If I had been able to, if this blog were not still acting up, I’d've been on time posting this story, which caught like wildfire and spread across the web; I’d've posted it yesterday.
As it is, I’m tempted to raise it in the seminars that I’m attending as part of this faculty meeting at the Aspen Institute’s Wye Faculty Seminar. I’m not sure how it’ll slip in, though I am sure it’s relevant, as the subject is “Citizenship in the American and Global Polity”. But nevertheless. Here’s the story as it began:
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.
Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.
He was booked for disorderly conduct after “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior,” according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had “no idea who he was messing with,” the report said.
Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because “I’m a black man in America.”
Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.
And here it is as it ended, one day and a burning internet later:
(CNN) — A prosecutor is dropping a charge against prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the city’s police department recommended that the matter not be pursued.
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested last week on a charge of disorderly conduct.
In a joint statement, Cambridge and the police department said they made the recommendation to the Middlesex County district attorney and the district attorney’s office “has agreed to enter a nolle prosequi in this matter,” meaning that it will not be pursued.
Gates was arrested last week on a charge of disorderly conduct after a confrontation with an officer at his home, according to a Cambridge police report.
{ 10 comments }
Maybe we should just issue cops like Crowley white sheets and hoods and get it over with…
Sounds like the professor was exhibiting odd and innapropriate behavior that made him suspicious. Sounds like the police had every right to arrest him. The professor is a jerk and played the race card.
I can’t believe this…. Seriously? A man who just happens to be black is arrested for what appears to be him clearly not cooperating with police. Is this a color issue? No, I don’t think so.
It sure looks to me like the cops were trying to do their job and he had a chip on his shoulder about it.
Break it down… he probably lives in an upscale neighborhood and the cops were probably just making sure everything checked out. If the police had not responded or done their diligence on this, the same people would cry foul….that the police don’t care about a black man’s home or safety.
In reality…there is of course racism alive and well in this country. There are also people who don’t like those because of their religion, if they are overweight, poor, rich, etc. Find me one person out there who isn’t. The bottom line is you can’t write a bill in congress to stop it. What you can do is not make EVERY single incident that involves a black person and someone who isn’t into a RACE ISSUE. This just fuels the fire and for those who are racist…it just emphasizes what the believe in.
Mr. Obama, you are not president of the NAACP, you are president of the United States, a land once called the melting pot. So unless you are going to equal the playing field for everyone (get overweight people jobs as supermodels or poor people in the best country clubs or maybe get those of x religion to love those of y religion) then you are not going to rid society of looking at a person just by what is on the surface. You should just stick to the problems that you can “possibly” fix. As president, you have a job to do and your opinion on something that you have NO FIRSTHAND knowledge on was something you should have said “no comment”.
This problem is not something you can not will into happening. People have to fix this because THEY want to. Parents have to teach their children that everyone is the same even if they look different. Not just what color their skin is.
I am familiar with police protocol. You cannot be arrested for disorderly conduct in your own home or on your own porch by the only other person present who also happens to be a police officer and a witness. It’s like you disturbed his “peace”. It won’t fly in a court of law. What will fly is a civil rights lawsuit and/or a federal prosecution for “KIDNAPPING UNDER COLOR OF AUTHORITY”. This officer is unaware of the position he has put himself in.
The arresting officer failed to conduct himself properly as a true officer and a gentleman. Under normal circumstances, it is almost impossible to pacify your own victim. But it should not be used as an excuse to abuse one’s authority, especially by someone who has been trained to handle such tight situations.
In psychology it is said that, an abnormal behavior (the officer arresting Prof. Gates after he has shown his identification) under an abnormal situation (the officer confronting his own victim – he caused the professor to irritably be more upset because he ignores the latter’s request for his identification) could be deemed normal.
It would be redeeming for the arresting officer to publicly apologized to the professor to stop the media from further feasting on this issue. I hope that something good will come out from this incident.
Yes, these incidents do leave the blood boiling.
Mind you, form what I understand he was “breaking into his house” as he went out and forgot his keys and someone reported a “break-in” in the neighbourhood.
When I’m accused of not taking a persons cheque because they are black, or told that they would be treated differently if they were white etc, I understand the feeling of being judged by one’s colour.
It doesn’t make any of it right of course.
Wow, what a response. I’m not sure how to read this at all. I have no doubt that race played a part, just as I have no doubt that Prof. Gates’ anger at the policeman also played a part. The point about this issue is that it’s not clear cut. However, I doubt very seriously that it would have played out as it did in any way, shape or form, had Skip Gates been a white man — the neighbour might have not phoned the police in the first place, the policeman might have accepted Gates’ explanation and not followed him into his home, or later, when the IDs were produced, might not have arrested him (for whatever reason), and Gates might not have taken the request for identification personally or racially and responded as he did. The colour of Gates’ skin is not irrelevant. Nor is it necessarily the only issue. To try and simplify it is folly — the question of race in America (and, as Rick points out, in The Bahamas) is a complex issue and one that is very much alive. Trying to ignore it, or to seek it in everything, gets us nowhere very far.
I purposely posted these reports without comment to raise discussion. I was hoping the discussion might be a little more thoughtful, a little more contemplative of all the various fault lines and issues in what was ultimately an unfortunate issue that is in all likelihood going to harm the arresting officer more than Henry Louis Gates in the long run.
Maybe it was because a neighbor *really* did call the police out of concern. Maybe the learned professor had had a bit too much to drink and *really* was obnoxious to the officer. (Cops hate that.) Maybe it had nothing to do with race but instead with an inebriated & obnoxious professor who was rude to the very officer who was trying to keep peace in the neighborhood. That Gates would tell the officer he had “no idea who he was messing with,” is a big clue.
Frankie, Gates doesn’t deny that the neighbour was calling out of concern — in fact, he’s encouraged her to do it again. He’s angry at the cops.
Now as to the other bit, if you could show me evidence that Gates was intoxicated that would lend your comment some credibility…
This entire situation is very complicated – as you said Nicolette – and therefore, it can’t be put in simple terms. U.S. racial politics and the long history of serious injustice in “the law” and criminal system should be considered in this discussion. The law and police as institutions are mired in this sordid history. Racial profiling is an everyday experience for people of color. So it is a fallacy to say that Professor Gates “played the race card” – because race was/is already an issue within the daily social, political, and legal fabric. Black, Latino, and Native American men are incarcerated at higher levels than white men NOT because they commit more crimes, but rather because their bodies are criminalized and policed more than white bodies. NUMEROUS studies show that racial profiling, longer/harsher sentencing, unjust/racist laws, and the intense policing of poor communities is what in fact contributes to the high numbers of people of color being locked up in U.S. Jails and Prisons. (If you want proof, do a search – read the latest Pew Report on this subject AND/OR check out Law Professor Ian Haney Lopez’s book titled _White By Law_.) But we are suppose to believe in the law and the police without question…
Interestingly and ironically, Professor Gates has never really been one to talk about these difficult issues (in terms of the law, prison system, and injustice). And so now, here he is faced with the toughest of questions & challenges in an “America” that so wants to believe it is post-race and color blind.
Comments on this entry are closed.