By now, most people have heard about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry “Skip” Louis Gates, Jr. by Cambridge Police. He broke into his house after coming back from a trip after being locked out and a neighbor called 911. Police responded and somehow ended up arresting him in his own home and charging him with disorderly conduct. The charges have been dropped but the controversy around the arrest lingers on. President Obama was asked a question about it during last night’s health care press conference. He responded by saying the Cambridge Police acted “stupidly”.
The officer in the middle of the controversy, Sgt. James Crowley, refuses to apologize to Gates for the events that led to the arrest. He told the Boston Herald that he bears no ill will towards the professor. However he insists that he isn’t a racist and didn’t do anything wrong. Here come the sports. Crowley performed mouth to mouth resusciatation on former Celtic Reggie Lewis 16 years ago after he collapsed from a heart attack which ended up killing him.
“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being.”
Lewis’ widow, Donna Lewis, admitted she was shocked when she heard that Crowley was involved in Skipgate.**
“That’s incredible,” Lewis, 44, exclaimed. “It’s an unfortunate situation. Hopefully, it can resolve itself. The most important thing is peace.”
It’s honorable that Crowley did what he could to save Lewis’ life. However his actions that day don’t absolve him from future actions that can be seen as racist. Arresting Gates after establishing his identity is pretty suspect at the least. Would the same thing have happened to Larry Summers? N … Oh good point, Howard Fineman.
The 11 year veteran says the events 16 years ago and the reaction to his involvement still haunt him to this day which is understandable. The loss of Reggie Lewis was a shock to family, friends and fans (including this one who grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood). I’ll have to ask The Matador what the odds would be on Crowley being involved in these two incidents. He’ll have an answer.
Sergeant Crowley probably took a page from Killing Them Softly.
Open and shut case, Crowley! Skip might want to check his pockets for crack residue before he gets picked up again.
**We’re going to push the name Skipgate until it takes.
The weight of my secret has been weighing me down for years. Today has been a release I haven’t known since … well there’s no need to get into my masturbatory habits while blogging in my parents’ basement. Not that I do that. I’m trying to avoid concentrated evil and blindness.
Last week was incredible for everyone especially people of the chocolate persuasion. You might have missed it if you weren’t paying attention. Shame on Barry Hussein for stealing the spotlight from two unsung heroes. Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James stood up and showed the world that it’s acceptable for black people to like Barry Manilow.
James said Jay-Z is almost always his choice before taking the floor, but he has diverse musical taste and enjoys R&B and alternative rock.
… James was then informed that Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, his longtime friend and U.S. Olympic teammate, admitted last year that he had Barry Manilow’s music on his iPod.
“I probably got a little of that,” James said. “I bet you I can find it on my iPod.”
Sure enough, Bron Bron found “Copacabana,” “Mandy” and “I Am Your Child”.
Feel free to proclaim your love of Air Supply, Neil Diamond and Christopher Cross, black people. I sold myself out with the England Dan and John Ford Coley reference in the last post. Yacht Rock is my jam. Yeah, that’s right. I have the Easy Rock 2-CD compilation and I rock that along with the Little Brother, H-Town and Cash Money. Conscious and positive is how I roll. Fat Luther is also special to me.
I remember the shame I felt when friends saw Air Supply on my iPod. I quickly went to some militant shit like Paris. No mas. I ain’t scared of you muthafuckas no more! I got Bron Bron and ‘Melo standing with me. Actually I take back everything. I would never listen to any of that “soft-ass shit” like the Rocket Man from The Rock. Please. Anyway, everyone knows there aren’t any black sports bloggers out there so this exercise is pointless. Please believe me! (Language NSFW)
Browns coach Romeo Crennel is in a state of panic. His team sucks again, Derek Anderson has lost it and Brady Quinn can’t seem to keep his mind on football between online dating and endorsing crazy old men for president. He had to draw the line somewhere and he decided on politics.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Crennel has asked players to keep politics out of the locker room in order to maintain team unity. After all, one can’t expect people to have differing political opinions and manage to maintain some sense of order and decorum.
“Politics are their politics as long as they don’t interfere with the team,” Crennel said Thursday. “That’s my main concern, that they don’t get on a soap box in the locker room and get it going back and forth about a particular candidate against another candidate. That’s why the ballot is a secret ballot when you go vote.”
Never mind that the Redskins seem to be able to handle political discussion in the locker room without WWIII breaking out. Crennel better be careful before people start calling him out for making Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X. According to Dave Chappelle, keeping your politics quiet is a white thing.
“White people do not like to talk about their policial affiliations. Its a secret. You ask a white guy who’s he votin for, like ‘Hey Bob, who you gonna vote for?’ ‘Dave! Dave, woah, woah woah. Take it easy. So I was fuckin my wife in her ass, right? And let me tell you, it was something else.’ ‘Yeah yeah, but who are you gonna vote for?’ ‘DAVE! Dave, come on with the voting! I’m trying to tell you about fucking my wife in the ass, and you’re asking me all these personal questions.’ “
Let’s not be too judgmental. Crennel is trying to avoid the potential meltdown which has been known to happen. We’ve see what happens when certain political issues such as the military come up in a locker room.
They serve with honor. It’s kill or be killed. It’s understandable why soldiers feel as strongly as they do about war. Express yourself, Kellen.
Chelsea never makes anything easy. How do you blow a Premiership team out by six goals then come back and almost lose to a lower division team? Why can’t they take my blood pressure under consideration? Me and my peoples already have enough going against us. Sickle cell, genetic predisposition to chicken, high blood pressure, crazy white boys, etc.
