As a former university English instructor, I have always been an admirer of Henry Louis Gates's work. He has produced some of the most enlightening scholarship into African American literature and the African American experience. However, as a current police officer, I am very disappointed in Professor Gates's actions regarding his arrest.
Every police officer has experienced countless situations in which a person of a race different than the officer has accused him of taking enforcement action against him based on his race. However, I expect better of Professor Gates. Professor Gates fails to see that what he has done to officers of the Cambridge PD is exactly what he has been preaching against his entire career. He assumed immediately upon meeting these officers that he knew what they were and what they were about. Since they were police officers, Gates seems to think, they must be racists. This is the exact type of rush to judgment that racism is made of.
These officers did not see a black man walking down the street and jump out on him. They were called to this address. The only thing officers did to provoke Professor Gates was to ask him to identify himself, something that the courts have been clear officers have the right to do, and something that officers routinely do to most everyone they contact, no matter what race. If Gates would have produced an ID, something he no doubt has, this matter would have ended immediately. Officers would have seen his address on his ID and gone back into service (we are, after all, a bit lazy and love calls that last two minutes instead of the two hours it takes to book someone into jail). Instead, Professor Gates unleashed a string of tired accusations of racism and self-important language cops hear everyday. Perhaps Professor Gates should consider what would have happened had someone really broken in.
Would Dr. Gates have wanted the officers to have checked the burglars ID, or would he have liked them to take for granted that they were telling the truth when they said they lived in this home? Did Dr. Gates feel that the officers should have known who he was, as if police officers routinely keep abreast of preeminent literary scholars?
Gates has claimed that he did not behave in a disorderly manner, as police reports by two seperate officers claim, and that he was unfairly arrested at his own house. But a picture published by the Boston Globe on boston.com shows Gates with his mouth wide open, looking suspiciously like he is yelling at a police officer who is walking in front of him. Additionally, the photo shows him handcuffed with his hands in front of him, a courtesy that is against nearly every department's policies, as this is considered unsafe for officers. So, not only does it not appear that he was treated poorly, it appears that he was in fact treated preferentially. Professor Gates is now talking about filming a documentary on racial profiling. Perhaps he should first learn a proper definition of that term. If Gates had been stopped by police walking down his own street after police had driven right by a white person a block down the road, his claims of "racial profiling" might have some legitimacy, but officers were only at Gates's house because they were called.
Whether Professor Gates really believes all cops are racist, or whether he is arrogantly offended that people outside of academia don't know who he is, much of what Gates has taught me has been undermined by his behavior. He teaches racial equality, but he seems to be asking for preferential treatment.
Update: The Plot Thickens
I once had a gay bar owner accuse me of responding slowly to a call to his bar because he was gay, a hilarious supposition to anyone who knows anything about my career background and politics. I love that Gates seems to have also chosen the wrong guy about whom to make racist allegations.
3 comments:
I do tend to agree with you, but it is true that the police officers in the area do have a history of being a bit...questionable with their decisions involving other races. And although I don't agree with the behavior I am not aware of any law against yelling at a police officer.
If you allow creadance to this story because police officers in the "area" (a metroplex of a few million people) have a questionable history, an assertian for which you have provided no evidence, than you are committing the exact fallacy I am commenting on here. You cannot lump one officer (with a sterling record as it turns out) with the percieved trangressions of some portion of unnamed ambiguis group of "officers," without a shred of evidence that he did anything innaproriate. After all, Gates's only evidence that these men racially discriminated against him is that he was arrested even after officers learned that he was not a burglar. The problem is, he had committed two violations of the law before they were able to determine this, and in fact, these violations were the reasons this for the delay in the investigation.
There are laws against both refusing to obey a lawful command (like identifying yourself which, as you will soon be taught, has long ago been accepted by the courts as a lawful request regardless of whether or not an officer had reason to detain you) and against creating a public disturbance, which is what he was arrested for. Under Cambridge city ordinance, this involves behaving in a disorderly way in such a manner that peacable citizens are alarmed or begin to congregate (he was arrested as he came into his front yard to scream at the officers and neighbors came out of their houses and formed a crowd to watch). Just because you are not aware of those laws doesn't mean that the officers aren't.
And though there is no law against yelling at a police officer, it is asinine to do so in such a way that violates the law. After all, I might let a speeder go with a warning; I am unlikely to let him go with a warning if he calls me a racist and shouts that I don't know who I'm dealing with.
I don't disagree with you, I am just playing devils advocate. Although the first thing I did research when I read the article was the point you made about it being a lawful command, and it is ruled against just as often as for, and seems to be a completely subjective call depending on which judge is on the bench. However, I completely agree with you on the other, he should not have yelled on the porch.
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