Dr. Henry Louis Gates Arrested

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by deepimpact2

Why am i not surprised that you would say something like this?

You are setting the tone for this discussion right now. Don't let this discussion go down the drain like every other discussion you participate in.

Originally Posted by deepimpact2

Although it hasn't happened with a home, I had an incident happen to me that had similar racist overtones. I had used valet parking at a hotel. When I came down to retrieve my car, I showed the attendant my valet tag and he gave me the keys. As I was walking towards my car, ANOTHER attendant suddenly dashed over to me and angrily demanded that I show him my valet tag. I showed it to him. He then demanded to see my driver's license AND my registration. At this point I was pissed. I complied, but I let him know that I didn't appreciate his behavior. He had no reason to go to those lengths. Then as I was getting in he said, "well ma'am, I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to drive off in someone's fancy BMW." Sickening, but it is a part of what many blacks go through in this country...even in 2009.

So many questions:
Could this have been about your age? Did you LOOK (beyond race) that you would have a BMW? Could this have been about the valet wanting to do some quality assurance? Had there been some prior incidents? Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed racist if the other attendant was very polite and said "ma'am, it is standard practice to check IDs and registration for cars with a certain Kelly Blue Book value."

To put it in perspective:
I had someone question my presence in my family's neighborhood that we have lived in for almost 40 years. The particular white person who questioned my presence in the neighborhood was staying with her mother and she was known around the neighborhood to have some issues---so I was particularly annoyed that SHE was trying to be the gate keeper.

At the end of the day, it could've been because I'm Black and it may have been because she is an outsider with her head up her ass. I didn't take it to heart because the OTHER white neighbors who aren't visitors know who I am, who my family is, and wouldn't have asked me who I'm there to see. Plus, neighborhood watch efforts always have some "nosey neighbor" casualties.

[deepimpact2]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

So many questions:
Could this have been about your age? Did you LOOK (beyond race) that you would have a BMW? Could this have been about the valet wanting to do some quality assurance? Had there been some prior incidents? Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed racist if the other attendant was very polite and said "ma'am, it is standard practice to check IDs and registration for cars with a certain Kelly Blue Book value."

I will say that I DO look young. As for doing quality assurance, on other occasions after that when I was waiting for my car to be retrieved, I did not notice the valet attendants requiring anyone else to show registration and some of the cars were "luxury cars." Their written policy stated that the only time they would ask for the customer to produce vehicle registration was when the customer could not produce a ticket that matched the valet stub placed in the car. Since I had my ticket, and I showed it to an attendant, I didn't see any need for them to ask for my registration.