Where is the racism?

Given the chance, Obama could be one of his multi-racial best friends.If you’ve been following the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. situation, you might be a little disappointed. Sgt. James Crowley turned out not to be as much of a cross-and/or-book-burning Cambridge gestapo than we hoped.

Worse yet, they’re settling this problem with a beer, so Gates might not be as much of a latte-sipping, vagina-painting snob than we thought.

Honestly, all we ask for–as a news-reading public–is a little over-the-top racism. Black-on-white, white-on-black … who cares? Didn’t you see the box office numbers for Gran Turino?

And that’s where Boston police officer Justin Barrett saves the day. Let’s go to the quote box:

“In Barrett’s e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station’s Web site, he declared that if he had ‘been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.’

“Barrett used the ‘jungle monkey’ phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to [Boston Globe columnist, Yvonne] Abraham’s writing as ‘jungle monkey gibberish.'”

Mm, delicious. But that’s not all! What did Barrett follow it up with after he got in trouble?

“‘I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist.'”

Gonna need a cigarette after that. Nothing beats old-timey “some of my best friends” crackery.

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