WASHINGTON — NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly will reportedly meet with President Obama next week to discuss Kelly’s possible nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security. According to White House staffers, Kelly was cleared for the visit after passing standard background checks and promising not to “stop-and-frisk” any member of the Obama family during his time on the premises.
“President Obama is very excited to meet with Commissioner Kelly and discuss the future of [the Department of] Homeland Security,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. “But we needed some assurances before letting him in the building: Namely, that Kelly wouldn’t instinctively stop and search the Obamas upon seeing that they’re black.”
Commissioner Kelly—who has overseen the implementation of the NYPD’s controversial “Stop-and-Frisk” policy, which data show is used almost exclusively on African-American and Latino citizens—reportedly assured the president that he would restrain himself out of respect for the nation’s highest office, but that he would “love to bring ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ to the national level.”
According to a White House source, President Obama told Kelly that, although he spent much of his early political career fighting against racial profiling, he has “kind of lost interest in the issue.” Indeed, as recently as 2006, Obama was still discussing the problem and describing his own experiences being profiled, as he did in his book The Audacity of Hope. But since then, the president has been mostly silent on the subject, signaling to some that he’s no longer committed to ending the practice of police profiling.
“Nonetheless,” Obama reportedly told Kelly, “it would be kind of embarrassing if you searched my pockets in the Oval Office.”
“I, personally, wouldn’t even mind it that much,” the President of the United States continued. “But please God, do not stop-and-frisk Michelle. She still talks about racial problems, and that woman can be terrifying when she’s mad.”
