Obama’s had his own scrapes with Cambridge police (and statistics)

President Obama had his own scrapes with Cambridge police when he was a Harvard law student between 1988 and 1991.

According to The Somerville News, Obama had 17 outstanding traffic violations which went unpaid for nearly two decades. The citations  included failure to pay the meter, parking in a bus stop and parking in a resident permit area.

The seventeen tickets and late fees associated with them — dated from 1988 to 1990 — were paid in full on January 26, 2007.

Barack Obama announced his run for presidency on February 10, 2007.

It’s apparent that President Obama holds the nation to a higher standard of social responsibility and character then he himself holds.

President Obama was asked to comment on the July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., who, since 1991 has been employed by Harvard and currently teaches two courses on African and African-American Studies. [see police report]

The statement President Obama made regarding the Cambridge police acting stupidly offended many people. He went on to say “What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped . . . disproportionately,” Obama said. “That’s just a fact.”

Here are some more disproportionate facts:

According to the Census Bureau whites comprise 75.1% of the nations population while blacks comprise 12.3% (which means whites outnumber blacks six times over)

Black on white homicides far outweigh white on black homicides according to the most recent FBI reports:

Year               Black on white               White on black
2000               834                                302
2001               854                                286
2002               847                                337
2003               896                                360
2004               880                                358
2005               934                                337

Whites constitute a 6:1 ratio to blacks yet blacks commit almost three times the homicides against whites.

You’re right Mr. President, we have a disproportionate issue at hand.

‘There is nothing more painful to me than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.’ – Jesse Jackson