Bite Your Tongue by Maureen Dowd
July 26, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist Bite Your Tongue By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Being obnoxious isn’t a crime.
As we reflect on the arc of civil rights dramas from Jim Crow to Jim Crowley, my friend John Timoney, the police chief of Miami, observes: “There’s a fine line between disorderly conduct and freedom of speech. It can get tough out there, but I tell my officers, ‘Don’t make matters worse by throwing handcuffs on someone. Bite your tongue and just leave.’ ”
As the daughter of a police detective, I always prefer to side with the police. But this time, I’m struggling.
No matter how odd or confrontational Henry Louis Gates Jr. was that afternoon, he should not have been arrested once Sergeant Crowley ascertained that the Harvard professor was in his own home.
President Obama was right the first time, that the encounter had a stupid ending, and the second time, that both Gates and Crowley overreacted. His soothing assessment that two good people got snared in a bad moment seems on target.
It escalated into a clash of egos — the hard-working white cop vs. the globe-trotting black scholar, the town vs. the gown, the Lowell Police Academy vs. the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Read the rest of her column here: Being obnoxious isn’t a crime
20090726 sdosm Bite Your Tongue by Maureen Dowd
July 26, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist Bite Your Tongue By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Being obnoxious isn’t a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26dowd.html?scp=2&sq=&st=nyt
July 26, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist Bite Your Tongue By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Being obnoxious isn’t a crime.
As we reflect on the arc of civil rights dramas from Jim Crow to Jim Crowley, my friend John Timoney, the police chief of Miami, observes: “There’s a fine line between disorderly conduct and freedom of speech. It can get tough out there, but I tell my officers, ‘Don’t make matters worse by throwing handcuffs on someone. Bite your tongue and just leave.’ ”
As the daughter of a police detective, I always prefer to side with the police. But this time, I’m struggling.
No matter how odd or confrontational Henry Louis Gates Jr. was that afternoon, he should not have been arrested once Sergeant Crowley ascertained that the Harvard professor was in his own home.
President Obama was right the first time, that the encounter had a stupid ending, and the second time, that both Gates and Crowley overreacted. His soothing assessment that two good people got snared in a bad moment seems on target.
It escalated into a clash of egos — the hard-working white cop vs. the globe-trotting black scholar, the town vs. the gown, the Lowell Police Academy vs. the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Read the rest of her column here: Being obnoxious isn’t a crime
20090726 sdosm Bite Your Tongue by Maureen Dowd
July 26, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist Bite Your Tongue By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON Being obnoxious isn’t a crime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26dowd.html?scp=2&sq=&st=nyt
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