1. Racial profiling. Oh, yes. Very real. Still, obviously with us. It was in Malcom X's autobiography that the story gets told about Malcom getting into a dispute with some black Ph.D., and asking him what the white man calls the black man with a Ph.D. The answer is the "n" word.
I saw a lot of comments in the media, from the black professional elite, about how "geeez, we went and did all the right things, and they're still picking on us" and I thought about Malcom, smiling in his grave. Because the point is we are no better than the least of us. If you are willing to collaborate with a racist culture, it should not surprise you that the greatest will be treated as the least, and that your collaboration will not make a diff.
2. The police are excusing the arrest on the basis that the guy shouted at the police officer. That one really made me laugh. My (white) ex-husband had a visceral hatred of the police. On the few occasions that he got pulled over, he would get out of the car and start shouting hysterically at the cops about how they should get another job, how fucked up they were, how they were pieces of shit, etc. Thnk he ever got arrested? Oh, no. Not even close. I would cower in the front seat thinking that surely they would beat the crap out of him. But no. They would check his driver's license and then drive away. I also remember that when I was in cop shop (state park ranger school), the cops (who were our teachers) warned us about people having irrational reactions and that we should be very cool about this.
3. At last, this shows that Obama still has some buttons that can be pushed. He's not a total droid. He's much too careful a speaker to come out and explicitly call the cops stupid unless a very raw nerve was struck. Interesting,
Joanna