America will always have a problem with race, gender and sexual orientation issues. Strong words but I believe them to be true. Why? In my opinion, what we do as a society is tackle issues not as a way of understanding the other person point of view but proving our view is correct. We’re Americans and it isn’t American to back down from a fight or to admit we are wrong. We can be swayed by jingoistic rhetoric, religious wrappings and patriotic slogans. In many cases of discourse in this country, as I see it, we do two things simultaneously. We don’t look at situations from a broad, universal perspective. We need the familiar hook to get interested in. We need the formula that makes it easy to digest, which makes us jump to conclusions rather than taking on each incident as a different one. The other thing we do is try to use broad strokes to make the situation fit into another narrative that has nothing to do with the original one. That’s what makes us think that ‘they all do it’ and will dismiss differences in different scenarios because we are trying to discredit or support a larger point.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Taraji P. Henson claimed her son was racially profiled after he was pulled over in October. A few days ago, police released dash cam footage of the interaction. It showed the officer being polite and respectable to the young man, even after the young man admitted to having marijuana and Ritalin in the car. The officer let him off with a verbal warning. Once the video was released, Henson issued an apology. It was a short yet, in my opinion, humbling message saying she is human and made a mistake.

As a human being and not having skin in the game, I can guess what happened. Her son got lucky and didn’t go to jail but somehow she found out he got pulled over by the police. He lied about what happened and, being a mother and with all the incidents that have happened to black men in the past few months, she reacted like all mothers would.

I want to stop here for a moment because the part about how a mother reacts is very important. Any of you reading this know stories, either personally or from word of mouth, of parents defending their kids when they run afoul of the law. How many parents have we seen saying their kid is a good kind after getting convicted of a crime? Parents are going to be hard pressed to say their kid did something wrong.

So Henson gets mad at the police arresting her son, accusing them of racial profiling. Months later, a video is released showing the police did nothing wrong and she publicly apologizes to the police.

This is where the story gets interesting. Since we have a situation where racial profiling is called out, and you have a situation where there is evidence this wasn’t the case, an assortment of people have decided to weigh in on the issue. I have listed a few of the responses I saw on the story from the Fox News website.

david3755 just now
She is a class act for doing the responsible thing after making a mistake.  If all the black community did this our nation would be a better place.  I suspect her son will pay a dear price for his behavior from his mother. Her behavior is in line with the character she played on person of interest.  I wish they hadn't killer her off.

bogo_98 2 minutes ago
looks like mammy's little baby loves drugs more than shortening bread 

starr55 38 minutes ago
Obama also goes public with unverified truths, but he never apologizes when he's wrong - never.

PickingAUserNameIsHard 1 hour ago
Maybe she apologized but, this should have never been brought into the public which, is her own fault.  Racism is getting old.  The ones that keep it alive are blacks, and it needs to stop.

average_america 1 hour ago
well would she apologize if there was no VIDEO OF HER KID BREAKING THE LAW.
 doubt it
its blacks like this that keep racism alive in America not me and not the cop
SHE is the one

21drew 8 hours ago
I think Miss Taraji showed a lot of class to come out and did a mea culpa when accusing the police officer of profiling her son. As a parent I am going to believe my kid first until I am proven wrong, and that is what happened, she was proven wrong, and she apologized for being wrong. She did a whole lot better than the Al "Shady" Sharptons of the world or the "Fast" Jesse Jacksons of the world (pick your poison), who would cause unnecessary destruction and leave as if they didn't do anything wrong. Kudos to you Miss Taraji for the apology

useselfcontrol 9 hours ago
Pretty apparent here that Henson has her own racial profiling issues happening.

jamesgilhooly 10 hours ago
She had to because of the Video ...she thought they did not have....Race Bater she is....
speakeasy 11 hours ago
There is an old saying.....Crying Wolf.
Blacks have used it enough and are now unbelievable because of people like her.
stephensalerno 13 hours ago
Why did the cop let him go?  Can't bust a black kid without a riot.  Should have at ;east got a citation.  The cops seem to get it wrong every time.  Bet its easy to pass the police entrance test.

john_q_militia 14 hours ago
R O T F L M F A O !
NEWSFLASH:  since INSISTING on the use of body-cams on police officers the conviction rate for black thugs has gone up by 200 percent, and the number of lawsuits against law enforcement for brutality have dropped by 1,000 percent.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES!
R O T F L M F A O !
NOTE:  all facts stated above are just as real as the 'eyewitness' statements first given to law enforcement by the black residents of Ferguson, MO.

john_q_militia 14 hours ago
Another "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" LIE.  At least she saw the video and has admitted the truth.
Apparently her son has a penchant for LYING to her about why he keeps getting in trouble.

jpf 15 hours ago
Admitting when you are wrong. Lesson to you Obama.

NaterM 16 hours ago
i'm surprised the Obama, Holder, Sharpton hasn't already started riots. 

bil48 16 hours ago
Just another less than adequate mother defending her son the druggie.  He will be in prison  soon.

2ferruffing58 18 hours ago
Never heard of her.  The only reason she apologized was she was shown to be wrong.  Her son is a druggie, that is what I would worry about if I were her. 

2ferruffing58 18 hours ago
Never heard of her.  The only reason she apologized was she was shown to be wrong.  Her son is a druggie, that is what I would worry about if I were her. 

Duke802 18 hours ago
@2ferruffing58 just another RACE RAT

GUYM 17 hours ago
@2ferruffing58 
I never heard of her either...
Also, I agree 100% that she needs to worry about her druggie son...

I posted a lot of comments because I wanted to illustrate a couple of points. There’s a good number of people who like to attribute rash and hurtful comments to the immediacy of the Internet. You can hide behind a screen name, make a post very quickly and not suffer any consequences. The dilemma to me is like drinking. Does bad behavior when someone drinks shows the real person hidden inside, or does it alter the perception of good behavior? When the fraternity students were on the bus, chanting racial slurs, you want to honestly tell me the leader of the chant and the others that chanted with him didn’t know the history of the words they said?

Comment pages are dismissed as being extreme examples of public feelings, but when I went on the page in the morning where the article was written, I left out ten comments made. Only two of those comments left out were clearly positive. Take a good look at what people feel comfortable about writing. You have people who evoke Obama, Sharpton, Jackson and Holder. You have a person use the word race rat. You have people who have labeled Henson’s son a druggie, wondering why he wasn’t thrown in jail. Some wrote that the police officer didn’t arrest the young man because the police feared a race war.

The comments, in the numbers I have shown, are minor to the type of things posted every hour of everyday on websites and social media. At this point, if I were an objective and impartial person, I would point out that those on the left do the same things. I’m sorry but I can’t use the any crime is a crime tactic just to show I’m fair and balanced. I’m not fair and balanced because the response to this and other events isn’t balanced. Just in this one case, which by the way wasn’t a big national story, you had an actor that made a mistake on a call and apologized. That wasn’t recognized and celebrated by the comment pages. What we got were people who used the event to push their own racist agenda, and yes I called it racist. There have been plenty of other celebrities who have had children in trouble with the law. Hell, just take the lives of Lindsey Lohan, Justin Bieber and Conrad Hilton. He call what they do misbehaving, we call what they do youthful indiscretions, they have been arrested either numerous times or for significant incidents, yet for all the hatred that can be spewed about them we don’t say they get special treatment because there is fear of a race war. When video of the student chanting the racial slurs on the bus, guarantee no one in the press or social media through his actions were a prelude to a white racial war.

Just because I used the comment page from Fox News doesn’t mean I’m singling out the station. If you go to any broadcast website you will see the same type of comments placed on controversial and innocent articles. I’m sure many reading this have logged into their social media accounts and found postings from ‘friends’ that have seemed disturbing, spouting the newest government atrocity, cover up, scandal or conspiracy theory. If you bothered to click on the link you would find yourself on a page with people offering outlandish connections to events. Again, we like to dismiss these as isolated incidents but the sheer amount of commentaries out there that are willing to preach agenda rather than offer information and observation poisons the thought well.

As I said in the beginning, this incident is about race but you can apply sexual orientation and gender to the ongoing problem facing America. We don’t take the time to remove the incendiary from the conversation. We don’t face up to the fact we do inject our prejudice into the mix and, more importantly to me, we don’t take the time to fully put ourselves in the shoes of the other person and listen and feel the concerns the other person has. Hanson acted like a mother, believing what her son told her. When she found out the truth, she did what a lot of people wouldn’t have done and publically apologized. For that, a good number of people ignored the courage it took for her to acknowledge she was incorrect and instead decided to paint her as ‘another disgruntled Negro.’