Henry Louis Gates, one of the most distinguised academicians in the United States, Full Professor at Harvard University, was arrested on Thursday. His crime?
Atttempting to enter his own home.
According to :The Guardian:
Henry Louis Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behaviour". He was later released.
The head of Harvard's WEB DuBois Institute for African and American Studies, shouted to a police officer "this is what happens to a black men in America" according to a police report.
The incident happen last Thursday after a call to police that "two black males" were breaking into Gates's home near the university campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Later Gates refused to discuss the incident. But his lawyer said he was arrested after he forced his way through his front door because it was jammed. The professor's colleagues blamed the arrest on racial profiling.
The New York Times says that Gates relates the incident in the following way:
Professor Gates, who has taught at Harvard for nearly two decades, arrived home on Thursday from a trip to China to find his front door jammed, said Charles J. Ogletree, a law professor at Harvard who is representing him.
He forced the door open with the help of his cab driver, Professor Ogletree said, and had been inside for a few minutes when Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department appeared at his door and asked him to step outside.
Professor Gates, 58, refused to do so, Professor Ogletree said. From that point, the account of the professor and the police began to differ.
According to his lawyer, Professor Gates told the sergeant that he lived there and showed his Massachusetts driver’s license and his Harvard identification card, but Sergeant Crowley still did not seem to believe that Professor Gates lived in the home, a few blocks from Harvard Square. At that point, his lawyer said, Professor Gates grew frustrated and asked for the officer’s name and badge number.The officer who confronted Gates at his own front door has expressed surprise that Gates so quickly became angry, as the police officer was responding to a call about two suspicious black men.
Let me see if I can explain Dr. Gates' anger to the police officer.
You are one of the most recognizable African-American academics in the world.
You live in a community close to Harvard.
You show your identification to the officer to prove to him that you are who you say you are, and you are still treated as if you are breaking in.
At this point, I would have lost my temper.
Many of us have heard about "driving while black," that odd phenomenon of simply being pulled over in your car because you're African-American.
But this is the second case I've heard of being harrassed for entering while black. A friend of mine, a grad student at Yale, was out smoking on the stoop of his apartment building--a building where he had lived for years. One of his neighbors called the police to report that a strange black man was hanging out on the porch. Before my friend knew it, he had lights shining in his face, and was being forced to go inside, retrieve his identification, and prove that he was who he said he was.
I am scouring my memory for a similar incident that has ever happened to a white friend of mine. And you know what? I got nothing.
Shall we add this to the list of white privilege? The ability to enter your own house, or drive your own car, without being stopped by the police and being forced to prove to say that you are who you are?
And to Professor Henry Louis Gates. May I offer a humble apology on the part of this culture that still doesn't understand that a black man can be entering a rich man's house without thinking of stealing anything.
A P.S. on this story. Last night, I sat up until 2 a.m. writing John Edgar Wideman, my reaction to Wideman's incredible essay in this month's Harper's. In a way, I consider these two blog posts to be bookends, and, if it's not too much trouble, I would ask you to take the time to read the other post, too.
Thank you.
And thank you for giving a damn.
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Comments
On a trajectorial note (yeah, I made that word up there), I also don't like the way some policemen take advantage of their position by bullying, in general. I had an officer stop me for speeding (I wasn't but I had that tempting out of state tag on my car) and when I protested that I was not speeding he threatened me with a higher ticket, basically for telling the truth. My relatives told me I should "play the game." I find that sickening, that I'm expected to cede my rights as a person in this country so that someone can inaccurately measure his or her dick size and throw his or her authority around like a anvil.
Dr. Gates most assuredly did not play the game and good for him. But it's scary how much those officers overreached their authority, most likely because Dr. Gates was black and for no other reason. He might have been hurt.
Professor Gates, 58, refused to do so, Professor Ogletree said. From that point, the account of the professor and the police began to differ.
*********************************************************
The professor's first mistake was not stepping outside as requested. Instead he refused and the problem escalated from there.
I'm not sure this was racial but I will never understand why people( no matter the race ) want to be contrary when a police officer makes a simple request.
I tend to differ. Gates may not have been polite, but he was in his own damn house. There was no reason for him to have to step outside. While I understand that the woman thought she was doing the right thing because she saw two men she didn't recognize entering a house (does she know every single one of her neighbors?), I don't understand how once it was established that Professor Gates was in his own residence, he was now requested to come outside. A simple address check would have sufficed. Instead, by the time it was over, Gates was led away from the house in handcuffs and taken to the police station.
FLW... outstanding job here.
The other day, at Rutgers ,we were locked out of the building where our classroom was located.
When the Rutgers Police finally dispatched an officer to unlock the building he pulled up very slowly and in a suspicious manner. He walked up and asked who was in charge. The professor is a Black Female Ph.D candidate at Rutgers and he gave her a look of disbelief when she said she was.
He went on to ask for her permit to teach. She responded, "What permit?" He responded, " Your permit to teach summer school." Her response, "I have been teaching summer school for 5 years and it has never called for a permit."
He then insisted on locking the building behind us. We are uncertain if his distrust was because we were Rutgers students or such a motley crowd of individuals.
Our class is Black Political Thought and we immediately discussed the incident.
Heck, I'm reminded of during the election season when some idiot suggested to me that Barack Obama wasn't really black. I turned and posed a simple question to them, "If Barack Obama is pulled over by a police officer what is he?"
*Sigh* The outrage continues.
This would absolutely blow my mind, except that that a few months ago, we saw video footage of a white Plano police officer who stopped NFL player Ryan Moats and his wife outside of a hospital. They were racing to see Tamishia Moats' mother, who was dying. The officer pulled them over speeding and running a red light, then refused to believe their story, even as hospital personnel came out to vouch for them. The officer pulled out his gun, but says he didn't point it. Memorable quote: "Shut your mouth. You can either settle down and cooperate or I can just take you to jail for running a red light."
Tamishia eventually got to go into the hospital. But her mother while the officer detained Ryan Moats in the parking lot.
Rated Lorraine. Keep blogging on your passion. Your voice is both needed and respected.
The bottom line is that unless there is some true cause or a warrant, you don't have to step outside your own house just because Johnny Law asks you to.
FLW, it is sickening what the cops will get away with when they are profiling. Between Skip Gates here (I remember him from my time at Yale) and the Philly pool incident (that I don't remember being discussed on OS), people are learning that we are so NOT post-racial, despite having a black president...something that I said all along.
Now you see why I write about topics like photography? Too much head exploding.
I hear you. I think it's interesting that I posted the article by John Edgar Wideman shortly before this incident with Gates. Wideman is not arguing that racism is over; he says race will stop mattering when white people get over their need to be #1. When white people can cede their power based on skin color, then race will stop mattering. Until then, race is what we're stuck with. And then, to prove that race still trumps class, and education, sex, and money, we get Henry Louis Gates being escorted out of his own home in handcuffs for refusing to acknowledge a police officer's insistence that Gates step outside.
It's a fucked up world.
Seeing that she was getting nowhere, she tried a joke.
"Hey, R--, what do you call an African-American man who fly a plane?"
"I don't know," he said, preparing to chuckle.
"A PILOT you racist son-of-a-bitch, now get out of my bar."
Sometimes, you just don't know what to say anymore to people who refuse to see the evidence before them that being white has its privileges.
This is utterly shameful.
Maybe Gates was arrogant (and God knows, nothing worse than an uppity black man), but as far as I can tell, yelling at a cop does not get you handcuffed and thrown in a police car, and then taken down to central booking, does it? Even after it's been established that YES, this is his house, YES, he had the right to be there, and NO, the police should have not have been called in the first place? Can you imagine what would have happened to a wealthy white homeowner in a similar situation?
In the report, Crowley said a white female caller had notified the police around 12:45 p.m. of seeing two black men on the porch of the home, at 17 Ware St. The caller was suspicious after seeing one of the men "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry," according to the report.
A spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department did not return a call seeking comment. But in the report, Crowley said that as he told Gates he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates exclaimed, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" and accused the sergeant of racism.
"While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence," Crowley wrote in the report, "I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me."
Gates ultimately followed him outside, the report said, and kept yelling at him despite the sergeant's warning "that he was becoming disorderly." Crowley then arrested and handcuffed him.
IDK...sounds like Gates was being unreasonable to me.
Possibly it never will be totally excluded from our society, mainly because it is bred within one’s upbringing. Unlike common sense, this temperament is learned at an early age. Don’t get me wrong, some are able to grow beyond it, but the portion that do not – well - free, law abiding American citizens like Dr. Gates face the ugliness of it first hand.
- rated for keeping us aware of this despicable practice of injustice
Once called to a scene such as this, and when presented with identification that proves home ownership, what do they normally do with the "suspicious" person or persons?
Is this typical police procedure, is it racial profiling, or is it a couple of cops who love bullying others?
This is so disturbing.
And now I heard Al Sharpton is getting involved. Great. Way to turn a serious situation into what will now be ridiculed by most of the people in this country.
You make a great point, and one I was trying to make earlier in my post. Dr. Gates is one of THE most recognizable academics in America. Some of Harvard's profs are like rock stars, and he's one of them. His neighbors had to know who he was. Or are they that unwilling to fraternize with the African-American neighbor. That's the thing that keeps coming back to me. I can imagine his frustration because he's in his own goddamned house, in his neighborhood where he's lived for years, and he's trying to prove to some cop that he says who he says he is. Add to the fact that he's probably jet-lagged from getting back from a trip from China, and it's not hard to see how a situation that could have been handled with tact by both sides just escalates out of control. But the fact remains. Dr. Gates WAS IN HIS OWN HOME and was essentially arrested for breaking into his own house. If he had been a Harvard trustee, do we really think this would have happened?
After reading everything I could, including this account and these interesting comments, I've come to a couple of conclusions:
1. Undoubtedly Gates is arrogant and has a chip on his shoulder,
2. He may well have been provocative as well as pissed off,
2. Sharpton should stay home. He's too many places too much of the time and his grandstanding isn't needed at this time. It only causes us to lose tight of the main point, which is:
Gates WAS treated differently.
Come on, the female caller didn't ring because of a break-in but because the person breaking in was black. Doesn't she know, however, that her neighbor is black? Couldn't she have maybe looked a little more carefully? Was she THAT fearful for her well-being?
Gates is 58 and had apparently been using a cane. The easiest research in the world would let the officers know, via their computers in their squad cars, that it was his house and that was him inside answering the door. Once they came to the house, they could have bent protocol a little, not asked him to step outside, said "sorry to bother you, Professor [or] Doctor Gates." They didn't need to call the Harvard Police (not necessary), they might have allowed him to rant and rave and maintained both their composure and the illusion of respect (is it really so hard to do?) and then have taken off. What happened instead was they - the police - got pissed and did what I've seen them do before, with black AND white people: throw 'em up against the car, handcuff 'em charge 'em with disorderly conduct, and take them away. The police feel "humiliated" and so want to humiliate the other. Well guess what? Taking it, taking a little verbal abuse and a little embarrassment, especially in a situation where their lives are NOT threatened, is THEIR job.
I get that police officers are human and that they make mistakes but I'd really hope they'd have some sort of training that teaches they diffuse a situation by being the ones to back off, particularly when they're not really threatened and no purpose is served by escalating the drama except to make them feel better.
Nations have karma, too. Think we have good karma? Think we deserve to emerge from the current Depression quickly and be stronger than ever? Let's see.......several hundred years of slavery, genocide of countless Native-American tribes, their culture, religion, clothing, languages gone forever, rule by the rich, for the rich, and of the rich, a CIA that has tortured and murdered across the planet for the benefit of corporations, racism, sexism (in 2009, even professional women in the great USA still make considerably less than their male counterparts)...on and on and on....Americans became complacent and stopped paying attention to what their government was really doing, especially the likes of Reagan and other Republicans who have ruled for 28 out of the last 40 years.....
As I told my college students many times, "Americans aren't paying attention. They're too busy being consumers, drinking their brains out, and waving the flag to actually think about and question what's really going on...and such stupidity inevitably means we will get what we deserve!" And we are!
"The ability to enter your own house" On the case of white privilege: Also, not necessarily in equity with what is clear evidence of racial profiling, but I know plenty of cases of Caucasians on the end of police abuse. Two white friends of mine were beaten about the legs outside a bar in a section of Philadelphia. I was once hand cuffed outside my car. The car had been stolen previously but I got it back. Apparently it came up as stolen, and even though I had paperwork, and ID is was detained and cuffed for up t0 40 mins.
Two other notables pn Philly as of late:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB_Hl4bcQNc
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20090720_Store_video_catches_cop_bullying_woman.html?viewAll=y
One time a friend of mine who happened to be black was pulled over driving my car. He had no license or ID and was visibly intoxicated. The police showed up at my house and took me to the car to park it, and let us both go.
No one ought deny racial profiling; too much evidence is compiled. It is impossible, but also police enforcement is variable and based on the exchange as provided may not be the case that race was the specific issue here.
But who doesn't know what their neighbors look like? Especially a world-famous academic.
fingerlakeswanderer"
EXACTLY. The man showed the police TWO freak’in sources of identification (yeah, I know all black people look alike… :eyerolls: ). The police should have thanked him and left JUST LIKE THEY WOULD HAVE FOR A WHITE PERSON.
Gee, must have been a slow night with no queers to roust or beat on… (this did happen in Cambridge, Texas, didn’t it?)
On a side note, some people think that having some authority means unlimited authority, but it does not. Police have some authority, but they must enact that authority under the law.
I wouldn't have stepped outside either. Instead I would have said, "You may not enter my home without a warrant. I will not step outside. Now, excuse me while I call my attorney."
But of course, I'm not black. I doubt anyone would question me after I showed my ID. ::roll of eyes:: Seriously, I know not all police are like this, but if they are, laying down on the ground and rolling over for them like they are your 'daddy'--weak and lame on your part ... and not knowing the law there ... that's bad.
Another of my fun anecdotes: a hostage situation was reported at my address. Or, to be more exact, my address on the other directional flag. My address is SOUTH XX X st whereas the crime was reported at NORTH XXX st. They did show up. I was never asked to step outside however. Again, it is hard to make conclusions based on this.
One has to wonder: if Gates had given him the ID from the start would any of this happened. Police show up all over the place. This happens ALL THE TIME that police to to houses to check on a report.
He might have been happy to know that people were watching his house. What will happen the next time someone calls the cops to help him out?
umm, Ed, B... “assumption”, much?
I can only imagine that he probably doesn't consider this being helped out, ya know?
The man is justifiably angry. He should be justifiably angry. If all he demands is that there be "sensitivity training" and a public apology they should count themselves lucky.
I am glad that he is pushing this issue. Yes, he IS famous and respected. That means he can successfully push harder that the rest of us poor smucks who would just get told to go home and shut up.
I’m not black, but I’m a queer woman so I “get” his anger. What I don’t get is the “let it be” attitude, which is so much like what many of the “elders” in the LGBT community have… (don’t make waves; be nice; don’t yell or cause a scene when you’re treated wrongly). I “get” why he would be angry about being screwed with because he’s “different”.
I wonder why you don’t feel the same?
P.S. I'm not slamming on you. I'd just really like to know.
Taking the this case out of greater racial context and the subsequent arrestation, there is nothing awry in the storyline up to a point. I think, looking at both versions of the story, that asking gates to step outside BEFORE asking for his ID is suspect (but only a little). As an approach it seems to imply guilt and potential cuffing before any reasonable verification of status. But we are not certain of the order of events. Certainly I would not expect things to go well if I started insulting an officer, so by that point things were already out of control.
But I would say that an officer responding to a call and demanding ID from a car or house occupant happens ALL THE TIME. Perhaps it is the company I keep, but I would say most of my (at least male) friends have had this happen
The interesting thing to me is that EVERY officer who has ever accosted me has been black...
What bothers me is that the whole episode is going to be treated as A Big Racial Incident. Yeah, he was treated differently because he's black, and that is A Big Racial Incident. He was also treated differently because he yelled at the cops (accusing them of racism). There's a bit of disingenousness going on here.
This does NOT mean that I condone or rationalize the incident.
Both Mr. Gates and the police could have done a better job handling this situation. Bill Pug & 1Woman’s Vu (both on FLW’s blog) said as much in their comments.
Police officers have a lot of latitude in dealing with individuals who are anything less than 100% cooperative. Failing to follow a command or being disrespectful in any manner is typically enough probable cause for an officer to issue a citation. They can also choose to cuff and arrest you as part of the process. Whether they do so or not depends on several factors.
Mr. Gates had every reason to be irritated. He had just returned from a long trip, was having trouble with his front door and was confronted by police officers in his own residence, asking him to establish his identity. He was less than cooperative, refusing to show his license, yelling at the officers, accusing them of being racist and making an ill fated “Yo’ mama” comment within earshot of at least one the officers.
Initially, the officers allowed for Mr. Gates’ behavior. However, they reached a point where they decided to take the control of the situation and press their authority by cuffing and arresting him.
As a Black man who has been stopped on numerous occasions and asked to either prove my identity or justify my whereabouts, I totally understand why Mr. Gates was pissed. Having this type of scrutiny occur in your home is doubly humiliating (I have personally experienced this on more than one occasion). Mr. Gates’ previous life experiences most likely contributed to how he reacted, over and above his already being tired and grumpy from the long trip and the broken door.
A well trained police officer may have been able to recognize the sensitivity of the situation and act accordingly, within reason. In this case, they did not. Both parties overreacted.
My personal experience (getting cuffed and dragged off to the jailhouse) taught me an important lesson, which I’ve passed along to my son. There are only two things to say to a police officer: 1) Yes Officer 2) No Officer. Anything more is just asking for trouble, because you have no idea of how well the officer has been trained, their tolerance for non-compliance or their personal prejudices. Had Mr. Gates not been a prominent Harvard professor, he would still be looking at a court date and a disorderly conduct charge. Status does have its privileges.
You're kidding, right? Boston has a justly-earned rep. for being one racist city (look up the Boston busing/school desegregation events of the '70s for one of the reasons why) My younger brothers went to college up there, and they (and other black students) learned to 1) be extremely careful walking to their dorms/library late at night 2) try to look as "non-threatening" as possible while doing so because campus security would pull them aside for any trifling reason imaginable. Of all the places this could have happened, it being Boston is no surprise whatsoever.
I lived in Lubbock Tx for a couple of years. Windy place. Had cable tv which was wired to the house via cables off telephone poles in the alley. About once a month I had to call the cable company because the winds would loosen the connections at the house.
One time they sent a black repairman. He drove a white pickup truck that said "Cox Cable". He was in a white uniform that said "Cox Cable." He put a ladder up to the pole from the back of his truck and worked on the cable connections there.
Now, my neighbors and I never spoke in the 2 years we were there. You see, I was a "yankee" which made me as welcome as a hemerroid, and I did not let neighbors take my young children to their "wonderful churches where they have so many wonderful programs for the little ones" or something like that.
But one day my cable needed to be fixed.
The next thing this young man did was get down off his ladder, carry it into my backyard from the alley where the pole was, climb it again and work on the connection at my house. So what did my loving neighbors do? Why, they called the police because "there was a suspicious black man in the neighborhood." The police watched him work for a while then, despite what he was doing and despite the way he was dressed and what he was driving, they needed to know he was who he said he was.
Yes, I know this was Lubbock. But no, I actually believe these things happen even at the navel of enlightenment and education, Cambridge MA. Just ask anyone who isn't of northern European stock.
"Anyone who believes that we live in a post racial society because of the election of Barck Obama to the Presidency should read this article from the front page of the Boston Globe.
Henry "Skip" Gates is a personal friend of mine. We met when I held the rank of Assistant Dean in my position as Director of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University and he was worknig on his doctoral dissertation. Later, we had the opportunity to work together on a kind of an update of the 1968 black history documentary for TV that featured Bill Cosby: "Black History: Lost, Stolen, Strayed".
I am infuriated that he was subjected to this kind of treatment IN HIS OWN HOME.
Those of you who ignored /overlooked our series on Race in America should read this piece as a post script to what we were trying to do and why we were trying to do it........ "
I'm glad someone got OS Editorial notice for writing about this....I guess they decided it was impossible to ignore this story because it has gotten NATIONAL coverage.....Anyone here who belives that an EP doesn't make a difference regarding readership....Please visit my post on exactly the same topic posted at nearly the same time...
1st) Skip Gates is not the kind of individual given to emotional outbursts or fits of temper....If you are naive enough to accept the police report on it's face you must still believe in Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and The Tooth Fairy.....
2nd) He was ABSOLUTELY correct in refusing to step outside of his home merely upon the request of the officer...Whether you are aware of it or not when in your HOME your rights are superior to those of the government or any representative thereof unless there is a warrant or probable cause......
3rd) Once he was able to more than adequately identify himself the officer had an obligation to explain his/her reason for being there....Then apologize for the intrusion and inconvenience caused by the false alarm and LEAVE without further comment. Why was it necessary to call the Harvard police?.....This,in my view, was a clear attempt to embarrass my normally level headed friend...and, in typical white racist fashion, an attempt jeopardize or taint his status...Remeber, Gates had shown the officer BOTH his Harvard ID AND his driver's license.....any normal citizen would have become provoked and agitated when being made aware that the police were contacting representatives of his/her EMPLOYER for virtually no reason what so ever other than to demean and belittle.....
4th) I've visited and spent time in both Cambridge (Boston), Mass. and various locations around Georgia....Not a dime's worth of difference in the racial attitudes of law enforcement officials in what are perceived to be disparate geographical locations....I've lived and worked in and around New Haven , CT nearly all of my professional life...The New Haven/Yale police treat the Yale campus as thought it were some kind of exclusive gated enclave..Black professionals and students are routinely stopped and asked for ID for no reason other than being Black on Campus....
Boston is no different re Cambridge, the campus of Harvard.....
5th) The latest news is that all charges against my friend have been dropped...But you can bet that there will be extraordinary efforts made to justify the actions of the arresting officers....
6th) Suppose Skip Gates had not been a highly regarded, highly respected, highly revered, high profile Harvard academic. What do any of you think the result would have been?
I am sick of this kind of crap and the people who go ondefending it as though it is supoosed to be normal or acceptable.....I would have loved to see them stand by the arrest and go forward with a prosecution so they could have their racist asses kicked all the way through the criminal "justice" system.......
FLW: Please accept my apology for "hijacking " your post....But Skip Gates is a good friend of mine and you have a great service and a great job of brining the injustice of "racial profiling" to OS for much needed examination.......Thanks....
Very Rated!
However, I certainly think a conversation about police conduct generally (and specific activities, such as Tasering) is LOOOONG overdue. Due to various factors, not least of which is the climate of fear and paranoia engendered by 9/11, Americans, in my view, have become apologists for fascist tactics, all in the name of "keeping us safe." It is more than a shame - it is dangerous on lots of levels.
I didn't mean to "steal" this story. If I had known he was a friend of yours, i would have deferred to you right away. The strange coincidence for me was that I was up until 2 am last night, writing my response to John Edgar Wideman's essay in this month's Harper's about how racism will die in this country when white people stop using their race as a hierarchy. There is no hierarchy of races--that's all a cultural construct based on the amount of pigment in your skin. So, imagine how I felt this morning when I spotted the account in the British newspaper THE GUARDIAN, the first thing. And this all occurred last Thursday. Why is it taking until now to come out?
When I was in grad school, a friend of mine told about returning from Southern California and being stopped for DWB. He had a big fat satchel on the front seat next to him, and the cop made a big deal of him getting out of the car slowly so that the satchel could be examined. What was in it? His dissertation materials? Not some gun.
Another friend, a Yalie, was out smoking on his stoop one night, and a neighbor called the cops to report a "suspicious" black man smoking. My friend had lived there for years, and he was so upset that one of his stupid neighbors hadn't recognized him.
I don't know what the solution to this is anymore. I teach my students that racism isn't dead, even though, each semester, they show up and tell me it doesn't exist anymore. But once they open their eyes to it, they finally start seeing it everywhere. And I could weep, you know? I'm a 46-year old white girl, and I remember having these beautiful, pie-in-the-sky talks with my dad when I was a munchkin about how one day, everyone was going to love one another and color wasn't going to matter. That Jesus loved the little children, that Dr. King's dream would come true.
And then something like this happens, and I want to pull the covers over my head.
No. I don't want to pull the covers over my head.
I want to get mad.
And I want to tell people that it could have happened to anyone that no, it didn't happen to anyone. It happened to a prominent African-American academic in a college town--somewhere he should have been recognized--and he was still treated like some bum who had broken into a rich man's house.
You have to be real chill with, and the Fuzz goes away.
Males have this experience lots of times.
Affluent white society has never been integrated -- that was for working class and poor neighborhoods only. But even that minimal effort to foster the dialogue of daily experience that might allow us to transcend stupid notions about skin color mattering has been abandoned. To disastrous effect, I might add.
I taught for a few years in a high school that was originally estbalished as a black only high school in the 1950s (prior to which time, education for African Americans ended at 8th grade in this particular educational jurisdiction). It was intergrated during the 1970s, the court order for desgregation ended in the early 90s, and the place has fallen apart. It's in the lowest income-per capita neighborhood in the jurisdiction and, rather unsurprisingly, has all sorts of dysfunctional problems. -- like an average reading level for incoming freshman that equates to fourth grade, high degrees of absenteeism, very little parental involvement -- the usual litany.
The secret is that race and class are very closely linked in this country, and have been for generations. Until we can get at that, ain't nothing going to change. Except, of course, the more laws we pass, the more subtle the racism has to get.
are you humiliated because you are not immediately placed in the sacred circle? if you are a member of a suspect group, to wit, brown, you should be greatfull you were not charged with being of 'middle eastern appearance.'
america has had proscribed minorities from day one, and they remain so to this day, although if you achieve the key to the washroom of wealth, a certain conditional associate membership in the middle class is extended. i suspect the chalkies rage arose from being reminded that he would never be a full member.
Oh, wait.
This is Amurikka.
Totally, disgustingly believable.
Gah.
I work for a retail store and one night I was near the front door and handing out paper ads for the sales going on for the weekend. A woman asked where a particular section was and I walked a few steps to point it out to her and went back to my front door area with more of the ads. By the way, I'm a white guy. As I arrived at my post three young black guys came into the store and started laughing and saying that they aren't allowed to shop because they're black, saying that I was coming to the front door because I wanted to keep an eye on them, and they stood around making fun of me as I handed out the ads to customers. And they went away after a few minutes.
So here's the question: are they racist for assuming that because I was approaching the front door as they came in, I was there to watch them? Or are they just used to this kind of thing and found it amusing?
We have many customers in our store at any given time, sometimes purchasing the books written by the subject of the original post here. Surely the aforementioned could see that. So I'm curious. And I'm babbling on, so I'll shut up now.
> him that you are who you say you are, and you are
> still treated as if you are breaking in.
Um, the suspect *was* actually breaking in. How does the cop know that the id truly belongs to the suspect, and not some other random guy of similar appearance? How does the cop know that the id is not fake?
All the cop really has to go on is the guys demeanor. Why is the guy escalating the conflict and becoming hostile?
most likely? Most Likely?? MOST LIKELY???
AmeriKKKa is NOT even close to Post-RACIAL, not even close.
That there is any discussion about this at all is institutional racism to the core.
You WILL NOT find an informed person who believes that because an extremely well-educated mixed race genius becomes president that ANYTHING has changed for blacks in AmeriKKKa.
My challenge remains: if you think otherwise I will meet you at Seminary and International in East Oakland and watch you tell your version of reality to the nice, and there are many, many nice folks there, you just tell them all about it, coward.
AUWE
The cops should have shut up and left as soon as they say the man's photo ID and driver's license. But I truly believe that they harassed the man into an excuse for arresting him.
Police have never shown up at my door (white woman, short, freckles), and if they ever do, I'm turning the alarm on, running straight upstairs, locking myself in the bedroom, calling 911, and saying, "There's a police officer at my door; I didn't call the police; I'm a woman, I live alone, and I'm not opening the door. Please send someone to check this out."
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but aside from the tragic commentary this incident provides on American racial issues, I hope it serves as a wake-up call to every cop in this country that YOU work for US (the taxpayers). Straighten up, fly right, and act accordingly.
And people, stop blaming this one on "right-wing" anything and quit the AmeriKKKa stuff--I wouldn't let my freshman comp students get away with those kinds of non-arguments. I'm one of OS's token Republicans, and this incident appalls me because of my conservative values--belief in individual rights and dignity, belief in race-blind equality (it's the ideal I believe in; I know it's not reality), and deep, deep distrust of the government and all its agents (you know, the reason this country was founded).
As others have mentioned, Dr. Gates is not a young man, he'd just made a long air trip, and then he went through a hideous, stressful situation. I hope his health is not suffering.
1) He is an esteemed, American academic and intellectual with popular recognition.
2) He was abiding in a "good neighborhood."
3) He offered verification of his identity when asked for it.
4) He got arrested anyway.
What better case to expose the post-racial myth? And he's smart enough to write about it, hit the book circuit on it, do a documentary on it, and keep discussion about it going for months, if not years. Rock on Gates! That police officer may have just handed you material for the rest of your career.
Possibly, he was neighborly and chatted with his neighbors and had knew that the wife and kids were in Cape Cod and Gates was in China and heading for the cape as soon as he got home. If the neighbor was friendly, he had reason to believe the Gates house was empty.
Not surprising after what happened, he didn't come forward and apologize to his neighbor. Or maybe he did. To me, a neighbor reporting men forcing a door is acceptable. The cops investigating is acceptable. The cops not apologizing and leaving promptly is where the line got crossed.
Second, it's a vicious circle in some ways: the cop misjudges a situation due to the appearance and behaviour of the professor. The guy has a skin tone and facial features the cop classifies as "doesn't belong here" in his gut, an ingrained prejudice even I catch myself doing, even after living overseas so long. This makes the already grumpy professor angrier (for good reason), and this feeds the misjudgement as it gets misinterpreted as hostility. A feedback loop of frustration at treatment feeding that treatment and so on.
But the biggest mistake lies in the mentality of the cops, the "never admit that you goofed" stance, the fear of losing Authority. This goes all the way up the chain in most police departments. The instinctive reaction is to protect their own, no matter how badly the officer reacted.
One thing I read elsewhere, though, that I haven't seen followed up upon was the statement that the reason the good professor had to force open his own door was that the lock looked like it had been tampered with. If this is the case, then I do not discount the possibility that there had been a burglary attempt while the professor was in China, and the neighbour thought the half-seen figures on the porch were the would-be thieves making another attempt. If this were the case, then it could explain some things.
But I won't excuse away how Prof. Gates' skin colour played a factor. It's all too human to think in "us versus them" mentalities, to use mental tools that are left over from the stone age.
A footnote: I now live in Germany, where I've noticed a different racial stereotype that thinks black skin colour means either American or wealthy African. Go figure.
Oh, sure he might have been able to defuse the situation if he'd been properly submissive, but that's beside the point. There are those who blame Gates and go to great length to excuse the police, but without a doubt in my mind, if the identical situation had happened with a white man, it would have had a different outcome.
Racism is very deeply entrenched in this country and it co-exists with denial.
Mr. Gates has done pretty well for himself in this horrible country.
And this is not a problem limited to the black community! This same thing happens with all cultures. Police believe that they can demand anything of anyone.
I know a 77 year old white woman who was on her own property and treated as if she was going to be arrested for 20 minutes all the while, man handled, forced to her knees, forcibly twisted left and right while on her knees and more. This police officer basically got away with this behavior.
I read of another elderly woman arrested on her own property for an interaction from a police officer who tickets people for not watering her lawn!!! http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=1444771
This is a problem for ALL AMERICANS. Please lets stand together for justice for all.