The email itself, courtesy of Fox25 Boston:
What no one has reported (yet) is precisely what got Barrett so exercised. A small amount of digging reveals this column by the Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/the_gates_issue.html
And now the rest of Barrett’s email makes sense — and reveals a healthy dose of sexism and violence along with the racism. According to Barrett, Abraham is:
a hot little bird with minimal experiences in a harsh field. You are a fool. An infidel. You have no business writing for a US newspaper nevermind detailing and analyzing half truths. You should serve me coffee and donuts on Sunday morning. . . You need to serve a day with the infantry and get swarmed by black gnats while manning your sector. Or you just need to get slapped, look in the mirror and admit, “Wow, I am a failure. I am a follower. Who am I kidding?” Again, I like a warm cruller and a hot Panamanian, black. No sugar.
Fun times. Actually, this email is a perfect encapsulation of right-wing talk-radio groupthink in all its horrifying glory: a jambalaya of resentment, jingoism, anti-tax rhetoric, racism, sexism, and violence, especially against women and blacks, and especially when those women and blacks are, like Abraham and Gates, well educated, successful professionals. I can already hear the ringing defense of Officer Barrett from Howie Carr. He’ll undoubtedly decry the liberal media and the judgmental elitists who look down on guys like Barrett — even though Carr himself is a blue-blazered denizen of tony Wellesley, precisely the sort of limousine populist who tubthumps for the common man, votes to send guys like Officer Barrett to war, and then votes to cut veterans’ benefits when Barrett and his comrades return home.
The saddest part of this, though, is that the Boston Police Department and city government have done their darnedest to overcome Beantown’s ugly legacy of (and ongoing reputation for) racism. Unfortunately, firing Barrett won’t excise the stain this has caused to the city I’m still proud to call home.
My dad drinks black coffee with no sugar. Is he a racist?
I like my coffee black too. But I don’t write emails to female reporters saying I expect them to serve me.
I would think he would have the reporter getting him his coffee in the morning regardless of gender.
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p>A for the record, black coffee is nasty and you and my dad both need to get some creamer in your life. And not just because it makes the coffee white đŸ˜‰
Given the “hot little bird” comment as he begins the belittling, yes, I think the coffee-fetching had a pretty strong tinge of sexism. But anyhow.
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p>GOOD coffee can be had black, especially if one can sit and enjoy it. When I get Starbucks to go, though, I usually go with milk — both cause the coffee’s so-so and to cool it down so I can drink it faster. The real issue is the caffeine addiction. Trying to cut back, I really am…
it makes my stomach complain, and it ruins the flavor of good coffee. If you’re drinking that burnt Starbucks-type stuff, I can see how you’d need some adulterant, though.
You need to get out more.
Given Tristan also bolded “Or you just need to get slapped” it’s pretty clear the objection is to the the implication that the (black, female) reporter should be put in her place by being slapped and made to serve him breakfast.
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p>But then, I’m a big reading for context guy.
the same cannot be said about Officer Barrett. Gates’ response to Sgt. Crowley may have been a tad extreme but its genesis can be found his lifelong exposure to officers like Barrett.
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p>The mindset that drove Barrett to state that he would have used his city issued pepper spray on anyone who would refuse to bow to his authority is the thing that Gates was shouting about. His actions, like Sgt. Crowley’s, need to be viewed in the context of the lifelong experiences that brought them together on Gates’ porch.
But don’t forget, so should Sgt. Crowley’s actions be viewed in light of his experiences. We will never be sure whose actions that day sent this encounter spiraling into the national news, and just how each one of the participants might have missed opportunities to “pull it back”.
“We will never be sure “
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p>The actions and statements of both Crowley and Gates need to viewed within the context of their lives and experiences. The common response I hear from white friends is that racism is essentially a non issue. That position was eviscerated by Barrett’s email.
“racism is essentially a non-issue” then you have dumb white friends. If your white friends believe however, that Sgt. Crowley’s actions were not racially motivated, then I think I agree with them. Race is a huge issue, as evidenced by the interest in this “topic of the year”. Are there racist cops? Of course. Just like there are racist professors. Does Officer Barrett’s email implicate Crowley (or validate the venomous diatribes of the cop haters who condemned Crowley before they knew anything about him)? Nope.
because if you had been you would have heard caller after calling saying that racism is a dead issue and that anyone who raises the issue is a race baiting sob.
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p>Who said anything about Barrett’s email implicating Sgt. Crowley? I think you are too sensitive about this.
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p>As far as cop “haters” go lets just say that I am a little skeptical about what Sgt. Crowley wrote in his report. I don’t hate him I just think he should have acted differently. I am not looking for a fight but you seem to read a lot into what other people have written. I suggest a more literal intepretation.
Of course there are racists out there, lots of them made of of many colors including white and black. I have heard some interesting philosphies of how Asians view Americans and how Muslims view non-Muslims as well. I tried to discuss this “racism” the other day using a proposed “penalty” in the healthcare reform movement of penalizing obese people. My intent was not to talk about healthcare reform but to show how this movement could be thought of as “racism” because studies prove that blacks are more obese than whites in proportion to the population and would therefore be hit harder by the penalty. IMO this would be wrong to call something “racism” purely on a surface indication. Maybe racism has more to do with “intent” than it has to do with “impact”.
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p>A story in the Globe today mentioned some graffiti in a police station bathroom with the names Obama and Patrick beside the toilet flusher as more “racism” and I disagree. It could be racist or it could be someone (a conservative or a Republican) who dislikes both the President and the Governor. These are examples of how the observer transfers racism into something which may have no racial component. If a black police officer approached Prof Gates then I’m sure there would have been no racial complaint. If it was a few years ago and we saw the names Bush and Romney on the toilet wall of the bathroom we would assign no racial slant to the graffiti. If cops beat up a white guy after a long car chase then we never utter the word race but if he’s black then race is an immediate factor.
“Maybe racism has more to do with “intent” than it has to do with ‘impact’.”
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p>Racism has to do with both intent and impact. I’m not talking about personal prejudice, which is about individual attitudes. I’m talking about the structural, institutional impact of who holds power and influence, both in the past and in the present. To take one of your examples: the graffiti in the police station has a race as well as a political component simply because communities of color have not been represented in the governor’s office or the White House before now. We automatically associate Deval Patrick and Barack Obama with each other not just because they’re both Democrats, not just because they’re friends, but also because they’re the first blacks to hold the positions they hold and that has symbolic importance. So whatever the intent of the graffiti writer, it is an incident whose impact has a racial component.
about being “prejudiced against people who are stupid…”
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p>Where does this cop get off disliking people who are stupid. BMGers and State workers must be similarly offended. Isn’t there some Homeland Security rule which would allow us to waterboard Barrett for this? And the stupid people are too stupid to even notice this. FIRE HIM!! And please don’t tell Mumbles about this.
oh, wait a minute, ohhhhhhhhhhh!! I get it. Ha Ha.
This police officer is clearly stupid. I mean a Boston cop that taunts a newspaper columnist with phrases like “jungle money”, “ax” and advocates spraying mace at anyone who is disrespectful in the slightest way is clearly very stupid. The fact that you apparently can not see this obvious truth, certainly puts you in the same category.