist. Tuesday was such a day. He wrote that Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley could only see a black man (aka a criminal) and not a successful college professor. He didn't balance it with Henry Gates seeing a white officer (aka a racist tyrant) and not a public servant putting his life on the line to protect Gates' life and property.
I never thought about it from that perspective, but it makes all the sense in the world. That cop didn't have any way of knowing who it was trying to get into Gates' home, and to presume on top of that, that Sgt. Crowley only saw a "black man" seems to me to be the height of racial grievance-mongering. I don't usually agree with Leonard Pitts anyway, but I honestly thought he would have been better than this. And all things considered, I wouldn't have blamed the sergeant for declining that so-called "beer summit," as the whole thing reeked of a cheap attempt at publicity. This may be a stereotype, but I have a hard time believing the two aggrieved parties at that event are of a class one of whose regular libations of choice is the humble brewski. But I have been wrong before...
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