In a nutshell, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested in Cambridge, MA after a neighbor called 911 when she thought she saw two African-American men with backpacks trying to force entry into a house.
Just to add to the fun, "Skip" Gates is a friend of the President and when he was asked about the incident at the end of last night's press conference, he said the police had "acted stupidly".
Professor Gates' attorney, Charles Ogletree, issued a statement giving Professor Gates' side of the story.
The police officers report of the incident is up on The Smoking Gun.
According to Gates, he had just arrived home from a trip to China and couldn't get in his front door because of problems from a previous break in. He went to the back door, let himself in with his key so he could turn off the alarm, and returned to the front door where he solicited his driver's help to force open the front door so they could bring in his luggage.
It was at this point that a neighbor noticed the activity, called 911, and police responded.
You can read the police report and attorney statement I linked to above to get the finer details, but suffice it to say that Professor Gates is claiming Racial Profiling while the arresting officer is claiming Disorderly Conduct.
The arresting officer, whose incredibly ironic name is Jim Crowley, claims he was just carrying out his job in a professional manner (Crowley is also an instructor at the Police Academy who teaches a class in how to AVOID racial profiling). According to his account, Gates was verbally abusive, uncooperative and started yelling about "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO A BLACK MAN IN AMERICA!"
According to Gates, he was polite, cooperative and was arrested without cause, in his own home, after providing identification, just because he was black.
There are a lot of forces in play here. Let me run them down for you.
THE COP
Let me preface this with a little story.
I used to work in a credit office for a high end (heh heh) retailer at Crown Center. I started in collections and later graduated to processing credit apps.
Not an optimal career path.
Because the only customers I encountered in the beginning were the deadbeats, I came to view all customers as deadbeats. I never had any contact with good customers. So when I started processing credit apps, I was predisposed to view them all as evil doers trying to rip us off. I routinely turned down potential customers who had better credit scores than me!
Luckily, I didn't have the final say and my credit manager vetoed many of my recommendations. She reminded me that our job wasn't to turn away villains, but to find ways to open accounts for people so they could buy our overpriced Russian Lacquer Boxes because that's what paid our salaries!
Cops are the same way. The only people they come into contact with are criminals or people suspected of being criminals. After a while, they start assuming that everyone is a criminal. The only delineation they acknowledge is between criminals who are getting away with it and criminals brought to justice.
So despite the antiseptic spin presented in the official police report, I have no doubt that Officer Crowley walked into the incident with certain preconceptions and assumptions. It's inevitable.
He was responding to a report of black men attempting to break into a house only to find black men inside the house. What was he supposed to think?
Bottom line...neither one of us were there so we don't know what happened other than what we read in the news.
THE PROFESSOR
By his own account, he had just returned from a trip to China. I have no idea how long he was in China. I don't know how long the flights from China to Massachusetts are. I don't know how many stops, flight changes, custom checks, bag inspections, and other inconveniences are involved.
But I used to do a lot of business travelling. I know that even after an overnight trip that only involved a 3 hour flight, all I wanted to do was get home and sleep in my own bed. Anything that stood between me and that was the enemy and had to be defeated.
So put yourself in his shoes. It's been a long gruelling trip, he's tired, he just wants to get home and go to bed. He can't get his front door open. FUCK! He jumps through hoops to get in the house, get his luggage unloaded, he calls the property management office to get the problem with the front door fixed, and he looks up to see a white cop at his door who thinks he is a potential criminal.
Immediately, like it or not, hundreds of years of racial tension bubble up on both sides of that door. If both parties are aware of it, they can each follow a strategy to negotiate the rapids and avoid the boulders. But if one party is tired and cranky and the other person is jaded and concerned with his safety, real communication becomes impossible and shit blows up.
I'll tell you right now, I have snapped and gone off on innocent white folk just trying to do their jobs under much less stressful and emotionally loaded situations because I was tired, cranky and just wanted to be home.
Bottom line...neither one of us were there so we don't know what happened other than what we read in the news.
THE PRESIDENT
I've read the police report and I've read Gates' attorney's response. I seriously doubt that the President has read either one. At least I hope not. I would hope he is devoting his time to more Presidential matters. He's been briefed by staff. He may have spoken to Gates personally. I have no idea.
But he was wrong to say that "the police acted stupidly". He didn't have all of the facts. None of us do.
The United States is a country that prides itself on placing "The Rule of Law" above all else. No one, not even the President or Congress are above The Law. So lacking substantial evidence to the contrary, the POTUS needs to give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement.
Don't get me wrong. I think we have way too many laws, way too many "mandatory minimum sentences" and way too many Barney Fifes.
But one of the reasons that Barack Obama was able to capture so many white votes was because he wasn't Jesse Jackson, he wasn't Al Sharpton, and he didn't constantly have his lips wrapped around the victim trumpet!
By immediately blaming the police, he played into that tired old victim mentality.
He should have just said "I don't know the facts, I wasn't there, let's let the process work, let's see what really happened."
President Obama fucked up. Yeah, that's right. I just said that.
Prediction: I'll say it every time I think he fucks up and he will fuck up again and again as long as he is president.
THE RACISM
If there is any real racism involved here, it isn't from the professor or the cop. It's from the white woman who saw two black men forcing their way into a house and reported it as a potential crime in progress.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for neighborhood watch groups. If she was a white woman just passing through the neighborhood, who didn't know anything, and came across something like that, I could maybe see her calling 911.
But according to reports, it was a woman who lived across the street!
She didn't know that the black man living across the street was a Harvard Professor?
She doesn't recognize him?
I used to drive taxis and I've been transported by many taxis and limos. She didn't see the taxi or Lincoln Continental running idle with it's lights on and the trunk open at the curb while these shenanigans were going on?
If there was any racial profiling, if was by the neighbor across the street who assumed that the anonymous black man trying to get into his house must be a crime in progress.
This entire incident was a COLOSSAL failure to communicate.
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