Jul 29, 2009 05:55 AM
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New York, 4:47 PM
Tue Feb 9
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Colin Powell was the guest on Larry King Live last night and the old lizard asked him about the Henry Louis Gates controversy, which provoked Powell to offer some interesting thoughts about the incident.
Speaking about Dr. Gates' behavior, Powell said the following:
I think Skip, perhaps in this instance, might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer and that might have been the end of it. I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal...There is no African-American in this county who has not been exposed to this kind of situation. Do you get angry? Yes. Do you manifest that anger? Do you protest? Do you try to get things fixed? But it's the better course of action to try and take it easy and don't let your anger make the current situation worse.
Powell also offered some criticism of the Cambridge Police Department's behavior:
I think in this case the situation was made much more difficult on the part of the Cambridge Police Department. Once they felt they had to bring Dr. Gates out of the house and to handcuff him, I would've thought at that point, some adult supervision would have stepped in and said 'ok look, it is his house. Let's not take this any further, take the handcuffs off, good night Dr. Gates.'
Powell then went on to tell King about his own personal history with racial profiling. All in all it was quite an interesting interview, as most interviews with Colin Powell tend to be these days.
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