Dr. Henry Louis Gates Arrested

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

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.

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.