Obviously the police officer involved was a jerk. But think of the actual situation and realize that Professor Gates could have handled it in so many different ways. At the beginning, it was just him and a cop talking to each other. True, it's always hard to talk to cops, whether you're black or not. It's easy to get defensive. But when you've just gotten home from an overseas trip, you're tired, you're jet-lagged, and your goddam front door is stuck, it's also easier to get mad at someone whom you should, essentially, be able to handle and send on his way. This was that kind of moment for Professor Gates. He could have spoken directly and frankly to the policeman and closed the door on the guy and the whole thing would have been over. It seems to me that this is the way he should have handled it. Instead, this event is an epiphany for the professor? He's now going to start paying attention to the factor of race in criminal justice in America?
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
What this shows is that Skip Gates was reminded that he was, brutally speaking, still a nigger in post-racial America in the Age of Obama. I don't know how much more Gates could have down after showing the police that he did leave there. I guess he could have shown the officer his flight ticket, which the officer should have asked for, or things like a rent receipt or lease or mail.
The fact of the matter is that the cop just would not believe him and Gates may have gotten "uppity," in the [white] police man's view when he basically exercised his right to be secure in his possessions within his own home.
Personally, if I had been in that situation, after I established my identity that I was the lawful occupant of that house, if the cop/s still asked me to step outside, I would have told them "No, I have established my identity as the legal resident of the house, but if you choose to arrest me after doing so I will sue you and the department for false arrest, which is what that was."
I then would have said that I'm reaching into my pocket for my phone or going over to my desk to call my attorney.
What this also underscores is what Sonia Sotomayor was speaking about regarding individual biases and prejudices, about how one's background can shape decisions and views unconsciously .
If Gates showed his ID, as he said his did, and the police didn't believe him, then it may well show what the Wise Latina was talking about: we each have our biases and prejudices that may well color how one sees "facts." A white police officer didn't believe a man after he showed him bona fides ID.
Fact: Gates showed his ID and the officer still refuse to believe him.
As a said before, this was a brutal reminded that Gates, the chairman of the black studies department at Harvard, is still a nigger in the eyes of some agents of the state, and the police are the first representatives of legal authority in any government system.
There is a basic principle at stake: any man or woman has a right to be secure in his or her own abode even from the police once he or she has reasonably established his identity in his own home.
Of course, this principle doesn't seem apply to certain second class citizens.
"Fact: Gates showed his ID and the officer still refuse to believe him."
I thought the arrest was based on Gates being "disorderly" when he did leave the house. I can't figure out why he even left his own house instead of making the officer come in after him -- and while that was unfolding, doing the things you describe. Essentially, that was what I was trying to get at -- that someone like Gates could probably have turned this situation whatever way he wanted, if he had maintained his composure. I was also, I would say, a bit cynical about his newfound scholarly interest in the role of race in crime enforcement.