What would a real racist be like?

You really just cannot make this stuff up, even remotely. First white cops arrest African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for breaking into his own house (OK, for getting annoyed when they accused him breaking into his own house). Then reporters ask Obama, who is trying to have a press conference about a little thing like health care at the time, what he thinks. Well, duh. What does any sane person think?



"Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that ... But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."

But you know how sensitive some cops are, and some white people who wish they were cops: Is this what it's like in America with a black president? You can't arrest black people anymore ... blah, blah, blah!

The president decides to be big about it, and a little wacky, and invites Gates and the hair-trigger cop, but not the 911 caller, to the White House for a brew. A little schmarmy, but ok.

Now another white Boston cop sends an email - not just to his cop buddies (who really should be insulted that he thinks they'd think it was cool) but also to the BOSTON GLOBE - calling Gates a "banana-eating jungle monkey" ... and he can't understand why everybody thinks he's a racist!

Now, I have to wonder, what would a real racist write? ... Don't answer that!
(Also says in answer to the question of why he chose those particular words if he isn't racist: "I have no idea." Clever.)