Okay, this will be my last post on this particular circumstance I promise, but I can't let Justin Barret's comments go by without a comment. For those of you unaware, Barret is a Boston police officer who recently wrote an email that went out to his friends and also the Boston Globe referring to Gates several times as a "banana eating Jungle Monkey." He is now saying that he made a mistake, he is not a racist and it didn't come out right.
However, calling a person of color a "banana eating jungle monkey" regardless of what you intended is racist. There is no other way to look at it. None. And to think that he sent this out not only to his friends but also the Boston Globe just boggles the mind. Barret can claim he didn't mean it the way it sounded, but this was clearly not taken out of context and there is no other way to hear it then as it sounds. Barret's comments serve to illustrate what the black community has been talking about all along.
On the positive I am very glad the Boston PD, and the national guard, have dealt with this issue the way they have. It does show how far we've come.
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