Dr. Henry Louis Gates Arrested
 

He is saying that the arrest was racially motivated. Based on the information in the article, I would agree. Yet another situation where people don't believe that a black man can live in a nice neighborhood or own a nice home. And I seriously wonder why this neighbor who called the cops didn't even recognize or know her own neighbor. I hope he pushes this further.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us/21gates.html

Unbelievable and so disappointing.

The article in Time mentioned another incident which happened 25 years ago. If one questionable incident happens every 25 years or so, how is that evidence of a pattern of conduct?

Both stories are plausible. If you get loud and obnoxious while conversing with a police officer, you are lucky to be walking away from that encounter not in handcuffs. I don't care what race you are. Being an Harvard professor doesn't make you special in that respect either.

Even if you believe Gates' account, both men were acting like asses and one of those men had a badge and handcuffs. At the end of the day, that trumps an Harvard ID card.

Why am i not surprised that you would say something like this?


It is a pattern of conduct because it happens around the country more than every 25 years. The issue is not whether the story is plausible. first of all would the neighbor have called if the man was white. Then once the cops SAW his identification and had PROOF that he lived in that house, why did they continue to bother him?

Gates wasn't being an ass. He was pissed because he was being accused of breaking into his own home.

Although it hasn't happened with a home, I had an incident happen to me that had similar racist overtones. I had used valet parking at a hotel. When I came down to retrieve my car, I showed the attendant my valet tag and he gave me the keys. As I was walking towards my car, ANOTHER attendant suddenly dashed over to me and angrily demanded that I show him my valet tag. I showed it to him. He then demanded to see my driver's license AND my registration. At this point I was pissed. I complied, but I let him know that I didn't appreciate his behavior. He had no reason to go to those lengths. Then as I was getting in he said, "well ma'am, I just wanted to make sure you weren't trying to drive off in someone's fancy BMW." Sickening, but it is a part of what many blacks go through in this country...even in 2009.

I'm sure race played some role - after all, the caller identified two black men, so regardless of the officer's biases it would be the identifying factor. I'm not nearly as interested in the officer's response - after all, he's responding to a report - but rather the original call . . . would the caller have reported two white men in the same situation? Certainly, if she thought it was a legitimately suspicious behavior, it's incumbent upon her to report it - is it suspicious if it's two white guys?

I can imagine being pissed (during the incident) if I were Dr. Gates - it's my home, and I'm not doing anything wrong in the slightest. Many police departments train officers to enter homes very liberally compared with privacy/Constitutional rights, and I'd imagine Dr. Gates felt he knew his rights better than most - that doesn't mean the officer did the right/wrong thing, but rather that it's a factor leading to potential anger. I'd be irate, and probably would have been cited for interference with official acts at the least (hence why the officer's behavior is comparatively uninteresting). At the same time, I wouldn't be able to really "blame" the officer, unless he got physical or abusive with me. He doesn't know.

I would guess that the charges will be dropped, if for nothing else than to allow for a public apology and to save face for the CPD. Past that, though, how much further should he really 'push' this?

While Boston has a reputation for being a 'racist' town (which is probably less founded than most would expect; it's likely based on a few high-profile douche moves, like the Red Sox being the last MLB team to integrate, or the South Boston/Roxbury clashes), the Cambridge area is relatively affluent while still being relatively diverse, due to the colleges and surrounding corporate entities. This seems less like the CPD being institutional racists, and rather an example of the lingering nationwide notion that crime is a black issue (and subsequent white fears/fearmongering).

Here's the thing:

If a neighbor didn't recognize me as the owner of my home, and said neighbor saw me force my way into my home, I wouldn't give the cops grief when they responded to the call. I think I might even be grateful that they came to check out the situation.

When I say "push" I mean there should be more of an investigation into how often this is occurring. I wonder if the charges really WILL be dropped or if they will "make an example out of him," since he informed them that they didn't know who they were messing with.

Seems fair enough, as long as we're willing to accept every answer, ranging from "every day" to "almost never" as plausible.

It seems like a LOT of trouble to make an example of somebody, but I guess it's possible.

One of my pet peeves is the "You don't know who you're dealing with" trope - ironically (in this case), it seems like the rallying cry of the perceived privileged. From that standpoint, I can see why some feel he should use his unique platform to fight, but I'd prefer if he avoided the potentially-hypocritical route of "don't you know who I am?!?".

This was my initial response to the story. Gates was understandably angry and probably felt a "get the hell outta my house...do you know who the hell I am" attitude would fly with the officers.

Maybe it would have if he were white as long as he, as a white man, didn't put his hands on the officers. Who knows. I've seen white males with professional clout be extremely obnoxious with police officers, only for the officers to give them a pass because they are "somebody" in the community. It doesn't always happen but people are looking at patterns of behavior and not what happens 100% of the time.

As for the neighbor not recognizing him, that happens. I don't know the climate of that neighborhood and who the neighbor is. It is often the case that an unrecognizable Black male neighbor in a predominantly white neighborhood is more likely to be looked at suspiciously than an unrecognizable white male neighbor based on people's images of criminality. Again, this is based on patterns of behavior and not what happens 100% of the time.

As for racism, this is yet another incident that is way too introductory textbook for me to automatically call it racism. Either way, the actions of the neighbor and the actions of the officers can't necessarily be lumped together.

You are setting the tone for this discussion right now. Don't let this discussion go down the drain like every other discussion you participate in.


So many questions:
Could this have been about your age? Did you LOOK (beyond race) that you would have a BMW? Could this have been about the valet wanting to do some quality assurance? Had there been some prior incidents? Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed racist if the other attendant was very polite and said "ma'am, it is standard practice to check IDs and registration for cars with a certain Kelly Blue Book value."

To put it in perspective:
I had someone question my presence in my family's neighborhood that we have lived in for almost 40 years. The particular white person who questioned my presence in the neighborhood was staying with her mother and she was known around the neighborhood to have some issues---so I was particularly annoyed that SHE was trying to be the gate keeper.

At the end of the day, it could've been because I'm Black and it may have been because she is an outsider with her head up her ass. I didn't take it to heart because the OTHER white neighbors who aren't visitors know who I am, who my family is, and wouldn't have asked me who I'm there to see. Plus, neighborhood watch efforts always have some "nosey neighbor" casualties. :)

Ditto.

I have definitely heard of officers giving white males under similar circumstances a "pass" and even bending over backwards to apologize. And in many instances those white men would often say things like, "I'll have your job for this." Sure enough, sometimes they do "have their job." And no one makes a fuss or looks at the situation sideways.

As for the climate of the neighborhood, I totally understand what you mean. Interestingly enough my aunt and uncle live in a very wealthy neighborhood in Florida. Their neighbors have called the cops on several occasions after seeing them in the yard or driving in the neighborhood. When they first moved in, some white neighbors stopped by to welcome them. When my aunt opened the door, they thought she was the maid and asked if the "lady of the house" was home. The list goes on. I suspect that really is the type neighborhood that we are dealing with here.

I think I'd react the same way and I'd ask the officer what information he needed to resolved the situation, like a photo ID with my address or whatever.

But if I were a member of a group who got hassled by the cops a lot, and I was just entering my own home, I'm sure I'd probably be really angry and maybe react differently.

I think Gates overreacted if we're trying to use some objective standard for the policeman responding to the complaint, but I think that the officer made a pretty grave error arresting Gates. It doesn't seem to me that overreacting, being angry, and attempting to professionally threaten a guy reacting to call are actually crimes, and the officer should have tried really hard not to compound the situation. The police escalated the situation and it's hard not to see that alone as a pretty serious error, even if the policeman responding isn't guilty of the racist conduct that Gates assumed he was. I also think the the cop getting Gates to go outside was pretty cheap because it just set Gates up to be arrested for doing something publicly that wasn't actionable inside the house.

I think we're seeing a clash of egos more than we're seeing a great example of racist police behavior.

:) Yep.

Along those lines, almost everyone has had to "break into" their own home or find the hidden key. If you can do that, so can a burglarer. I would not be offended if a neighbor saw that happening, didn't know who was doing it (i.e. we didn't wave at each other like we normally do) and instead of walking up to me to inquire, called the police.

Some may be more startled seeing a Black person doing that in a white neighborhood (or a white person doing that in a Black neighborhood), but I think the main point is the same.

Agreed on much of this. As KSigRC alluded, the neighborhood is a very affluent one, filled mostly with Harvard faculty, white collar professionals (lawyers, doctors, businesspeople), and probably a few of the old-money Cambridge families. I think the house itself is Harvard-owned, and some of the other houses on that street are owned and provided to faculty. I would also imagine that his neighbors knew that he lived in the area.

The NYT article doesn't really make clear the order of things; I could understand him being frustrated and pretty upset that people were saying he didn't belong in his home. His reaction is also what I would expect from anyone who is famous, prominent or powerful within the community - someone less famous and less prominent (white or black) would have probably been more likely to just go along with the police questioning.