Prominent Black professor arrested for entering own home while Black
Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies, was recently arrested at his own home in Cambridge, Mass. when a neighbor called the cops, presuming him and the also-not-white man he was with to be burglars. Gates described the incident as part of a "racial narrative" playing out in a biased criminal justice system. In this Washington Post article, he explains what happened. Gates was arriving home after a trip to China where he is working on a documentary film, and found the lock to his house had been tampered with. The Moroccan driver who had driven him home from the airport helped him push the door in.
Gates's home is owned by Harvard so he picked up the phone to call the university's real estate maintenance office. Before he could finish the conversation, a police officer was standing on his porch and asking him to come out of the house.Gates Says He Is Outraged by Arrest at Cambridge Home"Instinctively, I knew I was not to step outside," Gates said, describing the officer's tone as threatening. Gates said the policeman, who was in his 30s and several inches taller than him, followed him into his kitchen where Gates retrieved his identification.
"I was thinking, this is ridiculous, but I'm going to show him my ID, and this guy is going to get out of my house," Gates said. "This guy had this whole narrative in his head. Black guy breaking and entering."
After handing the officer both his Harvard and Massachusetts state identification, which included his address, Gates said he began to ask the officer this question, repeatedly. "I said 'Who are you? I want your name and badge number.' I got angry."
According to Gates's account, the officer refused to give it. The police report says, however, that the officer identified himself. "I weigh 150 lbs and I'm 5' 7''. I'm going to give flack to a big white guy with a gun. I might wolf later, but I won't wolf then."
But Gates did keep asking for the officer's name and said he began to feel humiliated when his question was ignored. He then said: "This is what happens to black men in America."
Gates is also founder of the Root.com, which is owned by The Washington Post. (via Ned Sublette)
the latest
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He's been (thankfully) been released and all charges have been dropped:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32010985/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/
The more I read about this story, the angrier it makes me....but if you really want to send your blood pressure through the roof, just scroll by some of the comments in the Boston media. Unbelievable amount of racists in that town.
For a man of the people, Gates hasn't had many howyadoin' chats with his neighbors. That way they'd know who the f he was.
"The woman, Lucia Whalen, is the circulation and fundraising manager at Harvard Magazine."
This sounds like there's more going on here. She had to know who he was.
Granted the cop should have given his name and badge number, but clearly the professor was being angrier than he lets on here.
He got pissed off when the cops responded to a call about a break-in at his house. If he was white the cops would still have asked him for identification.
I may be wrong, but I really think it's the professor who's making this into a race issue to cover up for his own poor behavior.
And that's why I'm a PBS member.
@ Teller: Why is it Gates' responsibility to meet the neighbors instead of the other way around? Maybe they moved in while he was traveling China.
Teller, I was thinking the same thing, but he may simply be away so often, in class all day, they may be new or he may be antisocial. You can't blame either side of the fence for not chatting up their neightbor.
However, I do think the person who called the cops should at least swing by with a muffin basket.
Xeni sez: "Prominent Black professor arrested for entering own home while Black"
Boston Herald sez: "A law enforcement source said Gates apparently had locked himself out. When Sgt. James Crowley arrived, he said Gates already was inside. But when he was asked to provide identification, Gates allegedly snapped, “No, I will not,” according to a police report.
Police said Gates’ front-porch tirade about racism alarmed passers-by drawn to the uproar outside his Cambridge home.
As Crowley tried to question him, police said Gates bellowed, “This is what happens to black men in America!”
Crowley wrote in his report he tried to calm Gates, but that Gates shouted, “You don’t know who your (sic) messing with!”
S sd tht BB s bcmng th lft vrsn f Fx Nws. Whtvr, crt yr wn rlty.
It's not a crime to be black, that is merely a social inconvenience. The crime now is not being a cop. If you're not a cop you're not a full citizen.
This is supposed to be the police report. Although the cops are denying they leaked it, so it might be false, but I kinda doubt it.
Gates never should've gone out on his porch. Notice in the report the officer repeatedly asks him to step outside. Why? So that he can then arrest him for public disturbance, which he can't do if he'd've just stayed inside. Not that the officer might not've just arrested him from some other bullshit...
Yeah. No excuses. The cop should have looked at his license, saw that it was HIS HOUSE and left after apologizing respectfully.
The officer should have shown discretion. Instead he showed racism.
I'll say it again it is ILLEGAL for an officer not to show you his identification. Like a crime. If he doesn't prove that he is an officer, he is effectively not an officer.
@3 - I have a hard time believing there are too many people living in Cambridge who don't know who Skip Gates is.
As a Cambridge resident, I'm glad somebody called the cops and that they responded. I'm not sure about the facts of the case, but what I am sure about is the racism in this area. It's all packaged and spoken in code, maintaining that New England properness and presentability. But like a dirty apartment, just pull up the rug and tons of bugs come crawling out.
I was at Yale in 1984 when Skip Gates was a Fellow in my residential dorm. I only knew him to say "Hello" but for a professor to be continually gracious and neighborly to a "lowly" sophomore actually says alot.
Certainly, the scene was set for a misunderstanding. But once Gates shows TWO (2) forms of picture ID, a driver's license and his college ID identifying him as a professor, any cop with half a prefrontal cortex should lope on back to Dunkin Donuts.
Speaking as a white male who has been detained by the police for breaking into his own house, I'd rather have that happen again than to have my neighbors just assume that somebody had forgotten their keys.
Based upon my own personal experience, I can see how it could have escalated into him being arrested.
Mojave- read the comments to *any* newspaper article. The problem isn't specific to Boston.
Bottlekid- So instead of taking the victim's word for it, we're just supposed to take the cop's word for it? That's just trading one form of bias for another, not a solution to the supposed problem of BB "creating reality."
Sounds to me like Gates was the one with the narrative in his head. He & the driver were pushing on the door for 15 minutes. If I see two guys spending 15 minutes trying to force a door in, I'd get suspicious, too.
As for the cop, what else was he supposed to do? "Oh, you say you live here? Well, OK, have a nice day!" But Gates, in his own words, "just got angry." He's the one that got pissed off. He assumed it was a racial thing.
Even his own description of events doesn't bear that out. Things are better than they were 20 years ago, but racism is still a problem in the US, and overreacting jerks like this AREN'T HELPING.
If I see someone forcing my neighbor's door open, I call the police. I don't care what color their skin is.
Brainspore: Hadn't thought of that!
McCrum: At the least.
MB: If true, then what's the deal? "Hey, Skip's back and he and a cabbie are breaking into his house. CALL 911."
@ # 7 BOTTLEKID
the one small item that you slid by without looking at closely enough.
"according to a police report"
don't know your neighbours. Lobster?
Nice try, Xeni
But anyone who has been watching the Senate's Supreme Court hearing knows that the greatest civil rights threat facing America today is the scourge of reverse discrimination against white men.
It's so sad...
-- MrJM
Curious how things change in just few years: USA was the private property wonderland and now many people think it's "wrong" to be upset if a policeman breaks into your home...
Even if it's your neighbor, Lobster?
I personally would have no problem with a neighbor calling the police under the circumstances.
But I would have a HUGE problem with a cop refusing to acknowledge my right to break into my own home.
The cop, being in no imminent danger at any point, had an obligation to be polite and respectful, just like anyone else entering private property. He could ask for ID, he could prevent the professor from leaving until he either proved ownership and/or identity, but he ABSOLUTELY had no right to be threatening or indeed anything other than POLITE and RESPECTFUL. There was no threat and no attempt to leave the premises, therefore no need for rudeness or cop steroidal aggression.
It is quite telling that even on BoingBoing, we have a bunch of people saying "yeah it was quite right for him to be grabbed by a gang of cops, he should have been more helpful".
That said, I recall lots of instances of white professors being arrested after locking themselves out. Oh no wait no I don't.
Google "Amos and Andrew" -- life, sadly, imitates art.
@ #16 ERROR404
Actually, it is you that is not looking closely enough. I never said that the police report or the Boston Herald (right-wing) story was factually trustworthy. ws jst lmntng th fct tht BB hs bn spnnng hdlns f lt t mt n gnd, whch n my mnd mks ths st n bttr thn F Nws. Myb 'll jst stck t BBG.
All of the events described would very likely have happened to a WHITE guy were he as uncooperative and imprudent as Gates was.
Hard to see racism here, what we have is a classic example of how NOT to deal with police officers trying to do their jobs.
Methinks Gates has issues and is spoiling for a racial incident to complain about.
If I broke into my own house and a neighbor called the cops, I would be pleasantly surprised and perfectly happy to prove that I lived there.
I've had guns drawn on me and dogs nearly unleashed after me, due to being in similar situations. In every instance, I clearly identified myself and my purpose (i.e. "I live here," or "I work here.") and every time the police have verified it calmly and thanked me for my time.
It's just not that difficult. If I had said "get out of here, I'm not cooperating with you," or something to that affect, I would expect to have more bullet wounds and dog bites in me.
There are numerous, nearly limitless, examples of police racism or abuse of authority. This does not appear to be one of them.
s mntnd, thr r jst t mny psts lk ths hr ltly. t rlly s strtng t rsmbl lfty Fx.
I have a friend who is a former repo man... he says the job got considerably more dangerous when all the cops started taking steroids. They are all jumpy and aggressive, he says, and it's hard not to get into arguments with them.
I don't know if that's really true, but I wonder why professional athletes, who are just playing a game, funded by game enthusiasts, get drug-tested more than people who have been armed with deadly weapons at the taxpayers' expense. It seems strange to me.
I do not mean to suggest that there are NO racial underpinnings to the call to police or the action of the police officer upon arrival but the problem is larger than that of just racial prejudice. People don't know their neighbors. People call the police before speaking with each other. Police draw guns preemptively. I manage a store and found my self at the business end of the barrel of a police officer's gun while faxing. I had my back turned to the showroom and was faxing. A man said "sir". I said, "ill be with you in a moment". Then he said "SIR" very loudly and I turned around and had a gun in my face. He told me a burglary had been called in by our alarm company. Our Alarm company does not corroborate his story. Likely it was a wrong address. Nevertheless, I was treated like a criminal rather than spoken to and it appears in a more dramatic fashion than the professor. I am hispanic but pass for white. The officer was hispanic as well. The problem is cops are scared and criminals are violent and have guns, and ordinary people are scared. You can't get offended by everything. But you sure can try.
Ito: Any policeman caught using steroids should be suspended for 50 beatings or 50 arrests - depending on your pov of law enforcement.
I'm a white male who lives in the suburbs, and the one time I got arrested the cops lied on my police report as well (they essentially lied and said I confessed). You have to take anything on a police report with a grain of salt, ESPECIALLY when it could incriminate them or make them look bad.
And yes, the headline is a little sensational, and doesn't convey the tone of the actual events that occurred. The real story here is the officer failing to identify himself and lying about it in the report, and why the officer didn't apologize and leave once Gates successfully identified himself as the owner of the house.
Police are our employees, our SERVANTS. If they don't treat us with as much respect as you would afford your boss at work, they should be fired. Getting heated and vindictive because your boss is pissed at you fucking up is a great way to get canned.
@Bottlekid: I think you're making up your own reality quite nicely. Or at least aping the cops. If they were in the right to arrest him, why did they drop the charges like a hot potato?
It is still legal in this country (I hope) to be annoyed at police officers. Gates took no actions against them other than to berate them for their harassment.
@Klenow: how is it overreacting to get upset with an officer who treats you like a criminal and refuses to identify himself?
@MrJM: yes, sooo scourgy! I feel for the disenfranchised white man. Oh wait, I don't, because they're still doing just fine. (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abby-ferber/turning-white-men-into-vi_b_150286.html for more on this topic)
I don't understand exactly why a post about an article from the Washington Post would elicit comparisons to Fox News. If the subject matter is disturbing to you, comment on that.
I must say the headline here misses a big part of the situation.
Mainly, His home had been burglarized in the recent past. He and another man were trying to break down his front door.
Stopping by and asking for ID both seem very reasonable. Now perhaps the Cop was particularly rude because he is an ass or a racist, that much isn't clear from reading the police report or the lawyers remark. What is clear in both stories is that Gates get pissed and asked for a badge number simply because he was asked to show ID after attempting to break into his own house.
This seems to me to be most likely about 2 egos clashing then about racial tension.
The title of this post is misleading. Gates wasn't arrested for entering the home, he was arrested for yelling at the cops. My impression has always been that cops are not very tolerant of being yelled at by people of any color.
If Gates had been polite and cooperative during the incident and nevertheless had been arrested, this would be a clear case of racial bias. As it stands, there is considerably more ambiguity.
No crack sprinkled at the scene? Dave Chappelle would not be impressed.
Seriously, any officer who doesn't give his badge number should be disciplined. The prof didn't need to escalate things by shouting racism from the front porch (even if it was). All he had to do was ask for the supervisor (since there should've been one in the swarm there) and point out the offending officer.
This from the crew that freaked out over ATHF signs and got paid for their own stupidity.
If you read the police report (link on Boston.com) and you read Gate's account and come somewhere in the middle, it's clear it was escalated on both sides.
Ignoring the race aspect, if an office came into my house, asked to see my id, then refused to do the same until I stepped outside, you can bet your ass I'd be bullshit about it.
@#34: I'm just going to pretend MrJM was being sarcastic in an attempt to prevent my head from exploding at the absurdity of his statement.
Also, I meant to go on to say that the Fox News comparisons are going overboard. The headline is slightly misleading because it doesn't note that he had to force the door (in light of that, it makes sense the neighbor would call the police if they weren't acquainted, regardless race). Sensational headlines are how you get clicks online. At least the details are actually present in the write-up, it's a worthwhile story in itself, and there's a valid link. I just got distracted by people being so willing to let the damn cops steamroll our civil liberties.
"S sd tht BB s bcmng th lft vrsn f Fx Nws. Whtvr, crt yr wn rlty."
Why was this disemvowelled? I don't agree with him, but it IS pretty sad if something this tame gets picked out for cnsrshp.
cops lie. Cops ALWAYS lie.
Verre,#37: It may be the case that cops are not tolerant of being yelled at, but that doesn't mean they SHOULDN'T be. If a dude hits you or locks you in a room for yelling at him but not making any violent actions or threats towards him, when he's the one to approach you, he's a sociopath and would likely get jail time.
It's not on us to tiptoe around cops or kowtow to them. It's on them to act like the public servants they supposedly are. We have both a right and a responsibility to hold police officers to the same standards we would hold actual human beings to.
This story was on NPR this morning, according to the reported from Boston (don't remember if it was the Globe or something else), it wasn't a neighbor who called the police. It was someone driving by who lived a couple towns away.
So all the posters who are blaming Gates for not being friendly enough to his neighbors can grasp at some other straw.
Still don't understand why the cop didn't leave after Gates produced two forms of ID. If I showed proof that I lived in my house and they still refused to leave, I'd be pissed too.
here's a copy of the redacted police report:
http://i32.tinypic.com/n70gzl.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/104hq3a.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/2drvyp1.jpg
If I were a successful black man and the cops came to the door of my own home assuming a break-in, I might have reacted angrily as well. And for the same reasons. White people like me have no idea what it's like to deal with the day-to-day racist shit he has to deal with.
My (blond haired, blue eyed) sister was arrested for breaking into her own car after forgetfully locking her keys in the car. She made the mistake of mouthing off to a cop who came over to find out what was going on. Whereupon he dragged her from her car through the broken window (cutting her breasts in the process), cuffed her wrists (hard enough to leave bruises) and hauled her off to jail for the night.
All charges dropped the next day. She filed a complaint with the city. Nothing came of it.
This was about ten years ago. I'm sure the arresting officer has become much more polite in dealing with smart-asses since then...
First off, the fact that the call was made was not racist - he was having trouble getting into his house and was exhibiting suspicious behavior getting inside (while being watched by someone nosy), thats all.
I can say this because the EXACT same thing has happened to me when I locked myself out of the house - and I'm Irish and at the time lived in an all-white neighborhood with negligible crime.
The cops came, had me put my hands up, frisked me, and had me hold with my hands secured until we were properly identified. Scary but when I saw them pull in I knew exactly what had happened and just cooperated calmly. Then we all had a laugh.
Gates obviously did not choose to handle the situation the same way I did, and that contributed to his arrest.
But as someone else mentioned, its true - the headline is misleading and the arrest seems related to Gate's behavior when the police arrived, not for the original call.
As for my previous post, I see in the Wash. Post article that Gates says a neighbor called the cops. But the reporter this morning definitely said the address of the person who called it in was several towns away and not in the neighborhood.
>"...cops lie. Cops ALWAYS lie."
You should see it from the other side of the badge. You're looking at you speed gun saying 68mph, and the driver is swearing she never went over 45.
"I stopped! I always stop at stop signs!" You're looking at a video of him rolling right thru the stop sign. "Your camera is broke! That's not my car! There's lots of these Avanti's around here!"
All day long, one after another, lie, lie, lie.
"No ofithur, ah hain't been drainkin'."
Reading BB comments on racial issues over the last two years has taught me that racism just plain doesn't exist. In fact, it must never have existed. Because somehow, no matter what happens, there are so many reasons why the incident 'wasn't really about race'.
You want to hear a story? One of my (white) neighbors broke into the apartment below me some years back. The alarm went off. The cops showed up. There's a broken door. The neighbor says, "I live here" and the cops said okay and left. Do you seriously think that would have happened if he had been a black guy?
Oh, come on. By both Gates' and the police officer's account, Gates showed his identification upon request. The police officer believed him to be a resident of the home. He had no reason to arrest him - except spite.
The important issue is the abuse of power by the police.
The question of whether Gates followed proper etiquette when confronted with that abuse can be addressed by Emily Post at a much later date.
"I'm Irish"
Gee, maybe your race played a role in how that situation went down.
where do all these collaboratist gutless wonders come from? Since when are normal, law abiding citizens inmates in the state jail, to be cuffed at will by knuckle dragging, blue uniformed thugs? What business does some pig have shackling a person who has offered no violence and is clearly not doing ANYTHING? It is one thing to use handcuffs on a proven threat, but to default to them in every instance just proves what despicable cowards have usurped the real job of policeman. They're not worthy of my spit.
Empirechick: If that's true - and why doubt you - then I say "Nevermind my neighbor comment."
Speaking of shackles, Tak, it appears our species is posed for some incremental improvement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/opinion/21tue4.html?scp=1&sq=shackled%20female%20prisoner%20pregnant&st=cse
Isn't that wonderful?
"Guns don't kill people, cops kill people." - Cheech and Chong
@ Antinous #51: C'mon, not every wrongful arrest of a black man is racially driven. There are many other reasons why it might happen. Plenty of cops seem to hold nearly every member of the human race in extremely low regard.
where do all these collaboratist gutless wonders come from?
Mom's basement?
Everyone above who talks as though they know for sure what happened here are people who, in Gates's words, "the whole narrative in [their] head."
Yes, I can buy the version of the story where the cops are racist and wholly to blame. But I can also buy the version of the story where a tired, privileged Ivy League professor decided he was too important a person to be bossed around by some lowly civil servant responding to a burglary call. To say nothing of the various mixed scenarios, in which the belligerence was quickly escalated by both sides.
I do strongly object to the headline. Even if you believe Gates's version of the story in all its details this would be a case of "Black professor arrested for breaking into own home while Black."
As someone who shares many of Xeni's political leanings, it saddens me everytime I see her cheapen the very real issues I care about by propping those positions up with misleading rhetoric.
What came first: the mustache or the badge?
Where did the Constitution go? This is a violation of at least the 4th ammendment. I also think the 8th ammendent was violated....I don't care if the man was green-skinned. He was violated. I was raised that no skin color is better or worse than another.
@Takuan
Having to answer for breaking into your home falls pretty far short of being "inmates in the state jail." As does the obligation to treat civil servants civilly.
Attic, Antinous. AAA-TICK.
Of course cops are racist. Everyone is racist, consciously or subconsciously. The only way to be an enlightened person is to be aware of your own biases and mindfully compensate for them. The worst racists are the people who think they aren't (and have power). At least with a skinhead you know where you stand. I can't wait to come back 500 years from now when we're all one happy beige mono-race and we can talk about something else.
OBLIGATION to treat civil servants civilly! Since when does the master lick the servant's boots?!
Eh, the cops might be the biggest racist on the face of the planet. More likely, they are just asshole cops who are jerks to all people. First off, checking Gate's ID was exactly the right thing to do. If you get a report of burglary and find someone inside the house, no matter what they claim or what they look like, you apologetically insist on checking their ID. That is life. Police investigate reports of crimes. They can't just take your good word. Criminals can also lie. I would rather risk the mild indignity of proving that they have a false positive, then to come home and find that the police let someone go without taking doing a tiny bit of investigation. So in my mind, what started the incident was entirely fine.
What happens next is the interesting piece. I have a feeling that Gates was pissed and likely did feel like they checked his ID instead of taking his word because he is black. He probably yelled at the police officers, called them all a bunch of racist bastards, and pissed off one of them enough to charge him with contempt of police officer... err I mean "disorderly conduct".
This is the place where both sides are wrong. Gate's needs to take a chill pill and realize that entire world is made up of racist jerks out to get him, and the police need to learn to suck it up a little. "Disorderly conduct" gets tossed around pretty much any time someone gets pissed off at the police and they want to punish that person. Police need to be able to show a little restraint and defuse a situation by backing off and letting otherwise harmless people vent. The right thing to do was to check Gate's ID, apologize for the inconvenience, and simply leave, no matter how pissed gates was or sounded.
"a tired, privileged Ivy League professor decided he was too important a person to be bossed around"
which is never a problem when white. is it? Don't try to deny it, I've SEEN it.
why does the black guy, after a lifetime of getting fucked over by a white, racist system, have to take a chill pill? Why does the cop merit the kid gloves? Why?
Gate's wasn't arrested for being black, he was arrested for being an asshole. And when it comes to dealing with assholes, people are unanimously colorblind.
If people bothered reading the report and the story, they'd have read that Gates refused to show his ID multiple times.
Let's look at the timeline of events:
- Gates locked out
- Neighbor sees 2 people trying to break into apartment
- Neighbor calls police
- Police arrive
- Police ask building dweller to step outside, not knowing if they broke in or are the resident
- Gates is uncooperative and verbally aggressive
- repeat x3
- Gates finally gives id
- repeat some more verbal aggression
- Gates gets arrested
Did the cop take this too far ?
Sure.
But Gates wasn't arrested for being black. Gates was arrested for being an asshole.
All he had to do was say "Hi. I'm Henry Gates. I live here. This is my ID. Thank you for looking into a possible break-in."
So I'll play a racism card too - anyone who is saying Gates is in the right is racist and giving him special treatment, because if he were white no one would have a problem with this situation.
The one thing I notice in the photo above is that the professor has his hands cuffed in front of him instead of in back of him. This could be construed as a small courtesy extended to Mr. Gates by the police.
As for off-base as I think the mudsligers here are, I find it worrisome that they're essentially being censored for criticizing the site. Of all the sites that should be accepting of this kind of speech, even when it's unfounded, I would expect boing boing to top the list.
I think racism likely was an issue here, because the one group against which the police have shown themselves capable of resisting their vindictive and abusive tendencies is rich people and the upper class. Normally, the pigs would be bending over backwards for a professor at a prestigious - and expensive - university. Why did they break that pattern in this case? Of course it's possible the cop just "confiscated" some coke or was in a bad mood because his wife left him for beating her, but there's a more obvious and immediate answer.
@70, if he was cuffed in front then the cop KNEW he wasn't a real threat and was "jist teachin' tha boy a lesson".
@Takuan,
Your post (currently) @65 precisely illustrates the problem I was pointing to. Civil servants are not feudal servants. Cops are people just like everyone else, and they deserve the same respect that is due to any human being. That doesn't mean licking their boots, but it does mean cooperating with them when they are legitimately doing their job.
Was he legitimately doing his job or abusing his power in this case? Other than the participants, only those reading from a preconceived narrative in their head think they know for sure.
I think we will be seeing a lot more of this. They can't get at Obama so this is the next best thing.
"a preconceived narrative" Does that mean a few hundred years of history?
"Civil servants are not feudal servants." and citizens are not serfs, property of the local lord and meat for his dogs and bailiffs.
Where's my Magna Carta?
I have NEVER seen anyone 58 years old committing a B and E, and my mother was a Detroit cop.
His Age ALONE should have given the cops a clue.
Troofseeker@50 says that people are always lying to cops. But Gates' complaint was that the cop didn't give him his name and badge number. Possibilities:
1. Gates is lying, in which case the cop can, several times and in front of witnesses, give him his name and badge number or business card. Or the cop's superior could give him that information. Neither of these things were done. Why not?
2. Cop is lying, in which case Gates' being upset is understandable. Let's say you were in Gates' place. You know you have the legal right to ask for that information. "I gave it to you," says the cop; or, he just ignores you. You know that he didn't. Aren't you going to be upset?
And Jonathan@69, "Gates was arrested for being an asshole." Yeah, but being an asshole, speech-wise, is constitutionally protected. We shouldn't get arrested for that.
@72 Takuan
I just don't understand how people wear their biases so blatantly and feel comfortable doing so. How do you learn anything if you already know everything? The only thing certain about this case is that it's a he-said-she-said. Anything else is speculation at this point.
Takuan, it sounds like you've been bent over by the police a few too many times.
It's not he-said-she-said - even the police narrative is nothing more than a long version of "I arrested him because he was REALLY REALLY angry with me, even though I had figured out nothing illegal was happening"
@78 Freedom of speech doesn't cover action, or inaction.
Seriously folks, all he had to do was say "I live here. See [points to id]. Now fuck off."
He could have even been an asshole verbally and been mean to the cops and gotten rid of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if Gates wanted to make this a race issue - Academics like to do that sort of thing.
In the photograph, I find the black cop's expression fascinating. I wonder what he's thinking.
It will be interesting to see what Gates writes from this experience.
If these rogue Boston cops are too thin skinned to be yelled at they should find another line of employment. Perhaps working in a cave. He had every right to ask for their badge number. After all, he was in his own home.
TDawwg, you mean the one totally staring at the person taking the picture? Probably deciding if he can get away with arresting the guy for taking pics of the police. ^_~
I too am enraged about the inaccuracy of the headline. Gates wasn't arrested for "entering" his home. Anybody who actually read the article would know he was arrested for leaving it.
RTFA@(#)!&#!BOINGBOING#*$(@FOXNEWS
bi⋅as
/ˈbaɪəs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bahy-uhs] Show IPA noun, adjective, adverb, verb, bi⋅ased, bi⋅as⋅ing or (especially British) bi⋅assed, bi⋅as⋅sing.
–noun
1. an oblique or diagonal line of direction, esp. across a woven fabric.
2. a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
3. Statistics. a systematic as opposed to a random distortion of a statistic as a result of sampling procedure.
4. Lawn Bowling.
a. a slight bulge or greater weight on one side of the ball or bowl.
b. the curved course made by such a ball when rolled.
5. Electronics. the application of a steady voltage or current to an active device, as a diode or transistor, to produce a desired mode of operation.
6. a high-frequency alternating current applied to the recording head of a tape recorder during recording in order to reduce distortion.
–adjective
7. cut, set, folded, etc., diagonally: This material requires a bias cut.
–adverb
8. in a diagonal manner; obliquely; slantingly: to cut material bias.
–verb (used with object)
9. to cause partiality or favoritism in (a person); influence, esp. unfairly: a tearful plea designed to bias the jury.
10. Electronics. to apply a steady voltage or current to (the input of an active device).
—Idiom
11. on the bias,
a. in the diagonal direction of the cloth.
b. out of line; slanting.
Origin:
1520–30;
Synonyms:
2. predisposition, preconception, predilection, partiality, proclivity; bent, leaning. Bias, prejudice mean a strong inclination of the mind or a preconceived opinion about something or someone. A bias may be favorable or unfavorable: bias in favor of or against an idea. Prejudice implies a preformed judgment even more unreasoning than bias, and usually implies an unfavorable opinion: prejudice against a race. 9. predispose, bend, incline, dispose.
Antonyms:
2. impartiality.
Bi⋅as
/ˈbaɪəs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bahy-uhs] Show IPA
–noun
fl. 570 b.c., Greek philosopher, born in Ionia.
Bi⋅a
/ˈbaɪə/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bahy-uh] Show IPA
–noun
the ancient Greek personification of force: daughter of Pallas and Styx and sister of Cratus, Nike, and Zelos.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Related Words for : bias
preconception, prejudice, predetermine, diagonal
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bi·as (bī'əs)
n.
1. A line going diagonally across the grain of fabric: Cut the cloth on the bias.
2.
1. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
2. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
3. A weight or irregularity in a ball that causes it to swerve, as in lawn bowling.
4. The tendency of such a ball to swerve.
3. A statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others.
4. Sports
1. A weight or irregularity in a ball that causes it to swerve, as in lawn bowling.
2. The tendency of such a ball to swerve.
5. The fixed voltage applied to an electrode.
adj. Slanting or diagonal; oblique: a bias fold.
tr.v. bi·ased or bi·assed, bi·as·ing or bi·as·sing, bi·as·es or bi·as·ses
1. To influence in a particular, typically unfair direction; prejudice.
2. To apply a small voltage to (a grid).
[French biais, slant, from Provençal, perhaps ultimately from Greek epikarsios, slanted; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: These verbs mean to influence unfavorably or detrimentally: His experiences biased his outlook. Your misbehavior has colored my opinion of you. Dishonest leaders have jaundiced her view of politics. Lying has prejudiced the public against them. Bitterness has warped your judgment. See Also Synonyms at incline, predilection.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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bias
1530, from M.Fr. biasis "slant, oblique," from O.Prov. biais, possibly from V.L. *(e)bigassius, from Gk. epikarsios "slanting, oblique," from epi- "upon" + karsios "oblique." Transferred sense of "predisposition, prejudice" is from 1572.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Language Translation for : bias
Spanish: parcialidad, prejuicio,
German: das Vorurteil,
Japanese: 偏見
More Translations »
Main Entry: bi·as
Pronunciation: 'bI-&s
Function: noun
: a personal and often unreasoned judgment for or against one side in a dispute : PREJUDICE bias>
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence
/ɪkˈspɪəriəns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ik-speer-ee-uhns] Show IPA noun, verb, -enced, -enc⋅ing.
1. a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something: My encounter with the bear in the woods was a frightening experience.
2. the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something: business experience.
3. the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time: to learn from experience; the range of human experience.
4. knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone: a man of experience.
5. Philosophy. the totality of the cognitions given by perception; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered.
–verb (used with object)
6. to have experience of; meet with; undergo; feel: to experience nausea.
7. to learn by experience.
—Idiom
8. experience religion, to undergo a spiritual conversion by which one gains or regains faith in God.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME
Related forms:
ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence⋅a⋅ble, adjective
ex⋅pe⋅ri⋅ence⋅less, adjective
Synonyms:
6. encounter, know, endure, suffer. Experience, undergo refer to encountering situations, conditions, etc., in life, or to having certain sensations or feelings. Experience implies being affected by what one meets with: to experience a change of heart, bitter disappointment. Undergo usually refers to the bearing or enduring of something hard, difficult, disagreeable, or dangerous: to undergo severe hardships, an operation.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source
ex·pe·ri·ence (ĭk-spîr'ē-əns)
n.
1. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.
2.
1. Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.
2. The knowledge or skill so derived.
3. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
4. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.
3.
1. An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
2. The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.
tr.v. ex·per·i·enced, ex·per·i·enc·ing, ex·per·i·enc·es
To participate in personally; undergo: experience a great adventure; experienced loneliness.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin experientia, from experiēns, experient-, present participle of experīrī, to try; see per-3 in Indo-European roots.]
ex·pe'ri·enc·er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
experience
1377, from O.Fr. experience, from L. experientia "knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nom. experiens), prp. of experiri "to try, test," from ex- "out of" + peritus "experienced, tested." The v. (1533) first meant "to test, try;" sense of "feel, undergo" first recorded 1588.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Language Translation for : experience
Spanish: experiencia,
German: die Erfahrung,
Japanese: 経験
More Translations »
experience ex·pe·ri·ence (ĭk-spēr'ē-əns)
n.
The feeling of emotions and sensations as opposed to thinking; involvement in what is happening rather than abstract reflection on an event.
ex·pe'ri·ence v.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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I may be biased because of some unpleasant interaction with the police in the past, but I also know several local police officers whom I consider friends, and they confirm that there are some godawful, ego-maniacal, immature bastards on the force who wear badges and carry guns, and they're just as afraid of them as we civilians are.
In one police report to which I had access (as a witness to an arrest), I pointed out to the attorney that the cops had blatantly lied about what happened, and their account contradicted my sworn deposition. Of course, they were never held accountable for lying because, he said, they don't fill our their paperwork under oath or face any penalty for perjury, as I was when I made my deposition. They are only under the shadow of perjury if they testify under oath at a trial. Their paperwork can say whatever the hell they want it to say. Who is the judge going to believe anyway? A handcuffed defendant in an orange jumpsuit or a veteran law officer in a shiny blue uniform?
Seriously, there are reports now that a cellphone video of the murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland last New Years Day includes audio of one of the BART police officers calling him a "bitch-ass nigger" while holding him down just before Johannes Mehserle "accidentally" shot him in the back. The video is one of many recorded by witnesses that are expected to be used as evidence in Mehserle's trial, but this one has not been released to the media as several others have.
Personally, I have not had a police officer refuse to identify himself when asked, and I have been able to write down their badge numbers when I felt it necessary, but if I ever had such an experience as Prof. Gates, I damned sure would raise a stink about it.
I agree with earlier comments that police officers should be routinely tested for substance abuse just as professional athletes are today. They are our employees, and should be held accountable to the citizens they are sworn to protect as well as to the Constitution of the United States.
@81
Well, there you go. So it wasn't because Mr. Gates was black...
@86 Nice way to stink up an otherwise interesting thread. I'm not even sure WTF that's supposed to mean.
To all of you who seem to know the score already, I'm guessing "scientist", "investigator", and "researcher" weren't suggested to you by your career counselors. Keep on believing!
"There is no human situation so miserable that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a policeman."
I believe Gates. The story is a common one. The Boston police are notorious for both racism and heavy-handedness. For those of you who blame Gates for not handling the situation perfectly: I think most of you, with all your bluster, would either lose it, and be taken in, or step outside, and be taken in.
Criminals have all the advantage in such situations: most criminals have been practicing dealing with the authorities since childhood. I think it would make sense for law abiding citizens to actually practice these situations. Actually game them through. Meantime, here's a link to the ACLU bust card.
Carole Rose of the Boston ACLU on the arrest.
Don't the cops have their name tags and badges visible in the photograph? It seems like both parties are pushing their "narratives" a bit.
To tell the truth this seems pretty funny. Inflexible police procedure meets conclusion-jumping academic.
the whole thing stinks and you all know it, certain self-deceiving individuals excluded.
coppers overreact all the fucking time, whether they wear blue, black or green unis. us is a police society, policeman of the world, and youre lucky we dont just taser you until you collapse then beat shit out of you. locked in a cell, chained to the floor, dragged before a jury of someone elses peers. trial by cop, trial by soldier, bullet in the back of the skull. disappeared people, transported out of state, picking up roadkill on the side of the hwy at shotgunpoint. wrong apartment, wrong name, does not matter once the process begins there is no escape. why the fuck should anyone ever have to provide id? gotta be in the system, a record, a record of the incident, something is coming up on my screen, sir, will you please wait in the back of the car. i cant tell you what it is, sir, will you please wait in the back of the car? down on your knees motherfucker, im taking you downtown for resisting and obstructing. into the machine, chewed up and spit out. who said this house was being broken into? i live here. please wait in the back of the car sir.....
While I generally admire Xeni Jardin's writing, I find the headline to this article to be hyperbolic inflammatory garbage and the reporting to be skewed and incomplete.
These are the facts: two men were seen forcing open a door and the neighbor called the police. The police came and asked the man inside the house for identification.
The owner initially refused (here I must ask why? The homeowner is obviously a man of intelligence yet failed to deduce why the cops could possibly be there) and it's easy to see how the situation degraded from there.
Moreover, the New York Times (not generally known to be a bastion of racism) has a rather different telling of the story than Xeni. From the NY Times article:
"Sergeant Crowley said that as he told Professor Gates he was investigating a possible break-in, Professor 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,” Sergeant Crowley wrote in the report, “I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.”
Henry Louis Gates Jr. was being a jerk, and so was the cop. The cop could have examined the owner's ID and let the matter rest, but he didn't. But there's no evidence at all racism came into play nor anything more than stupidity by both parties. The charge of racism as used here is the easy, overused, intellectually lazy conclusion.
Link to the NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21gates.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=gates&st=cse
@Mr.Brown
"Why the fuck should anyone ever have to provide id?"
Yes, why indeed is it any of the police's business that someone was spotting forcing a locked door open?
You do understand that when you go from "it is common for police to act in abusive and racist ways" to "obviously, in this case the police were acting abusive and racist" you are using the exact same pattern on reasoning as the racist cop who go from, "often I have seen black men breaking into places," to "obviously, in this case a black man was breaking in," right?
@94 "Two men were seen" -- then where the fuck is suspect number 2? taking eyewitness testimony at face value is what is lazy. prove your innocence, OK? the poor, surprised copper had his feelings hurt so he exercised sovereign power. would you cover up for the police if hed been taserd, had a heart attack, & died? what fucking good would apologies do then? should the matter then rest?
I guess the swarthy cab driver was the clincher.
@95 i have my biases, but i dont back them up at the point of a gun. i call in to the police that youre cooking meth in your basement, your house gets raided, no-knock warrant, walls busted open, all your shit smashed. "but we had a report that..." is the perfect cop excuse.
who is going to prosecute the neighbor for fucking up so badly? 2 men with backpacks, motherfucker! where is suspect number 2? talk this way to a cop, youre dangerous. you got no rights whatsoever when the man with the badge is staring you in the eye.
is it too godddamn much to ask that a cop uses his brain before pulling his gun?
“I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.” translation: "at no point did he say: yowsuh massah!, and totally failed to shuck and jive"
Don't compare this to the ATHF hoax. That was in Charlestown, part of Boston and Suffolk county; this was in Cambridge, part of Middlesex county.
Just reading the arrest report, it's obvious that the cop is twisting events. He claims that Gates yelled at him to provide his badge number and name several times, despite the fact that he gave both to Gates the first time; he also claims that he asked Gates several times to see Gates' ID, but that it took Gates a while to do it.
I've got my own private narrative about what happened. Let's see how close this narrative, based upon the press accounts and the (poorly redacted - they missed the informant's name the second time it occurred) police report, meets other people's sense of what might have happened:
The cop gets a call about a possible break in, and gets to the home; he doesn't bother to contact Harvard (the property owner) to find out who lives there. There's the whole business about talking with the local informant and calling for backup, and asking the informant to wait for his backup. The cop enters Gates' house, noticing the damage to the door where Gates and his driver had to force their way in. He finds Gates in the house, a black man with a backpack, as described in the original call. He decides that he's just caught a burglar and yells at him to stop, possibly using abusive language.
Gates, who is practically a household name (the man is on Tavis Smiley all the time, he was one of the main figures in a documentary about African-Americans learning about their history through DNA, etc.), sees a cop *in his home, threatening him, with no warrant*. He's pissed off. The cop's language is abusive, basically treating him, a prominent scholar and Harvard professor, like a gang banger because of course a black fellow would never live here! That's what's going on in Gates' head. I'm saying that the cop probably confronted in a way that made no allowance for the fact that Gates might be the legitimate resident, and Gates picked up on that and thought he was being profiled, and so reacted very strongly.
So, the cop, hearing Gates claim it's his house and Gates yelling at him for hassling Gates (who I'm sure has been stopped for being black before; it happens all the time around here), maybe thinking this is a burglar trying to bluff his way out of trouble, starts yelling at Gates to show ID, and keeps yelling at Gates to show his ID *while* Gates was busy trying to get out his ID. I've seen cops pull this routine before at traffic stops (as an observer; I've never been arrested), I imagine they do it to keep suspects off balance. While Gates is taking out his ID, he keeps saying "You have no idea who you're messing with," which, frankly, is obviously true.
If the cop had even a clue that Gates might just be exactly who he claimed to be, he should have been smart enough to back down now. But he doesn't - perhaps he resents a intellectual elitist looking down on him and challenging his authority, perhaps he resents an uppity black man who doesn't know his place, but it's also quite possible that he figured there's no way a black guy with a backpack could possibly belong in this house.
Eventually, the cop sees Gates' ID. Oh, shit. Does he apologize and explain that he had to verify Gates' claims because he received a mistaken report of a burglary in progress? Hell, no - he's the one with the gun, why should he be apologizing? So he keeps up with the attitude against Gates, angering Gates further. He walks outside, while Gates demands his name. He keeps giving his name, but Gates, in a bit of turnabout-is-fair-play, keeps yelling at *him* the way he yelled at Gates. So he keeps telling Gates he can't hear in the house and telling Gates to come outside, where, in front of "witnesses" most of whom are on the blue line, who see Gates being abusive with him in, as the police report says, "a public place." So now he can arrest Gates.
That puts that intellectual elitist in his place, eh?
Was Gates an asshole? Maybe, but the cop was in his home, being abusive with him. I wouldn't be shocked if Gates could be an egotistical jerk given the opportunity. But it's not illegal to be an egotistical jerk, and the cop basically arrested him for mouthing off. I have no sympathy for the cop.
that is Uncle Ruckus in the foreground.
see?
http://media.photobucket.com/image/uncle%20ruckus/nootch56/ruckus.jpg?o=3
As per the report, he was initially handcuffed behind his back, but relocated them to the front when the suspect indicated pain. It sounds like a tangential arrest, having an officer called in for one thing, the break-in, then arresting him for another, and it would behoove us to consider as an option that the officer arrested the suspected for their own safety. The details of whether he provided a non-government ID (Harvard ID) or also provided a driver's license, and when, were not factors in his arrest. When the officer saw the school ID, he requested and received Harvard police support, who were present for the arrest. A man who, from several accounts, was fatigued, ill, and exhibiting mental duress was provided a controlled setting, which he was released from, charge-free. The police are responsible for more than arresting criminals, they are serving the public.
I can see both sides of the story. It's eary to make assumptions when you weren't there.
Good argument for police cameras in cars and at scenes, then when the situation is over, re-record! It would save a lot of speculation, and it's not an improbability.
Headline: Local police surprised to learn that African Americans are allowed to own property.
Was that tasteless? If so, sorry.
This would never happen in San Andreas.
This happens to everybody in America.
Too many times, the only difference between a cop and a criminal is that the cop made it through police training before he got arrested.
But it does happen to black people more. I used to live in a predominantly black neighborhood of Atlanta. I've been stopped 12 times for a license check in my entire 50 year lifetime. 11 of those times were during the year and a half I lived in that neighborhood, and every single one of those was on the bridge across the Chattahoochee into lily white Cobb county (home of Bob Barr).
There's no getting around it. When the officer had determined that Gates was in his own home, he had no further business there and should have apologized and left.
#104 Objective Pragmatist: Are you saying, with a straight face, that throwing him in a jail cell was a service to Gates? I take it you've never been arrested and spent a night in jail. There is no way that type of treatment could possibly be called a service. Moreover, the major factor in Gates' distress was the police officers themselves. They could have calmed him down by simply apologizing and leaving.
Racism is everywhere in America (and the world), and you'd be a fool to think Boston (or Cambridge) is somehow unique.
Please take a close look at that photo-- there is a black cop standing there while Gates is being lead out, apparently complicit in the institutional racism.
Was Gates just being rude to a cop? Or was the cop just being a typical jar-headed COP? It's Gates word against the police, and we can all choose sides, but other than Gates and the officer, none of us was actually there. How we judge what happened says more about us than about what actually happened.
When I was in college I worked for the security office my freshman year. My job involved escorting students across campus in a car late at night (dicey neighborhood). One night returning from a drop-off I saw a young black man walking between dorms carrying a TV set on his shoulders (FYI-- I'm as white as they come). I shone the spotlight on him, and he shouted back: "What?! a black man carrying a TV late at night and you think I stole it, right?!" I just said "sorry" and moved on. So what would YOU have done? I actually thought about it at the time-- "should I shine the spotlight on him? Is this racist?" Perhaps, but it was also (I assumed) a part of my job. As it turned out, that young man was a student, and ALSO worked for security, and I later met him and we laughed about the incident and he was not offended. The whole incident could have devolved into anger and shouting and worse, but didn't.
That said, my take on the Gates arrest (again, I was not there) is that probably both parties were complicit in what happened: the officer for being uncooperative, and Gates for automatically assuming the worst. If the black cop had entered his house and questioned him, would Gates have been so irate? And similarly, if the arresting officer had just apologized and offered up his badge number and said "just doing my job, sir" would that have diffused the situation?
Fear and power make people act irrationally. Everybody needs to take a deep breath and relax.
There isn't actually anything here to prove racism, because there's no real information on how these guys treat non-blacks. Maybe they're this unreasonable to everyone. That's not really a point in their defense, though, is it?
@95 Interpunct:
The important difference is citizens aren't required to not be jerks. Cops are, or should be, because we give them a wide variety of special powers. So if they both equally did the wrong thing, one of them was much more at fault.
#67: Now, I can't write about the incident. You said it all! No doubt there will be many "interpretations" on the subject, but I do agree completely with you. I'm not absolutely sure this is a 100% racism case, but I'm 200% inclined to believe that it's alive and well in USA!
So, Gates doesn't want to be racially stereotyped, but does want to rely on his class- and age-privilege?
He doesn't want people to assume that he was breaking in illegally because he's black, but he does want people to assume that because he's distinguished-looking, he shouldn't be hassled with the demand that he show ID after breaking into a house?
The cops arresting him for pitching a fit isn't any worse than his shouts of "Do you know who I am?"
I feel bad for cops who have to put up with crap from criminals all day, only to be further berated by the law-abiding citizens they're trying to protect in situations like this one. Remember, the police were there to protect Gates' property. His behavior would have gotten anybody arrested.
I'd like to see how Gates would have reacted if a young black man broke into his house, was caught by the police, and was released to resume the burglary after he assured the officers that he lived there and had simply locked himself out.
How would he have preferred that the situation unfold? Without the cops checking his ID? With him screaming at the cops, and having them say "I'm sorry you feel that way, but have a nice day?" Sorry, even powerful and important Harvard professors should know better than to scream at the police. It's just stupid, no matter how much baggage you have about police racism or brutality (and it would be stupid even if the police were never racist or brutal).
Several years ago, Chris Rock published some advice on avoiding situations of this type. The video points out the sad reality of police brutality and racism, but also the stupidity of the actions that tend to precede police brutality and/or arrests.
When I was a kid, after my parents had been divorced for nearly a two years, my father broke into our apartment during a week he knew we were away. He kept our address on his drivers license, because he continued to insist it was his residence. He refused to change his address on any bills, accounts, etc. (He was also an insane alcoholic--ended up homeless 35 years later.)
My point being, the presentation of an ID with a "correct" address doesn't necessarily mean the cop should have immediately apologized and left. Especially after a neighbor had (properly or improperly, you decide) reported a break in was occurring. One of our apartment neighbors reported my father entering through a window to the apartment manager, but my father showed an ID, so the manager let him be. Eventually the neighbor called the cops directly, and eventually my mother was contacted. Should the cops have just left my father there anyway? I'm certainly glad they didn't, or he'd have been there when we returned. The situation was odd and suspicious, and the cops had to logically assume there might be something odd going on, once a something odd had been reported, unless or until they were able to confirm otherwise. Unfortunately, in our case, my father had been there for three days or so before he was remioved. He had already taken our microwave, our towels, our pots and pans (?) and my sister's bicycle.
I'm actually a fan of Gates. But I think Gates was embarrassed, and was a little too quick to scream racism over what was clearly a set of misread circumstances. I've read all the accounts I can find so far, and I see no reasonable basis for bringing race into this. Though I'm also fairly certain the reason Gates was so quick to assert that scenario must be due to the accumulation of a thousand other subtle indignities he has legitimately experienced over the course of his lifetime as a black man in America.
The one thing I find really odd about the story, all told, is that no one there in Cambridge recognized him as a celebrity academic. I mean, I see his face on television all the time. That;s what should have been able to defuse the situation. I think Gates was probably surprised and embarrassed by not being recognized, on top of everything else, which added to his indignation. That's just more speculation on my part, of course.
The most disappointing part of the whole thing, so far? BB's censorship of statements above that it apparently didn't care for. Bizarre. You guys are starting to believe (and to become victims of) your own mythology. Read Animal Farm or something, before it's too late.
There is zero need for wondering and bickering in this day and age. For some police forces it's standard to have a constant video/audio log mounted to the car, and a credit-card sized wi-fi camcorder mounted to every officer's front pocket would not be that hard, or expensive to implement. Why on earth are cameras a standard for elevators, lobbies, etc. but not police confrontations?
I want this to happen, so if someone else could be kind enough to rally for it I'd be very grateful. I'm too scared.
Takuan asked:
We are talking about a prominent University Professor, a "Harvard Scholar" who has had a "lifetime of getting fucked over by a white, racist system"? If true, why is he so upset? (If it's always been like this) If true, why did it never occur to him to do anything about it until he was arrested? (It looks like he has written almost a dozen books, been involved in countless notable projects around race and racial issues, and only NOW it occured to him to think about focusing on racial profiling?) He said:
Seems to me this was his first time being "fucked over by a white, racist system"... And he didn't like it one bit.
At first I thought, why is it necessary to say a “Prominent Black professor” and not simply Henry Louis Gates Jr.? Who in God’s name doesn’t know Henry Louis Gates Jr.? Apparently, the answer is his neighbor and the cops in Cambridge.
All that said, cops get pretty uppity when you yell, no matter who you are.
Perhaps Gates should watch this educational video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOx6OM01M5M&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Foptempo.com%2F2007%2F10%2F17%2Fchris-rocks-how-not-to-get-arrested%2F&feature=player_embedded
Too bad this happened. What a shame. Sounds like Nassau County.
If there is any steam left in this thread I would like to hear stories from those of you who claimed your civil rights in a vigorous manner from police who were in your presence and seeking to ask you questions or detain your movement or even prevent you from staying, rather than leaving ("move along please").
We have all had a lot of different experiences so those of us who used, rather than courtesy, or deference, or even raw compliance as so many have suggested, rather than those kinds of tactics, instead used mastery, outrage, or force of some kind in order to resolve a situation with the police.
A lot of people have feelings like that after the situation is already over but there is such a wide sample here and so many strong views I'd like to hear from the true confronters who have lived through their challenge to law enforcement authority. Gates did it. Did you?
well gee Timothy, think where he might be now in a fair system. President?
I hope they took down his DNA, after all he is as likely to commit crimes in the future as guilty people http://tinyurl.com/lomhqb
Having lived in the Mission Hill area during the Willie Bennett debacle, I am rarely surprised by anything the police in the area do.
That being said, I'm sure everyone in the department is now looking forward to the upcoming sensitivity training workshops they will all get to nap through soon.
@ MRJM
There is no such thing as "reverse" discrimination or racism. White people don't own the word. You are being discriminatory based on sex, religion, etc. or you are judging someone based on their race, in which case you are being racist. Saying "reverse" discrimination stinks of WASPcentrism
Sirdook, et al., get up off your knees. It's not illegal to be rude to a police officer. It's also not illegal to get angry at a police office who's mistreating you in your own home.
Klenow, Ksoileau, Verre, Brundlefly, Interpunct, Anonymous @113, Jonathan V: thank you for demonstrating that you're white, clueless, and uncomfortable with this subject.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a Harvard professor, and a very distinguished scholar and public intellectual. I can't imagine this incident happening to a white man who fit that description.
It's like Antinous said at comment 51 -- any time there's a story like this on Boing Boing, the comment thread breaks out in a rash of guys explaining how it had nothing to do with racism.
The only way they can back up that assertion is by re-imagining the story to make it fit into their existing narratives. Near as I can tell, the only thing you'd find acceptable would be certified telepathic evidence that the officers had racist attitudes that affected their performance. Otherwise, the police get every possible benefit of the doubt, and the victim gets none.Interpunct in particular:
You must have a tin ear for dialogue if you're willing to believe that the brilliant and articulate Professor Gates led off with a line like that in the absence of any provocation. And you must have a worse-than-tin ear if you believe that Gates (still unprovoked) immediately followed that by accusing the officer of racism.Did you not find it odd that the officer was quoting Gates' dialogue, but summarizing and describing his own?
I can imagine believing that Gates said both things the officer reported. What I don't believe is that Gates just up and started talking like that all on his own.
That description doesn't match any other report of the incident. Why did you decide to believe it?Cosmonaut Zero @72, read the site guidelines. They're linked from the front page.
I would like to state the the profesor should feel blessed that he was treated just that nice. I feel that the subject should be bigger than racial profiling, but more like Human Rights abuse and abuse of power. I was recently taken to the ground threatened,arrested,all after answering the door upon a knock, and before being asked to identify myself. Even a documentory by this prostige Professor won't change a thing for those who can't afford to defend there rights, or who don't have the prostige that Proressor Gates Jr. has in order to have the charges dropped. He should feel blessed that they cuffed his hands in front and not his back. Good thing he wasn't arrested by the Officers that arrested me, Professor Gates would have and would be highly unnerved.
I believe there is nothing racial about this but I may be wrong. I am white and was recently arrested in a small American town. The officer flat out lied. Was caught lying on the surveillance tape. Lied again that he had phoned another officer that had warned me previously. This is an example of how hard it is to get people with integrity into positions within our legal system. I believe the officer that arrested him was on an agenda and didn't let his common sense come into play when he realized he was in the wrong... Apologize and move on to more important things.
...just another case of a brother gettin' hassled by the man.
There is no even ground between black and white women/men. It's an ideal we all want to be true, but it's far from being there yet.
In the kind of society most of us live in, you can't compare an injustice committed to a black person with an injustice committed to a white person. It's just ridiculous.
Every breath you waste defending cops and claiming this not to be related to racism, you contribute to your status of perpetrator, and make yourself even less liable to claim the status of a victim.
Oh, and I agree with Takuan on the cops. They had the choice not to defend and uphold the system that encourages this kind of racist behavior, but they still chose to be cops.
Most of them want power over others, while being subject to greater power (the government). It's a form of sadomasochism.
Ever read Der Untertan from Heinrich Mann? It illustrates pretty well the kind of people who like to 'serve' in this way.
In short, cops don't deserve any respect.
This story today has been published by the Italian bestelling newspaper LA REPUBBLICA:
http://www.repubblica.it/2009/07/sezioni/esteri/usa-prof-nero/usa-prof-nero/usa-prof-nero.html?rss
@ Teresa 126
Well, this: Maybe they're this unreasonable to everyone. That's not really a point in their defense, though, is it?
...wasn't meant to suggest I don't think this was racism. I was more surprised at the tone of some comments considering this unproven, supposing that if they might have been just as unfair and authoritarian to white people, they must have been acting like upstanding policemen or something.
That doesn't make sense to me. There are two problems here: how they treated Gates, and why they treated him that way. Even if you could explain away the second, the first is still a clear enough abuse.
I'm probably still clueless and uncomfortable, but maybe that makes a bit more sense.
#3,
Neither have I but I doubt I will get arrested when I lock myself out of my house. Thats because I am white.
The only mistake the officer made here was following the professor into the house. Had it been an actual break in, there could have been a man standing behind the door waiting for the officer. That's why you have anyone inside come outside first.
Ironic side note : my RECaptcha is "10 burglar"
I've heard so many different stories about what happened. This one says he was waiting for harvard maint to come and open his house. Others report he was trying to shoulder to push the door in. And that he went in his house and refused to come out when the police asked. (sometime after after for the id). I think this harvard prof caused of lot this grief himself assuming the cop was racially motivated. It doesn't matter what your skin color if you are yelling at a cop not cooperating you're going to get arrested. He must have lovely neighbors and doesn't bother to get to know them as well. And if he thought the lock was tampered why not call the cops yourself and just sit on the step and wait? The cop overreacted as well but then I think both sides were wrong in this story.
The prof the most though. Isn't it racist to assume that all cops are racist?
I would like to address an assumption that percolates through all of the discussion boards I've visited-- that Skip Gates is so famous that his neighbor would know who he is.
In academia, when we talk about celebrity, we are counting fame in the thousands, not millions. In Cambridge people live next to, walk by, even chat with Nobel laureates and bestselling authors on a daily basis, but most people wouldn't know it.
When I was a first year graduate student at Harvard, my friend told me he was recently embarrassed. He had walked up to the "new guy" in the Biology Dept., introduced himself, and welcomed the visiting scholar, to which the new guy replied, "I'm E.O. Wilson, and I've been here for 40 years. Nice to meet you!"
My friend didn't recognize a author whose books he had read many times, but the clincher is that when I tell this story, (to other biologists!), I regularly get asked, "Who's E.O. Wilson?"
So, I'm sorry, Skip Gates is not so famous that everyone would know him on the street.
If you're not cop, you're little people.
Takuan - It's hard to imagine exactly how he was held-back (on the macro level, I will agree with him being abused on a person to person level, if that is your assertion). How many more books would he have written, how many more books would he have edited, how many more speeches would he have given, how many more television specials/documentaries would he have been involved in if here weren't "getting fucked over by a white, racist system"?
I take nothing away from any, ANY of his accomplishments by pointing this out - I do take exception of your labeling him as a life-long victim of "a white, racist system". If "the man was keeping him down," the man did a horrible, horrible job.
Maybe my sarcasm detector is failing, but if this is serious then it is clueless. No lawsuit, no payout, no reason for that cop shop to change anything. As you can see just from reading this page, cops are champions at reinforcing each other's excuses and assuring each other it's all their victims' fault.
That anyone could take my comment @22 as anything other than sarcasm is very, very depressing.
http://WhitePatsBurden.notlong.com
-- MrJM
I have been with a black friend who was driving the same nice Volvo, in the same small, very white neighborhood and pulled over twice by the same cop who claimed my friend did not stop at a stop sign or some other nonsense. My friend did not get a ticket either time as well. It was quite clearly a case of "driving-while-black" and my insight to these issues grew as a result of this sort of racial policing. I don't know if I could deal with it as well as my friend did either.
I think Randall in #5 nailed it. Of course the cop was acting hostile! He thought he was confronting a uncooperative burglar. If you break into your own house you shouldn't be surprised if the cops show up! He should have known this and known the first thing he should have done is demonstrate that no crime was committed. Nothing racial about it.
I also don't blame the cop for not identifying himself--would you want to identify yourself to someone you know is planning to bring unfounded allegations??
Antinous, I made the Fox comparison because the headline is sensationalist and misleading. I do not believe that racism is extinct in America, I know it is alive and causing problems every day. But an adult being rude to a cop isn't being persecuted for his race. I just do not believe in the least that this was a racial incident.
I don't understand why someone would be upset that a cop would investigate a report of his house being broken into. Why would producing ID (without the attitude that even the professor admits to) be some sort of infringement of rights or example of racism when (a) there was a report of a break-in, and (b) the door had been forced?
Michael Smith said:
For locking yourself out of your own house, I agree - but that isn't the case here.
Briefly, the professor was returning from an extended trip, found his key didn't work in the lock, and rather than try and find another way to enter the house (call for help, for example), he enlisted the help of the cab driver that brought him home and "broke into" his own house. A passer-by called police when she saw two men pushing in the front door of a house, and then we get two versions of the story.
He wasn't arrested for locking himself out of his own house.
He wasn't arrested for breaking into his own house.
He was arrested for disorderly conduct, and the charges were dropped within 24 hours.
A white man in the same situation, acting the same way (oddly yelling "Why, because I'm a white man in America?!") at a police officer most likely WOULD have been similarly charged.
Also, in my infrequent brushes with the law, I know that the officer's badge number and name are on the front of his shirt, and will be on any police report, summons issued, etc. I find it odd (but not wrong, just odd) that Mr. Gates had to know the officer's name and badge number NOW - it comes across to me as his attempt to get some control over the officer, who was trying to get control over Mr. Gates as he tried to make sense of the situation.
a black man dealing with a white cop also knows there is more white cops and guards at the station and a white judge waiting behind them.
note this fool has always had a nationally heard platform. As opposed to a cardboard box in the park.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/21/maddow-demolishes-buchana_n_241812.html
@Teresa Nielsen Hayden,
Thank you for your astute summary of my thoughts. Clearly suggesting that one treat their fellow human beings with respect, even when those people are cops, is my way of bowing down to them, and I definitely said it was illegal to be rude to them. Your ability to read between the lines and into my deepest thoughts is astounding.
I don't think it's an especially conservative position to believe a) that police have a legitimate job to do, that b) that legitimate job includes investigating incidents in which someone is seen forcing a lock in order to enter a home. Given that, it's hard to see what's so astounding about the idea that we as citizens have an obligation to cooperate with the police when they are legitimately doing their job. In this respect I see cops in much the same way I do wait staff at a restaurant - they do a job that I'm glad somebody is doing, and I'm glad I don't have to.
I also am not one of the people (though there are many here) who assume either a) there is no serious racism in America, b)cops aren't frequently guilty of racism, or c) it is clear that racism played no role in this case.
If things went down the way Gates said, the cop was clearly out of line. Racisism is real and it has real impacts on people's lives, and too many white Americans are blind to this fact. However, it is no aid to the cause of opposing racism to replace it with a blanket assumption that all cops are bad.
Even if things went down the way the cop said, the arrest was probably going too far. It would be nice to be able to have a rational discussion of that question, but it's hard to do that in the context of Xeni's headline and others who aren't willing to even entertain the barest possibility that there could be any nonracist explanation for a confrontation between a cop and a man who broke into his own house.
Poor reasoning and sensationalism are no better when they support my politics and presuppositions than when they don't. Indeed they're worse, because they leave the undecided with the (often, sadly accurate) impression that they can learn nothing from the debates among those of us who've already made up our minds because each of us is just applying our conflicting preconceptions to any case that comes up.
No Pat Buchanan or Rush Limbaugh could ever do a more effective job than Takuan in convincing well-meaning but ill-informed white people that claims of institutional racism are bogus claims propped up by political correctness or liberal guilt or irrational bias.
Of course racism is real, as those who have experienced it well know. But you'll never teach that to those that don't by using the misleading tactics of the opposition.
Takuan - and the information the professor wanted would be on the white piece of paper handed to him by the white police man you spoke of...
And assuming the the group of police on the porch and front yard (as shown in the selected photo for this story) follow him back to the station, there will be at least two black officers with him.
Don't start nothing, won't be nothing
If someone calls the cops they investigate... if dude wants to throw a brat fit, harass the woman who called the cops on him in the first place... Seriously, the racism thing has turned into a circus. I once had empathy and/or sympathy (depending on the situation) for racism towards minorities, but to be bluntly honest, the race card has been so over-played, misused and abused I am just sick of hearing about racism at all and new cases are quickly discounted as "probably just more BS", especially if Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton become involved... there once was a boy who cried wolf. It's not a race issue, it's a class issue.
I don't understand why this all has to be about racism. Did the cops make racist comments? Are we simply calling this racism because one person is black and another person is white? I see in the photo a black officer there at scene.
BB posts quite frequently on cops who do a bad job. MANY of these posts involve a white person. In those cases isn't it simply a bad cop doing a bad job? Why, the second someone sees that a black man is involved and being wronged, does this all of a sudden become a huge issue about racism. The racism issue clouds the entire subject.
Think back to the post about the cops who tazed and beat the naked guy at Coachella a few months back. Now imagine if that guy was black and how racism would have been the immediate conclusion and the most heated topic of discussion.
At some point we have to just concede that many cops are bad, they do bad things because they CAN, and everyone; white, black, yellow is at risk.
I don't see this as a racial issue at all. Simply another in a long list of stories about cops abusing their authority. It happens daily, to all races.
What cops are prejudice against is citizens who assert their rights.
@dcluberson #139: That's funny, because your Fox News comparison is ALSO sensationalist and misleading. I agree the headline could have been written better, but that's not a good way to get your point across.
@drdilemma #145: How in the world is it a class issue in this case? Gates is a wealthy and famous professor at a prestigious university? Gates is clearly and squarely in the upper class, there are no two ways about it. Unless you're insinuating that it's impossible for him to belong to the upper class because of his race, in which case you have exposed yourself. I agree that in many cases of prejudice class is a bigger factor than race, but you're being intellectually dishonest if you think it even comes close to applying in this situation.
heh! Wriggle all you want, you still have to take orders from a black man who happens to be your president.
- "I'm Irish"
- "Gee, maybe your race played a role in how that situation went down."
BRUNDLEFLY76 didn't specify a race, only a nationality. We do have black Irish people, you know.
aye, and don't ye be forgetting the squamous, loathesome Irish either! (I have the papers!)
It doesn't matter what your skin color if you are yelling at a cop not cooperating you're going to get arrested.
Probably true. Also fucked. What's with so many commenters sucking up to authority? Why do you think that it's alright for a cop to come into your house and order you around? If you leave your front door open and your neighbor drops a dime, should you put up with cops walking into your home and bullying you? Or should you tell them to get the fuck out unless they have a warrant?
This authority-loving attitude is the reason that civil liberties are eroding. We get the government that we deserve.
Just so I'm clear on the moderation policy:
Comparing BB to Fox News is not allowed, but referring to police officers as "pigs" is acceptable, correct?
f thy R pgs, why nt?
Takuan - Not being in the military, I believe you have the chain of command backwards... Last I checked, the President works for ME and my fellow Americans, not the other way around.
He doesn't "happen to be" my President, lots of people worked very, very hard and spent nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars and he campaigned for nearly two full years to become the 44th President of the United States.
That didn't just happen.
I forsee a new trend in house design. Courtyard facing with double doored, armoured vestibules with video uplink. Actually nothing new at all, Jubal Harshaw's compound.
ah, I see - a CONSPIRACY!
"Isn't it racist to assume that all cops are racist?"
Only if you assume all cops are of the same race (white?). Otherwise it's probably just profession~ist.
I am just sick of hearing about racism at all
You poor, poor man. Minorities suffer systematic abuse, harassment, imprisonment and murder and you have to hear about it. I'm so sorry that hearing about other people's suffering has disturbed your sensitive soul.
Haha! I yelled at a cop less than a year ago for not providing me with his name. Tore him a new one, in fact, for about five minutes straight because he was rude to me on my own property.
Told him he had no right to command me to do any damn thing and that I had every right to prosecute him for trespassing if he could not prove he was a public servant performing a legal duty, and that I damn well would press charges if he couldn't explain himself in a respectful fashion.
I'm white, upper middle class and was leaving home for church at the time. The copper put his tail between his legs and apologized, at which point I graciously accepted his apology.
No, I'm not kidding. It happened. Just a data point for y'all.
referring to police officers as "pigs" is acceptable
Referring to an individual by an epithet may be acceptable. Referring to a class of people by an epithet generally isn't. However, if you want me to do something about it, you have to flag the comment so that I'll see it.
The Gates case aside, I'm not sure why pointing out that yelling at cops is not a pragmatic way of dealing with them is called "sucking up to authority." Surely not every disgruntled citizen who says "Fuck you, pig" is Patrick Henry?
Let's see ...
We need some new deniers, real skeptics.
From some of what I read here (and bb is a civilized site), it might be an easy step from racism deniers to slavery deniers.
Slavery never happened. Any takers?
Surely not every disgruntled citizen who says "Fuck you, pig" is Patrick Henry?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Saying, "Get the fuck out of my house unless you show me a warrant" at least makes you Rosa Parks. There's this assumption that defense of liberties and social change comes from perfect angelic political saints. In reality, it's mostly obnoxious loudmouths and squeaky wheels who keep us safe from totalitarianism. Anyone who defends their constitutional rights, whether they're polite or an asshole, is a hero and deserves some respect. If you give away your rights just to make nice, you're the grease that keep the slippery slope working.
I don't think I'm necessarily making that assumption, but others sure do.
Sure, but then there are many lawyers, concerned citizens, etc., who uphold our liberties and manage to obey the laws: there are many ways to perform one's concerned citizenship. I'd say that anyone who defends their Constitutional rights effectively is worthy of respect: I don't think angering cops, deliberately or otherwise, is necessarily effective, or effective at all, and thus I'm not sure why, say, Ranty McRanterson is as worthy of our respect as, say, Rosa Parks or Charles Swift.
If you want, think of politeness as a weapon against authority, maybe a more effective one than anger or rudeness.
It's amazing to see so many BB commentors saying this isn't about race. I do agree the title is hyperbolic, but it's an effing title, it's supposed to be catchy and draw attention to the post, it's not a one-line summary.
Here's my reading of the events, Cop was unneccessarily rude and abusive when confronting Gates, which was certainly due to his racial biases telling him that a black guy had no business in that neighborhood (in his defence a low-pay high-risk job doesn't exactly foster enlightened thinking).
Gates did not cooperate with him and was uncivil to the police officer, which was not the best thing to do, considering that apart from his lack of decent behaviour, it was certainly a legitimate concern for the police to check his identity (though I don't particularly blame Gates, considering he had just got back from a long flight and was probably sick of racist assholes).
However, after Gates SHOWED HIM HIS ID, the unpleasant encounter should have ended, and policeman should have left. With Gates perhaps later complaining of racial profiling and the policeman getting a harmless reprimand.
However, for the policeman to then escalate the conflict and arrest Gates, is just proof that he was a racist asshole who couldn't admit defeat in a pissing contest and though he would get away with it, unaware of who Gates was. It is this last part that bothers me the most.
And for those of you who are citing evidence of the police misbehaving with whites, were any of them 58 year old college professors?
@Antinous #167: "If you give away your rights just to make nice, you're the grease that keep the slippery slope working."
I'm not so sure on that. I can think of plenty of behaviour that while legal is unneccesarily aggressive/unpleasant. However, the fact that someone was being an asshole is not a valid defense for encroaching upon on their rights.
I'm not saying Gates was under any obligation to be polite, which the policeman as a public servant was. Just that pragmatically it might have helped. Saying "Please show me your ID", doesn't need any more effort than shouting "SHOW ME YOUR ID"
antinous@51:
Reading BB comments on racial issues over the last two years has taught me that racism just plain doesn't exist.
People are saying "this isn't racism". You could have disagreed with them on the merits of why you think this was racism. But instead, you strawmanned their position into "racism doesn't exist".
In fact, it must never have existed.
Strawman, and a silly one at that.
Because somehow, no matter what happens, there are so many reasons why the incident 'wasn't really about race'.
Some people on the internet will disagree with you. Get used to it and stop using that as an excuse to make broadsweeping generalizations that are actually silly strawman arguments when dissected at face value. If you don't want anyone to disagree with you, stop posting on the internet... or disable comments. Otherwise, deal with it.
You want to hear a story?
No, not really.
Do you seriously think that would have happened if he had been a black guy?
I believe there's a phrase bandied about on BB once in a while: The plural of anecdote is not "fact". And you didn't even bother with plural.
What exactly do you want here? Is it your demand that everytime one of the boingers posts an article and shouts "Racism!" that the comment thread be nothing but "Racism!" in echo?"
Marco!
Polo!
If that's what you're looking for here, then, really, what is the point of having comments on other than to hear everyone tell BB how brilliant they are and completely and unanimously agree?
Otherwise, if you're looking for a real conversation in the real world, you're gonna have to put up with some people disagreeing with you. If you can't handle that without strawmanning someone saying "this case doesn't look like racism" into "no racism ever existed anywhere or anytime, EVAH", then, consider posting somewhere not connected to the internet.
Me, personally, I think this was 3 parts racism, 1 part cop ego, and 1 or 2 parts Gates's attitude.
Can I prove that? no. It's my opinion based on the very limited set of facts currently available.
But if you want to dismiss that opinion because it isn't shouting "RACISM!", then, seriously, BB ought to consider either disabling comments or not posting at all.
I also think BB's choice of headline for this thread is borderline yellow journalism: "It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism". I get the "driving while black" reference. But he wasn't actually arrested for B&E. I remember back when the news always made a point to report an arrest as having brought in "an alleged murderer" or "an alledge robber" or whatever the charge was. But in this case, BB didn't even get the right alleged charge.
He was arrested after breaking into his own home. But he wasn't arrested for breaking into his own home. He was arrested for, well, this is interesting, BB doesn't even bother to report what the actual charge was. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, and then the charges were dropped a day (or two?) later.
So, while I get the headline is a reference to "driving while black", I also get that it states the wrong charge for arrest, while the article itself fails to clarify what the actual charge was.
Which gets BB dinged for lousy reporting.
I'm sure it's a perfectly fine headline and article for anyone who reads it and automatically shouts "RACISM!" in echo. But welcome to the internet, not everyone is going to blindly agree with you, and some people are goign to call you on you when you do shortcuts. The headline and the fact that the article never actually reports what the real charge was was a shortcut.
Now, if you insist on taking any and all criticism of this article and dismissing and strawmanning it into nonsense, again, why exactly are you posting this on the internet?
antinous@167: Saying, "Get the fuck out of my house unless you show me a warrant" at least makes you Rosa Parks.
Bullshit. Rosa Parks didn't say any such thing.
There's this assumption that defense of liberties and social change comes from perfect angelic political saints.
That's another strawman. Saying "Gates wouldn't have gotten arrested if he had been polite" isn't saying Gates is a defender of liberty and social change and has to act perfectly and politely.
In reality, it's mostly obnoxious loudmouths and squeaky wheels who keep us safe from totalitarianism.
What is hillarious is you present this as if the individual "defender of liberty" is the one who forces "social change" through his or her obnoxious loudmouth actions.
Rosa Parks changed a lot of opinions because she was human and tired and others could identify with her. Uncle Tom's Cabin showed black slaves as intelligent and caring and human, and Lincoln considered it the book that started the civil war.
Nobody causes social change without changing society's opinions. You can demand that we must respect this person or that person, but you're going to be very disappointed. People respect who they respect, whether you think they "deserve" it or not.
Anyone who defends their constitutional rights, whether they're polite or an asshole, is a hero
that may be true, but...
and deserves some respect.
Respect is given, not taken. Stop ordering people around as to who they have to respect.
If you give away your rights just to make nice, you're the grease that keep the slippery slope working.
false equivalence. Gates wouldn't have been giving away any of his damn rights by being polite or just to "make nice".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-m-terry/a-stranger-in-mine-own-ho_b_242392.html
@137 No choice, huh?
if Crowley is allowed to keep his job it proves the Boston police have institutionalized racism.
#151 POSTED BY COSMONAUT ZERO,
"you have exposed yourself"- what does that even mean?
What happened to Gates, the older man who cried wolf, wasn't a race issue it was a hypersensitive black man crying foul before foul ever existed. Did you even read any of the various articles on this story?
Here's a synopsis;
1) A woman calls the police because she sees two men forcing their way into a house (verified by Gates himself), good call, I would have also.
2) Police go to investigate, ask Gates for his identification, proper procedure.
3) Gates acts like a fool.
4) Gates gets arrested for acting like a fool.
At least Gates got his fame, congratulations Mr. Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.! Your a testament to your fellow Harvard alumni.
Comparing this to other events with other people serves no purpose other than to justify a bogus perspective relating to this particular event.
If I, a Blue eyed blond haired Caucasian, acted like a fool towards our local suburban police I would be hauled off also.
My point is that the main issue in our society is not race, it is class bias. Like it or not, the rich- regardless of ethnicity- get away with murder while the poor continuously get locked up for little or nothing- this was a generalisation.
Yes, there are racist people out there and some are cops. No race is excluded from racism, but i dare say that racists are a minority. This is yet another example of the race card being abused and serves no purpose other than to keep racism alive and well and continue to divide our nation, albeit events such as this also serves to desensitize the populous to events where racism does actually play a role.
Racism- hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
Whites make up 75% of our nation, if the majority of our nation were racist our current president would be McCain.
Keyword for this situation- Ignorance
Takuan: if Crowley is allowed to keep his job it proves the Boston police have institutionalized racism.
except it was Cambridge police, not Boston police.
I've pretty much given up on you ever changing your anti-cop fascism, takuan, but at least keep the facts straight.
"anti-cop"? You wound me, sir, you wound me grievously. My anti-fascism is always directed against fascists. It is mere coincidence some happen to be cops as well.
If Crowley is allowed to keep his job, it proves America has institutionalized racism.
(lots of crypto-cops hanging around this board)
drdilemma: It's not a race issue, it's a class issue.
Dude. wtf? Gates is about as upper class as one can get without being a bajillionaire. Saying this is a "class" issue is just plain ignoring basic facts here.
Comparing this to other events with other people serves no purpose other than to justify a bogus perspective relating to this particular event.
well, it's interesting that you argue this and then later in that same post, and then invoke McCain's run for president. What bogus perspective where you trying to justyf by relating to that particular event?
i dare say that racists are a minority.
irrelevant red herring. The nationaal statistics of racism aren't being debated. What's being debated is whether or not this particular incident involved some form of racism.
there are racist people out there and some are cops.
It's so much easier to acknowlege the hyppothetical existence racism than to acknowlege a specific act of racism.
Given how little specific information has actually come out on this case, and given two completely conflicting versions of what happened, I find it impossible to definitively rule out that the cop was racist to some degree.
The fact that you have definitively ruled out the possibility that the cop may have been racist, without actually having hard evidence to do so, would suggest that that's the conclusion you want to reach, and you simply used the vacuous lack of information to inject your own interpretation.
in short, you're arguing from ignorance.
so what are you arguing from? Intimate knowledge of Crowley?
Breaking news: Takuan discovers America has institutionalized racism. Also, crypto-cop infestation reported on popular blog. Stay tuned!
like, who would trust this guy?
http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/aleister_crowley.jpg
and what about the last police picnic?
http://www.law.du.edu/jenkins/images/kkk.gif
One way in which class might be operating here is blue-collar cop vs white-collar professor. Folks seem to be privileging the racial narrative over the class-based one. Granted, the racism seems self-evident here, but it's hard to imagine classism not playing a role.
takuan: "anti-cop"? You wound me, sir, you wound me grievously. My anti-fascism is always directed against fascists. It is mere coincidence some happen to be cops as well.
The reason I gave up on you ever changing your opinion? The fact that you can't even come out and acknowledge that you hate all cops. You'll dance around the truth but never squarely acknowledge the truth. It's self delusional, but whatever floats your boat.
If Crowley is allowed to keep his job, it proves America has institutionalized racism.
Uh, America already had institutionalized racism. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and all that. Crowley wouldn't be the first anything.
And if Crowley keeps his job, it doesn't mean anything other than the city is covering it's ass. Firing Crowley would be an admission that something bad happened, which would be just that much more evidence in a lawsuit against the city.
The first rule of any bureacracy: Admit no wrong.
buy Greg, If I didn't have a deep, abiding love for all police, would I spend so much effort in their gentle correction?
http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x592691395/Editorial-Cambridge-Police-Department-still-has-a-lot-to-explain
#180 POSTED BY GREGLONDON
Dude. wtf? Gates is about as upper class as one can get without being a bajillionaire. Saying this is a "class" issue is just plain ignoring basic facts here.
Dude. wtf? I already explained that the class comment was a generalisation. You do understand what a generalisation is? I'm sure you do, you're so smart! Look, I made an assumption!
Just in case my assumption is incorrect, let me reiterate;
"My point is that the main issue in our society is not race, it is class bias. Like it or not, the rich- regardless of ethnicity- get away with murder while the poor continuously get locked up for little or nothing- this was a generalisation."
There's that word again... (dictionary.com might help in this case)
well, it's interesting that you argue this and then later in that same post, and then invoke McCain's run for president. What bogus perspective where you trying to justyf by relating to that particular event?
Generalized racism? Assuming the white cop was a racist for hauling off a black man? Assuming a cop doing his job, as a white man responding to a black man's home which ends in a black man in cuffs was "racial profiling"? How does a cop who was called to a specific home with a specific description of a black man forcing his way into said home fall under racial profiling exactly? Oh, the assumption is because the black man was asked to show identification he must be a victim a racism, because whites are never asked for their IDs when confronted by white cops...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/21/AR2009072102782.html?hpid=topnews
It's so much easier to acknowlege the hyppothetical existence racism than to acknowlege a specific act of racism.
A valid point, exactly, nicely put, really, pure genius, sounds like you are assuming there was a case of racism? **Acknowledge what "existence of racism" exactly?** I have yet to see any information that supports the viewpoint that there was an act of racism.
The fact that you have definitively ruled out the possibility that the cop may have been racist, without actually having hard evidence to do so, would suggest that that's the conclusion you want to reach, and you simply used the vacuous lack of information to inject your own interpretation.
Whatever, how about going by the information provided (same as anyone else who comments on articles does), we go by existing information, you know the various articles covering the subject at hand.
Reference the synopsis, or do you also argue against the synopsis i provided as having no basis based on the articles that have covered this story thus far?
in short, you're arguing from ignorance.
** Ok, thank you Mr Intellectual, but since none of us were there to actually witness what happened I suppose we all are, aren't we? Kinda like assuming there was an "existence of racism"?**
Greg London, this golf clap is for you
http://blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/2009/07/21/about-the-bostoncom-gates-arrest-report/
This is pure race-baiting! If I broke into my own house and cops showed up asking for ID, I'd be thankful that there's police around and that they're checking up on me. If I read the story right, Gates was rightfully arrested for refusing to produce ID when repeated asked for it. This is hardly racial profiling. It's called common sense. Heck, I'm chinese, and if a chinese man was spotted breaking into my house, I would surely hope the police wouldn't say "Oh, he's chinese, and he says he lives here. Based on his race, it must be true. So, we don't need to see his ID. Let's move along."
Reading BB comments on racial issues over the last two years has taught me that racism just plain doesn't exist. In fact, it must never have existed. Because somehow, no matter what happens, there are so many reasons why the incident 'wasn't really about race'.
So very true...
All I see among the majority of comments here is sad unthinking servility to authority.
@Sirdook
"Poor reasoning and sensationalism are no better when they support my politics and presuppositions than when they don't. Indeed they're worse..."
Please separate the message itself (in for example Xeni's headline), from the way it is transmitted. It's all about the content and not how the content is presented.
Yes I agree, sensationalism, propaganda, and so on, are rather simplistic and not very subtle and elegant methods to spread an idea or message. They are radical methods.
But when radical methods are used to spread certain concepts, I think it makes a big difference if these concepts are say, racist concepts, or like in this case, an anti-racist message.
In fact I think it's even positive that the editors display a radical stance against racism, even if it's only in the title of an article.
To complain about it, IMHO is sad.
@Hutton:
"If "the man was keeping him down," the man did a horrible, horrible job."
Why not say that "the professor did a great great job"? Instead of giving merit to the success of somebody who probably fought hard to get where he is, you attribute his success to the failure of others. This is just another great example of how "the man will always keeps him down".
why does that not surprise me, sylk?
Everyone who is surprised to see Sylkworm defending the authoritarian side shout "YEAH!" now.
*crickets chirp*
Yeah, me neither.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_anti-African_protests
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0723/p02s01-ussc.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/gates.arrest.reaction/index.html
@Felix,
So lying's ok as long as you're on the right side and the issue is important?
let's see you hold the bad guys to a similar standard.
@#126 Hayden:
Thank you for the insightful and eerily accurate psychoanalysis of me. I'll be certain to enroll in that racial sensitivity training class that will surely expunge me of the ills I'm sure you know ail me.
Your remote sensory perceptions are apparently quite strong; you were also able to inhabit the minds of both Mr. Gates and Sergeant Crowley to form a narrative quite removed from the actual incident. I am convinced of your powers.
And don't worry about overusing claims of racism for fear they'll become meaningless background noise despite the social, economic and political advances of black people in America today. Not until a black man attains the highest office in the land. Oh, wait...
well Obama just called like it is.
waall, punct. after two posts y'all smells laik a bee-got ta me.
Falix - my comment about the man failing at keeping him down was a response to Takuan's comments about his life-long struggle being "fucked" by a "white, racist society".
When I look at Professor Gates, I see a man who succeeded and makes a difference in the world around him. (Apparently) when Takuan looks at him he sees a black man that over came horrific racial bias. The difference is that I feel his accomplishments transcend race, others qualify his success by considering his race...
yeah....`right.
From: Why I don't feel sorry for Henry Louis Gates
so Watkins resents people who got to Harvard while he languished at Syracuse. So?
Takuan - Dr. Watkins is no slouch (see below), interesting how you merrily throw him under the bus and invent a motivation for him when he doesn't share your viewpoint.
Since education is your measuring stick...
From: BoyceWatkins.com
@Timothy Hutton,
Thanks for the link. It gives me hope that there's some possibility of someone, somewhere having a well-reasoned discussion of this incident. I wonder if anyone has anything more than ad hominem insults to offer in response.
You know him? Maybe he's just a dick. And don't you worry Dooky, there's plenty out there willing to confirm your prejudices.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/22/james-crowley-policeman-w_n_243262.html
Lets get real for just a split second....
What some (not all) fail to realize is that the hoopla is irrelevant.
No matter what happened before or after, AFTER Skip Gates showed 2 forms of I.D. the cop should've left.
HOWEVER, instead of the cops leaving, Skip Gates gets handcuffed, escorted to the police station, finger-printed, booked AND had his mugshot taken.
Would all of the intelligent reasonable thinkers in the forum raise their hands, please?
Sad how ANYone would have ANYthing negative to say about Skip Gates regarding a situation such as this. Racists; every single person defending the cops in this situation.
Take a serious hard look at yourself in the mirror, reflect and make a change for once in your lives...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/living-while-black-in-cam_b_242563.html
@DrDilemma: I prefaced the "you have exposed yourself" with a big fat IF. A little reading comprehension goes a long way.
"My point is that the main issue in our society is not race, it is class bias. Like it or not, the rich- regardless of ethnicity- get away with murder while the poor continuously get locked up for little or nothing- this was a generalisation."
My problem with pushing this generalization is that it would lead you to expect the opposite of what happened with Gates. You say the rich get away with murder? Well this is a case where a rich man failed to get away with merely talking back. I understand this is a generalization - and one that I agree with on the whole - but it simply does not apply in this case. Why even bring it up at this time?
"My point is that the main issue in our society is not race, it is class bias."
It's both. Ever heard of socio-spatial segregation? Well you'll notice it's inherently linked to racial segregation.
@Hutton:
"When I look at Professor Gates, I see a man who succeeded and makes a difference in the world around him. (Apparently) when Takuan looks at him he sees a black man that over came horrific racial bias."
That black man fought harder to be where he is, than if he was a white man. That's why we should take the fact of "horrific racial bias" into account, and not dismiss it as if it didn't make any difference.
"The difference is that I feel his accomplishments transcend race"
Nah, this just sounds like "I don't see race", "let's forget race".
@Sirdook:
So lying's ok as long as you're on the right side and the issue is important?
Of course! What a question! You mean you wouldn't lie to save lives just for your personal little moral integrity?
But that's way too far-fetched. You said it didn't make any difference which side uses these kinds of methods, and that it was even worse if "our" side uses them.
I say au contraire! When are we going to be able to pay attention to context and content, instead of always focusing on the envelope?
@Failix,
Whose life is being saved by this? Look at this comment thread and many others throughout the internet. How can anybody who hasn't already made up their minds trust the judgment and testimony of someone who has admitted they'll lie about important stuff.
Read what I wrote above. I said it's worse if "our" side uses it *because that makes it harder for "our" side to convince and educate the good-willed but ill-informed. The method undermines the message. It's not about my moral integrity - it's about having the only kind of open and honest dialogue that could allow us to help others see the reality of racism in America. The alternative - politically correct lying, obfuscation, bullying, and name-calling - only serve to convince others that people who point to racism are just another brand of bigot.
Falix said:
Consider the flip side for a second, if it weren't for racisim in America, if the "horrific racial bias" didn't exist, Professor Gates wouldn't have had the success he had - Black Studies wouldn't have been a career choice. So while he had to overcome racial bias, he also built a career studying it and speaking/writing about it...
Does that make racisim good, no (Hell No), but I think it is an interesting observation, that his success is in the study of the very thing that was supposed to have prevented his success.
Sirdook - What, you've never heard of outcome-based honesty? How many otherwise rational people during the last presidential election defended their candidate when they made outlandish promises with the excuse "He's just saying that to get elected, but I know he can't deliver on that promise." (this example was on display in both parties in the recent federal election in the US)
When you expect less from one race of people than others, some call that racisim, when you lower standards to match lower expectations for a given race, some call that compassion, and oddly, to expect the same from each race is also considered by many to be racist.
The compassion of some makes it impossible for the race in question to prove it's the equal of all other races, since it is never measured fairly, but through the prism of race.
#213 POSTED BY COSMONAUT ZERO, JULY 22, 2009 11:05 PM
A little reading comprehension goes a long way.
See we agree on something, amazazing
You say the rich get away with murder? Well this is a case where a rich man failed to get away with merely talking back.
The charges were dropped yesterday genius, had that been a poor person, they'd be out on bail, if they were lucky pending a hearing.
"Sad how ANYone would have ANYthing negative to say about Skip Gates regarding a situation such as this. Racists; every single person defending the cops in this situation."
Only if you accept that the cop's motivation was racial and not a(n) (over)reaction to jerk.
So now youve got mugshots on CNN -- that is the kind of punishment that is hard to overcome. TMZ makes a game of posting celebrity mugshots. these are not harmless images, and they cannot be made to magically disappear by an apology or charges dropped. no matter what the final disposition, gates has been punished for no crime.
the system grinds slowly but very finely.
@Hutton:
Consider the flip side for a second, if it weren't for racism in America, if the "horrific racial bias" didn't exist, Professor Gates wouldn't have had the success he had - Black Studies wouldn't have been a career choice.
How do you know he couldn't have excelled at something else??!
Racism is a barrier. Without that barrier, it only could've been easier for him to follow the path that led him to where he is now.
@Sirdook:
I wouldn't lie about important stuff, I'd lie for important stuff. I sense we aren't going to be able to agree here, but I understand your point of view and for the reasons I explained above I think the title of this article is totally fine.
When dealing with the fairly arbitrarily designated groups we call "races", the variation between individuals within the groups is greater than the variation between the means of the groups.
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/boston-globe-proves-cop-who-arrested-professor-no-racist/
Falix - I made no statement about Professor Gates possible success or lack thereof in any other field, you leapt to that assumption all by yourself...
now if it had been a white man's home
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30043893/
The white cop teaches Racial Profiling to other cops?
Skip Gates is going to end up looking stupider and stupider. And he's not a stupid man.
It seems like the only thing Officer Crowley was truly guilty of is lacking the media-awareness to recognize he was in a no-win situation and to back down until backup arrived. He should have waited for an minority officer to arrest Gates. This would have been a non-story if it his name was Officer Nyugen, Rodriguez, or Farnezeh.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/23/gates.arrest.mayor/index.html
You sure have sneering down to an art, Sylkworm. Got any other talents?
why would a "minority officer" have arrested Gates? me wasn't doing anything other than being in his own castle, wasn't he?
a pattern is developing. Gates is "letting down the team". As an honorary white man (successful black), he should support the cops in anything they do since overall, the lower class, poor blacks are kept down, and that is what is important, right? Also, even though he is an honorary white, he should have respected the white cop's sensibilities by not forgetting he was black, and properly deferred to his massah, especially since there wasn't any black audience and there was no need for him to be selfish about it. It's just not right for a black man who makes more than a white cop to rub it in like that. There is a system here and it won't work unless everyone does their part.
The true test of any worldview is whether you can actually prove it to be false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Let me ask you, how exactly would someone like Crowley prove he's not a racist, or is it simply the fact that he arrested a black man enough to forever make him guilty? And yeah I pretty much already guessed your answer.
"Alright guys so I'll be your diversity class instructor, and I want to teach you how not to discriminate in your arrest making process. Don't discriminate about their skin color, their sexual orientation, the way they talk, the way they look, and most of all, don't discriminate between whether they have or have not actually committed a crime!"
You reap what you sow... Police respond to a potential burglary, door shows signs of forced entry, police approach unknown situation with the audacity to have a forceful presence. Its not like the police have anything to worry about when approaching these types of situations! Give me a break!
Professor with large chip on shoulder comes off with major all white cops are racist attitude. The professor got what he deserved. Stop being a J cat...
pretty good job of ignoring the facts there cbot, you should be a cop.
What? O' of course the cop had to be racist. my bag! Try putting yourself in the cops shoes. He is there to protect public and made out to be racist because he is a white arresting officer. No facts to back that up. The professor admits the attitude which led to the confrontation that got him arrested.
All right, I'm in the cop's shoes...
Get a possible b&e on Harvard Row, where all the faculty live ... we check it out ... everything o.k., fucking guy locked himself out, that's all ... but when we I.D. him we get all that loud shit about racism, all that "Black in America" attitude ... skinny little fucker, I'll show him racism ... take his black ass downtown and cool him off ....
Now, CBOT, put yourself in the professor's shoes.
thet's a trick question Buddy! Eveahbody knows the prof ain't got no shoes!
professor's shoes.... white cop = racist. I would say that the professors the racist!
now watch the cracker underground flood the cop with money for his litigation
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8163051&page=1
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/23/officer.gates.arrest/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/24/haberfeld.police/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Takuan, interesting poll in your latest link...
Did Obama go too far in critizigin the police?
Yes, "stupidity" was an uncalled for remark. (1323 votes)
No, he was defending a friend. (262 votes)
what disturbs me most about this whole situation is how cool everybody seems to be about police forgetting their duty is to SERVE and PROTECT. they are employed by US to protect US. everybody seems to be placing blame on gates for yelling. i'd yell too. yelling is not a crime. i do not think getting arrested for yelling at a cop on your property is OK, and it disturbs me to hear many people believe otherwise.
also i am disturbed by the trend i see in law enforcement where conduct and procedure is predicated around obtaining compliance and not actual safety.
Every time I get pulled over and have a bad attitude I get a ticket. When I am professional and courteous I get an occasional warning.
The cop simply responded to a call of possible criminal activity. I can see how the prospect of possibly running into a crime in progress was there. This is a potentially a very dangerous situation. If the professor did not have a attitude this event would never have happened. Your inference that this area is pristine with no crime or worry for the cop defies the facts again! This professor is a hostile and radical racist. That is what the facts tell me!
@ Cbot #242:
Every time I get pulled over and have a bad attitude I get a ticket. When I am professional and courteous I get an occasional warning.
How often do you get pulled over when you haven't yet done anything wrong? If it happened on a regular basis I suspect your attitude might suffer somewhat.
All of which is irrelevant to this case anyway. He was in his own house and was able to prove it. Even if he was a hostile, radical, racist bigot it wouldn't have provided justification for an arrest.
Sergeant Crowley is representative of many police officers, but, thankfully, not all.
The first words out of Sergeant James Crowley's mouth to a television reporter when questioned about President Obama's televised remarks about the arrest of his friend, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was, "I didn't vote for him," as though that somehow had any bearing on the matter at hand. That live remark is not being played ad infinitum on cable news because it would tell the real story. Instead, we get his public relations handlers' version which has put him out in front of the story with his "I support the President of the United States" remarks.
The PR people that are advising him must think that we are stupid and won't remember what we saw and heard with our own eyes and ears.
By his own words (and on television, no less) he revealed his true nature and belief system that allowed him to act outside of the legal framework of our country. He doesn't know that he already gave himself away with that one sentence, "I didn't vote for him."
In my opinion, he has broken his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and should not be allowed to be a police officer in Cambridge or anywhere else in this country.
Gates should sue and every free person in America should send him money to do it with.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2009/07/24/gates_crowley/
I'm so glad the President decided to inject himself into this issue - he really could have stopped after he declared his ignorance of the subject, but then he went right on and lept to a conclusion that could only be based on race.
I await the release of the 911/radio tapes as a mixed blessing - while I believe that no matter what the tapes prove, just as they silence one set of racists, proving them "wrong", their opposing racist counterparts will be equally proven "correct". (If it shows the cops to be wrong, anti-white racists will be "proven" correct, if the it shows the professor to be wrong, anti-black racists will be "proven" correct.)
Let's not forget, the orignal call involved two men apparently breaking into a house, when the cops arrived, they only saw one man - they would reasonably assume that there was someone else in the house, and should proceed with caution until they establish there is no one else in the house. Also, my President informed me of Professor Gates walking issues, telling America that Professor Gates uses a cane, which, in a dark room could appear as a weapon. So, one of two suspects found, with an weapon-like object in his had, refusing to come out of the house...
No, I won't draw a conclusion, that would be racist.
@ Timothy Hutton:
Whether you think Obama "interjected" himself for was dragged into making a comment, saying someone acted "stupidly" for arresting an elderly man for breaking into his own home is not the same as saying "this could only be based on race."
Explain to me exactly which parts of what President Obama said are not true. Using his actual words not a "Limbaugh translation".
If Obama's remarks are in fact true, explain to me exactly why it is wrong for the President of the United States to speak truth when he feels that he should.
Obama, incidentally, is DOING something about this issue. Not just ratchet-jawing like a rabble-rousing pundit.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=8163051&page=1
Brainspore - AGAIN, the Professor wasn't arrested for breaking into his house - he was arrested for Disorderly Conduct.
The President admited to not knowing all the facts, but decided to render a judgement in true Nifong-style, even getting the charge wrong.
The President is trying to walk back from his "stupidly" worded comment, and he's willing to throw some responsibility at his old friend Professor Gates - I eagerly await the "This isn't the Professor Gates I knew" press conference.
Source: The Hill
Brainspore - You have a problem with my use of the word "interjected"? Why the quotes?
Now that we concur the professor is a black racist, we disagree on the cop in this instance of being a racist. The evidence will show a long record of fair unbiased service by this officer. So automatically both are not racist....
What I believe is most Americans do not instantly judge based on race. Most judging is done after one acts in a way that causes that person not to like the other person based on actions. Too often racism is the one size fits all antidote given when you are in the wrong looking for a way out.
I know cops who institute a sorta equal opportunity approach to their actions for the fear of even having the chance of being perceived as a racist. In many instances people who legitimately need addressed are not.
We need to come into a post racist society and stop the one size fits all approach. This is a clear example of the division by people who want to divide us by propagating that just because you are white you are racist. Quite the contrary most are not!
"what disturbs me most about this whole situation is how cool everybody seems to be about police forgetting their duty is to SERVE and PROTECT. they are employed by US to protect US. everybody seems to be placing blame on gates for yelling. i'd yell too. yelling is not a crime. i do not think getting arrested for yelling at a cop on your property is OK, and it disturbs me to hear many people believe otherwise."
I completely agree..these cops messed up arresting someone for simply yelling. and I thank you for not mentioning race at all in your post. i still don't think this had anything to do with race, beyond the fact that the person yelling was yelling about how the cops were racists.
i think anyone of any color would be treated the same way when they yell at a cop. about anything.
and its unfortunate.
"Skip" Gates can be a testy little guy, but he's hardly a racist. For which half would he hold a bias? His black half or his white half?
The racist half? Which side is irrelevant other than one side is now part of an institutional racism that we now call reverse racism. What a oxymoron?
Timothy Hutton #250:
Brainspore - AGAIN, the Professor wasn't arrested for breaking into his house - he was arrested for Disorderly Conduct.
...in his own house. And that "conduct" didn't begin until they showed up to accuse him of breaking into his own house, and refused to leave when asked.
You're splitting hairs here, but even if the cops' version of the story is true the decision to arrest him was clearly a stupid one.
Also, I questioned your use of "interjected" because it implies that Obama sought to put himself into the heart of this issue, when in reality it took some prodding by the press to get him to comment on it at all. Responding to a direct question is not the same as offering an unsolicited comment.
Takuan said: Gates should sue and every free person in America should send him money to do it with.
Not sure where you'd find free people in a police state, but nonetheless I'd send money - as long as Gates made it clear he was not just fighting for black people, but for all people of all colors who are no longer allowed to shout at police in their own homes.
Obama, interjected without any facts. The arrest was made because of the actions of the professor. I am confident that when the tapes come out we will have a clear example of the race card being used to cover a out of control bigot who should have been thankful someone ultimately was looking out for his property. All he had to do is not jump to conclusions and not assume that the cops were doing him wrong. J cat got what he deserved.
President Obama said:
"Not seeing all the facts" - the President shouldn't render judgement at a press conference when he doesn't have the facts. That's called an uninformed opinion, and he should keep it to himself, or at least not stand on a dais with the Presidential seal in front of him pass judgment without the facts in front of the World Press.
The Presidential "qualifier" ("Not seeing all the facts") should have been a disqualifier, just like when Supreme Court Nominee Sonya Sotomayor said words to the effect of "I know I shouldn't say this, being a judge and this being recorded, but..." and she goes on to explain how appeals court judges get to define policy... She really should have stopped talking when the words "I know I shouldn't say this" crossed her lips...
Video of Judge Sotomayor's actual words
Brainspore - sometimes "No Comment" is the approriate answer - just because someone asks a question, doesn't mean you have to answer it. (Think "Boxers or Briefs?")
@ Timothy Hutton:
You don't have all the facts either, including what facts Obama did or didn't have at the time. That doesn't seem to be keeping you from sharing your opinion (which, unlike Obama's, nobody actually asked for).
Obama didn't call anybody racist, he called them stupid. A police officer that responds to a situation like this and can't figure out a way out of it without arresting the resident of the home is either itchin' for a fight or a pretty lousy cop.
Just back away, apologize for the misunderstanding and let the guy vent. Unless he's brandishing a weapon, doing anything else would be STUPID.
Brainspore - you are making an incredible statement:
Before he showed them his ID or after? As I understand it, Professor Gates followed the officers out of the house while they were leaving and he initially refused to come out of the house when asked by the police before he showed them his ID...
Should the cops simply take everyone's word for it when a possible Breaking and Entering is called in? "Oh, you say you own this house, oh, OK, stay inside, no, no - I don't need to see ID, I trust you. I'll get back in my cruiser now, sorry to disturb you."
Or should the police only take the word of old men? Or Men with canes? Or old men with canes?
Professor Gates doesn't have any of those fancy "Jedi Mind Tricks" ("These aren't the droids you're looking for")...
The tussle was over a request for identification, not an accusation. Ascertaining the facts is not an accusation - it's proper police procedure.
Brainspore - he sandwiched his "comment" between two statements about race relations in America.
And I'm simply relying on the President's own admission that he didn't have all the facts - I don't have to know what he does or doesn't actually know to believe his own statement.
Also, a claim could be made that Professor Gate's cane could be considered a possible weapon...
a simple question for the apologist/racists:
how many times are whites shaken down by black cops?
let's see what the bigot cop does
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/obama-addresses-gates-rem_n_244518.html
@Timothy Hutton:
You don't need "all the facts" to see that some stupidity was going down on the part of the cops, you just need these ones:
1) Guy is mistakenly accused of breaking in to a house where he actually lives
2) Police arrest said guy on his own property, even though proof existed that he lived there
3) At no time did he threaten bodily harm to the officers
Granted, #3 isn't so much a "fact" as an assumption based on the knowledge that he wasn't charged with threatening any officers, but I think it's a reasonable one.
yeah!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/major-civil-rights-group_n_244532.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-ridley/gates-says-what-a-lot-of_b_244571.html
"J cat got what he deserved."
CBOT,
What's a "J cat"?
Or are you just trying to be hip?
all them coloured professors talks like that
TimothyHutton, in the English language, President's Obama's sentence construction means this (in the passage you quoted):
1) he is unaware of what role race may have played in Dr. Gates' arrest, and therefore wishes to make sure no one combines any of his further comments about these two subjects. The implication is that the President has valid remarks to make both about race and about the arrest, but separately (which he goes on to prove).
2) he thinks most people would become upset if confronted by armed men in their own house, and might react with anger.
3) he believes that after police have ascertained that no crime has been committed it is stupid for a police to react to a person's understandable anger at having armed men in the house by arresting the homeowner.
Your implication that President Obama knows nothing about the arrest or about the circumstances is false - he did not say that, he restricted his profession of ignorance to a very specific area to explain why he did not speak to that area, and only to other related subject matter.
I believe you have misinterpreted the President since his words do not mean what you have said they mean. I hope you will re-read what you quoted, looking carefully at the punctuation, or listen to a recording, so you can confirm for yourself that I am correct in my analysis.
I do not consider myself a fan of President Obama, but he has considerable language skills and I admire his ability to use English properly.
As far as I know, at no point has any police spokesman claimed that any officer present was incapable of identifying Dr. Gates' stick as a common walking cane.
I personally believe that any policeman who is afraid of walking sticks should seek another job immediately. Similarly if they are irrationally afraid of helper dogs, wheelchairs, or prosthetic limbs.
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/media-ignoring-prior-claims-of-harvard-police-racism/
Takuan you are like the Michael Moore of this thread: you're on the right side but you're harming the cause by presenting completely irrelevant and farcical information. Harvard Police does not equal Cambridge police.
This is not, in reality, an issue of race but that still does not mean the man should have been arrested. Whether that means it's an issue of the cop's ego being bruised, or an issue of our system being broken, something went horribly wrong and the professor being "mouthy" to the cop was not it.
The bottom line is that he did not break the law.
If getting angry at a cop and raising your voice IS breaking a law (and I'd like to see that cited), that law needs to be changed, because it is hypocritical at best and infringing on our basic freedoms as Americans at worst.
go'way kid, ya bother me.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/obama-race-patricia-williams-america
Takuan, Caldrax made a perfectly civil comment to you. Your comment at #275 was out of line.
opinions, everybody's got one.
Let me be clear.
<speaking as an adjunct moderator>
Takuan, you were out of line at #275.
</speaking as an adjunct moderator>
let me be clear: pick your fights elsewhere.
I'm naked in bed with my lady, and can't be dealing with this petty squabbling!
NO REALLY.
Please play nicer, and maybe come back tomorrow, when I'm less happy.
Return to the topic and civility, please.
ark,
Pics or it didn't happen.
@279 Xopher
Don't be baited by Takuan, he's a troll with limited skills.
Brainspore - in #266 you made three points, none of which appear to be factually correct:
1) He wasn't mistakenly accused of breaking into his own house, he was questioned in a investigation.
2) Despite his proof of residency, he was arrested for disturbing the peace, not for breaking and entering or trespassing.
3) no one said he attempted bodily harm, I said there was a man in a dark house who probably had s cane in his hand, which from a distance could be mistaken for a weapon. Caution was called for.
You admitted #3 was an assumption, you misrepresented what happened in #2, and #1 was simply wrong.
Interesting side-note - I saw Professor Gates on CSPAN 3 (History), talking about Lincoln on the 200th anniversary of his birth (I assume), and he struck me as one of the most reasonable "Black Studies Professors" I've ever seen on national media. That is not to say I agreed with everything he said - some I did, some I didn't, and some I didn't know enough about to have an opinion on... His greatest 'gift' in my view is his absence of absolutes in his positions - for example, he feels Abraham Lincoln was racist, and he gave his reasons, but that racisim didn't preclude him deserving credit for what he did, and Prof. Gates cited 'growth' in Lincoln's views, notably after meetng with Fredrick Douglass (prior to those meetings, Lincoln never met a colored man that was his intellectual 'equal').
As others in this extended thread have noted, there is maybe more of a class issue today than a pure race issue, but that is not to say there isn't a race issue. In the show I saw, one of the comments that stood out was Prof. Gates calling for Affirmative Action across all races, based on class, not just race. Poverty (as but one example) spans all races, and the solution should lift all races equally, not one exclusively.
I highly recommend the show, if you can catch it on CSPAN, I feel it gave the viewer a great insight into Prof. Gates personality, his work product, and some fresh insight into an interesting topic. The show I saw has taped in late June, 2009 - just about a month ago...
#264 POSTED BY TAKUAN, JULY 24, 2009 1:06 PM
a simple question for the apologist/racists:
how many times are whites shaken down by black cops?
I'm sure PLENTY!! but who would ever report about that? doesn't sell any papers or generate any ad revenues now does it?
I have a hard time believing none of the neighbors knew who Skip Gates was, or what he looked like.
The thing that bothers me most is that the cop didnt let up after Gates showed his IDs, and wouldn't show his own ID. THAT is the issue at hand. The cop was wrong. I doubt the cop was wrong due to race... Infact, most cops that act this way do so no matter who they're harassing.
Anonymous - if that is your real name... The caller wasn't a neighbor of "Skip's", it was a Harvard University employee that works down the street from "Skip's" University housing. The neighbors may very well know "Skip," and this woman may also know "Skip", either by face or reputation, but as I understand it, she didn't see the faces of either man on the porch when she made the 911 call.
Also, as for the "letting up" you wish the cop had done, by most accounts I've read, it was "Skip" that followed the police man out of the house, yelling various things - by all accounts I've read, the officer did "let up," "Skip" didn't. (Does that make "Skip" wrong automatically, no, but it doesn't exonerate him either - nor does it implicate or exonerate the police officers...)
BTW, the audio of the radio call into the station house is out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41TKt03SKu8
Shockingly, I'm not impressed with Bill Maher or his opinions. Too many of his explainations are based on broad, sweeping generalizations OR the ever-popular "Come on, everybody knows..." phrase, where he simply regurgitates anti-republican talking points, devoid of supporting facts.
To be fair, I do put him slightly ahead of both Arianna Huffington and Katrina vanden Heuvel...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/antonio-love-ala-police-u_n_246081.html
Point?
Racisim? The door was closed, the cops couldn't see him.
Abuse of power? I assume the shop owner called the cops to get someone out of the bathroom, those crazy, out of control cops responding to calls from civilians!
As for the the mental and hearing problems, how would the cops know until they open the door? Did the deaf man in the bathroom pass an "I'm deaf and constipated" note under the door that the cops ignored?
I haven't yet heard why the store owner didn't have a key to unlock the door, nor why the cops went to pepper spray under the door. I understand they would prefer the person in the bathroom to open the door, rather than "blast their way in," but they could just have easily walked into a medical emergency (passed out on the floor) or someone barricaded (and armed) in the bathroom - how to know which it is without opening the door?
Hey look, Obama administration just announced they will throw $1 Billion in "Walking Around Money" to police departments hard hit by his recession - I really like that Kalamazoo, is getting $2M to save 10 police officers jobs...
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202432495822&Attorney_Wins_False_Arrest_Suit_Against_State_of_New_York
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865
Never. Talk. To. Cops.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/lets-all-have-a-beer-and_b_245906.html
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/police-taser-use-on-disabled-man-justified-because-he-had-an-umbrella/
Takuan advised:
That advice didn't work so well for Antonio Love...
OMG. they are related!
Also, from the above link:
I never would have seen that coming, but then again, the shallowness of the Irish gene pool was not something I was previously familiar with...
Does anyone know if Obama is related to Officer Crowley as well (through Niall of the Nine Hostages)? That would really be something, brother turning against brother...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/powell-on-gates-ive-been_n_246577.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-fauntroy-phd/gates-got-arrested-becaus_b_246340.html
Don't forget Danny Glover and his horrifying experiences at the hands of racist cab drivers in NYC!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/justin-barrett-boston-pol_n_247405.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/crooked-cops-caught-plott_n_246987.html
One of the things that i think it's the problem is the fact that police in the u.s.a. Has not enough education to deal with the community.
Officers to be are only required to do several months of police academy and other trainings, whereas this has been enough back then, things has changed tremendously today and police officer should out to be required a minimun of a bachelor degree in psychology, sociology, criminal justice or related field.
If you think about it, any citizen out there in the community can easily be more educated than any cop out in the community. I have more education than a given cop on the streets and as an educated woman i will not allow an uneducated cop to talk to me in a rude way and this must be what that professor felt like.
Education is something that you work for, for many years and you felt that you have "earned!" with hard work and dedication, therefore, having an uneducated police office come on to you and talk to you down, you will not tolerate that!
Police officers in general are very uneducated people that with just a high school deploma or a ged can go get and do the academy upon passing a preliminary test, that is not enough, the community should to make enforce the system for police officers to get a degree from an acredited college or university and then the police academy will be okay. Not even an associate degree should be enough, a bachelors one could be the start of educating these cops to do a better job in the community.
Obama: infinitely smarter and unimaginably more honourable than his scum predecessors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/30/beer-summit-details_n_248261.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/disorderly-conduct-conver_n_246794.html
Oh No!, sounds like a bad case of hungry, hungry ego on the cops part!. The professor only riled the appetite of that ego when he asked for the cops name and badge number. Rule number 1, never spar with the powers of a sanctimonious egocentric, (especially one armed with a taser).
For this fine upstanding officer (who most likely had some severe self esteem issues as a lad) to actually reach out in desperation and arrest the professor in his own home for disorderly conduct is indication enough that this was the last resort to prove who had more power. The fact is that not everything is black and white when these cops are put on the street. When you empower a person with a degree of authority, it's sometimes possible for them utilize their own private agenda for self gradification when the opportunity permits.(how can I use him to make me feel good about me, now that he's said something to make my pride feel like it was stepped on like a floor mat) It's what the rest of us see as the grey area. And thats exactly what happened in the Professor's case.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Hollywood-Chief-Cover-Up-Cops-Will-Be-Investigated-52201542.html
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/03/grandpa-pregnant-woman-tasered-at-baptism-party/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xW_-bSxTyI
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/09/AR2009080902126.html?referrer=digg
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Woman+Tasered+front+children+obstructing+traffic/1890494/story.html
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/18/minnesota-police-beating/
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/19/gates-officer-record-race/
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Caught-on-tape-Shafter-officer-beat-unarmed/wnrpJtTASEyOeklj5pdgvw.cspx