CNN: "Acted Stupidly"

There's this news story by CNN about this officer who is taking heat for allegedly arresting a Harvard University professor for disorderly conduct.

As a teacher, I can understand the officer's position here. If I had a quarter for every time a student accosted me with the "It's cuz I'm BLACK!" remark about their academic inadequacies I'd have $5 and then some.

I don't take them to heart and I don't blow them out of proportion. To me this whole thing is really childish and to place it on the national stage for scrutiny by people like Roland Martin who spins his emotional evidence as rational is really stupid.

If the goal of Roland Martin is to create this unsatisfiable racial discrepancy or to go on the racism witch-hunt after superficial scrutiny of public servants, then he's succeeded. He has no argument, and it's a shame that this sort of "analysis" ends up on national television.

To be honest, Roland picked the wrong battle here to take a stand on racial inequality. If you want to find a really valid argument, he should look at public schools!

People should learn to wait to make such a damning accusation even if they do pan out in the long run.

But in spite of this, it's interesting to watch the two involved parties rather than their analysts:

The Harvard Professor:



The "Racist" Police Officer:


Figure out for yourselves who you believe. To jump to the conclusion that racism is the primary and root cause of ALL of this is a pretty obnoxious accusation.

Addressing this as a "teachable moment:"

1. You've essentially validated to students that they are in the right to object to authority for any suspected racial discrimination - WHICH IS EXTRAORDINARILY SUBJECTIVE AND SUBJECT TO ABUSE. I'd have no problem with investigating cases if there were consequences for accusations that are fallacious or retaliatory. Let's not turn an accusation of racism into an accusation of rape (careers should not be ruined by false accusations).
   
2. If you notice something, neither side has consolidated their stories to correspond to each other so someone is LYING or OMITTING THE TRUTH (what can we teach our children from this? Bend the truth to your advantage?).
3. You can't teach much about this in terms of RACISM. You can talk about how to jump to racism as a defense mechanism can be equally as detrimental as being a racist. Otherwise, to use this instance to conjecture either side as racially prejudiced is groundless.
   
4. Obama should stick to health care...