It may well have been a “teachable moment,” but perhaps some folks learned the wrong things:
A Boston police officer has been suspended and could be fired for a mass e-mail in which he used a racial slur to describe black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Commissioner Edward Davis put 36-year-old Justin Barrett on administrative leave pending a termination hearing after learning of the slur.
A person with knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak publicly about the details told the Boston Herald that Barrett, a member of the National Guard, sent the e-mail to fellow Guardsmen and to The Boston Globe.
Barrett called Gates a “jungle monkey” in the e-mail, according to a copy posted online at MyFOXBoston.com. Officials told the Herald that Barrett admitted writing the e-mail.
Highly emotional controversies — particularly those involving allegations of bigotry coupled with counter allegations that the allegations are false, all fanned on by partisan and media interests — have a way of snowballing until they veer out of control. This email isn’t a positive sign. Changing hardened attitudes on a hot button issue will require more than lifting a few cold ones at the White House
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.