Where’s my beer, Obama?
EDITORS NOTE: Call 202.742.6834 and leave a voicemail telling MHD why Obama should invite you to have a beer at his white house. We’re especially interesting in hearing from victims of government violence, regardless of race.
Since we’re traveling full-time (without cable TV) we have limited access to current events, especially as our radio is dedicated to playing songs by Lady GaGa. But while at the gym this morning a TV blasting Headline News in front of me shared a story about a man named Barack Obama who invited a cop and a professor to his white house for a beer. The reason? Mr. Obama called the actions of the cop “stupid” because he arrested a man on his own doorstep after someone reported this suspicious behavior to the police. The arrested man is Henry Louis Gates, a friend of Obama’s and a professor at Harvard who has a darker complexion than the arresting cop. This has received a lot of attention, but for the wrong reasons.
We should be outraged at the treatment of Mr. Gates but not because he, a black man, was arrested by a white officer and because these police officers didn’t immediately leave once they learned that he was the home owner. Adding further insult, the Cambridge Police Commissioner backed his officers actions which included putting chains on Mr. Gates and kidnapping him instead of apologizing for trespassing and wasting his time. The arresting officer is even telling the media that Gates “acted irrational” and “should have been grateful.”
When a brown man pepper-sprayed my eyes and a white man chocked me before tackling me to the ground in Jones County, Mississippi I wasn’t thinking that this is a beautiful moment for racial harmony. Instead I was experiencing what it’s like to live in a police state where we can all be victimized by arbitrary violence because the government has a monopoly on the use of force. A single unopened beer in our RV’s fridge was the sole reason they locked my co-conspirator Pete in a cage for ten hours because they claimed that it was so great an offense that his freedom be usurped.
Aggression is always wrong and the skin color of the aggressor or the agressee isn’t what’s important. What’s important is that it STOPS. It’s not a race issue, it’s a police-state issue and we all need to withdrawal our support for a growing security apparatus that is designed to control, not protect.
6 Responses
to “Where’s my beer, Obama?”
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- Aug 3, 2009: Twitted by MinnesotaChris
well said!
indeed
I am surprised that you guys haven’t found any talk radio to listen to on the road.
All of these little gov’t made/sponsored spitting matches (raceism, left/right wing, drugs, terrorism) are all just to keep us distracted. For most people we have the attention span of a dog that just saw a cat (which is sad). It gets us gossiping, arguing, and debating less important issues, but it also fragments us. As long as the people are constantly fighting over fragmentary issues we will never band together to fight for the most important issue: our very freedom.
Were you charged because the beer had been purchased in another state? Was it because someone was under age? Is possession of beer illegal in Jones county, or in all of Mississippi? Did they claim you were bootleggers (illegally distributing the beer)? By the way, when is the trial? Maybe we can charter some buses and pack the court.