<br>
<br>
<p>I would say we are all complicitly vacuous since we’re discussing this rather than health care after Obama used one of his remaining national news conference chits.</p>
<p>It will be very interesting to see what the tapes present. If it works out (and I don’t expect that) that Professor Gates was really in the wrong, will the officer get an apology and will Professor Gates then offer to have Officer Crowley teach him about law enforcement in America?</p>
<p>Northstar that explains Gate’s behavior but where is the racism in this situation?</p>
<p>When Crowley stated to Gates that he was there for a reported break in, and Gates door was banged up(the reason he couldn’t get in his house)…wouldn’t he be suspicious that someone just might be in his house?</p>
<p>The guy got we he deserved…and his friend the Prez should have kept his fat mouth shut.</p>
<p>In the past I have disagreed with pizzagirl; not on this one. I think she’s dead on with her reasoning and then her example.
Not many here have addressed it so forgive me for re-stating a part of what I said many pages ago. Evidence now seems to show that initially, Mr. Gates refused to identify himself. I think that is the crux of the matter. I truly believe if he’d said " I’m Prof Gates, here’s my i.d., this is my house" that cooperation and documentation would have ended it. Then we wouldn’t be discussing what happened after Gates eventually showed his documentation because that wouldn’t have happened.
Some here would have us believe it was his family upbringing and personal experiences that caused him to assume racial profiling and yell “race!” If true, that might explain it, but not excuse it. Also, if true, I hope today’s young parents of all colors are teaching their kids it is ok to identify yourself to a cop.
I remember as a kid it was customary to get out, meet a cop 1/2 way if stopped for a traffic violation. The idea then was that it showed the driver had nothing to hide- not hiding drugs, booze, or reaching for a gun. Now cops prefer driver to remain in car in order not to appear confrontational. I have adjusted to the change.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I’m not sure how your scenario relates to the question at hand. If a neighbor reports a possible domestic violence, then the police investigation does not involve whether or not the person who answers the door owns the house. It is difficult to answer analogies when they’re not analogous.</p>
<p>Having said that, I don’t see overt, conscious racism in the Gates matter. But it does bother me that a man could be arrested on his own property, without committing any crime, merely because he was angry, rude and loud. The police was responding to a report of B&E. Once the officer realized that no crime occurred, he should not have been so affected by the anger of an innocent man. He acted as a human being who had 100% authority over Gates. I’ve seen school principals act the same way when they have power over other people. That may be a human response, but it’s not a professional response.</p>
<p>The police work with upset, even disturbed, people all the time. They’re supposed to be trained to deal with the public, even when the public is misbehaving. Those of who us are parents have dealt with angry and upset litle children. But we don’t lose our judgment or our own tempers when our children do - we’re the adults. </p>
<p>This policeman wasn’t acting like a racist, but I do think he acted unprofessionally</p>
<p>I don’t know whether the police officer exhibited racist behavior. I wasn’t there. I do know, however, that one’s biases can come out in terms of the body language, facial expressions and tone one uses when addressing others.</p>
<p>For instance, clerks have said to me, “May I help you?” in ways that indicated they viewed me as a customer, and they were offering help. I’ve also had clerks say that in a way that indicated that they viewed me as a potential shoplifter, and wanted to put me on notice that they were watching me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course, let’s just ignore how prejudiced the judicial system is. There’s no way that that same prejudice could extend to officer-civilian relations. There’s no way that police are more likely are more likely to arrest a black man. I won’t bother explaining the basic psychology of why blacks are more likely to get arrested and convicted of a crime, but here’s a hint: It has nothing to do with their guilt.</p>
<p>Here’s the story They saw a taxi cab, luggage on the floor of the living room, and an ID that proved Gates was the homeowner. They shouldn’t have asked Gates to step outside. They should have left. He may have acted like an ass – on his own property – but that’s something police can arrest people for. If being called names is so hurtful that you have get angry and arrest a guy, you don’t need to be on the police force. You’re too soft.</p>
<p>I don’t fully believe the police report. Police officers have been known to tell half-truths on those to keep their records clean. They’d never actually write down anything incriminating. Besides, the report casts Gates as out of character. There’s no way that Gates is responding to a cops request that he leave his house with a ‘Yo, mamma joke’.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s about as incorrect as it gets.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is very true that none of us know whether the police exhibited a racist behavior, but there is not much speculation needed to ascertain the behavior of Prof Gates towards the police officer, and this from the very first encounter. Prof. Gates himself admitted to be irritated and … standing his ground by refusing to step outside and pursuing with his puerile and obnoxious tantrum. </p>
<p>It is obvious that Prof Gates must have exhibited plenty of poorly chosen “body language, facial expressions and tone.” And, all that an objective observer needs to do is to look at the picture of his arrest, read his commentaries after the arrest, and the “racial narrative” of Prof. Gates. </p>
<p>Not a pretty sight! And surely not the actions expected from someone of his stature.</p>
<p>So far the only proof of any racism in this episode is on Gates’ part for assuming the officer was racist.</p>
<p>
</p></li>
</ol>
<p>HelloJan, time has come to listen to programs that have a modicum of factual evidence. Nothing in your account comes remotely close to what is now known in this sordid incident. </p>
<p>Nothing except for the same fantasies of racial profiling that have been advanced with vengeance, including on this site, by racial zealots and bigots who would make Rev. Wright quite proud.</p>
<p>A little comic relief:</p>
<p>[The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Opinion :: An Open Letter to Professor Gates](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528594]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528594)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The racism is palpable, even here on cc. It is racism of the sort that causes white people to literally draw a blank concerning what Gates has said. Apparently to posters here, Gates is not really a normal human being with feelings and with an ability to gain meaning from queues other than words. He is just a loud and whining ■■■■■■■ When Gates says it was the way in which the cop demanded he come outside that frightened him, he really meant this. But you folks apparently cannot so much as even hear the man, since he is black. And if you hear him, you simply dismiss him. But oh, the police report is something you truly believe. LOL</p>
<p>Well, I hear Gates quite clearly. I heard him before he even described his circumstance in detail. I was able to hear him because I have felt the same fear of having a cop yelling and humiliating me. And I have also felt the same desire to push the cop back using my rights under the law. I have seen and heard cops abusing black guys. I have a good friend, a conductor of major orchestras, who while we were in college was brutally attacked by several cops just because he was running through a white neighborhood. I don’t know if any of you people are runners, but I am, and I can tell you that it is a fact that after you’ve run a long piece, your mind becomes somewhat scattered. Apparently the cops barked at my friend, but he could not understand what they were saying because it was so hostile. So he just stood there, asking them to say again? They attacked him for no reason at all, and really harmed the guy. He is a wonderful man, kind, extraordinarily intelligent, a graduate of Yale, a wonderful conductor, and the cops had him on the ground, beating him until he could not see. That is what black guys have to put up with in this cursed, godforsaken country.</p>
<p>Now, of course the majority of whites are going to dismiss this as they dismiss Gates’s claims, as they dismiss everything else that comes from blacks. Such is the racism that is inherent to our society. But whether they dismiss it or not, the fact is it still exists. Here is just another example of it:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Man gets beaten and arrested for having his jacket unzipped](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHQZtWlcuo&feature=related]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHQZtWlcuo&feature=related)</p>
<p>The ONLY reason we know of it is because, THANK GOD, technology can now capture it. But it has been happening to us constantly, over and over and over again, all the time. And cops have been lying through their teeth on us in their nasty reports. Few people report this. Cops are still very good at hiding it. Blacks are very bitter about it. Many turn to crime because they just do not care, since it seems there is just no way to get beyond America’s racism.</p>
<p>It is complete and unadulterated nonsense this notion being floated here that the white cop was really interested in helping Gates when in fact he demanded Gates come outside and prove to him Gates was the homeowner and professor at Harvard. It is complete and unadulterated nonsense that the white cop was trying to see if a perpetrator was in the house when the white cop was actually in the house when the heart of the confrontation took place. But you folks cannot make this connection because it does not afford you the opportunity to explain away why the cop remained in the house once Gates was clearly fine, clearly the homeowner, and clearly irritated about being treated as a suspect after he had proven his identity.</p>
<p>The racism is here and in the cops because the cop would not have barked at a middle-aged white guy in the same circumstance. (Well, now I am not so sure about that because it seems there are now many whites who are finally beginning to identify with how blacks see the police). He would have stated a desire to see if all was well. His intent would in fact have manifested in his voice, causing Gates to feel safe. But Gates is quite clear that he felt himself in danger due to the way the cop barked at him. It was the cop’s threatening voice and demeanor that made Gates think that if he had gone outside to the cop, something terrible would happen. Gates therefore reasoned that he would remain in the house, relying on the officer to obtain a warrant instead. That makes complete sense to me because white cops are notorious for harming blacks and then lying in their reports about it.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>I will grant that Gates’ behavior was not in the least conciliatory. But several pieces of information jump at me. Mrs. Whalen, the woman who called the police works for Harvard magazine. Granted that she may not have been able to see who it was that was trying to enter Gates’ house, she was among the crowd that watched Gates being handcuffed. Harvard Magazine has profiled Gates (I vaguely remember a cover with his picture on it). I have to wonder at her reaction to his arrest.
More important, the officer had become convinced that Gates was the homeowner already when he decided to book him for loud and tumultuous behavior. Loud? perhaps. But hey, in Cambridge with thousands of students? Next to CRLS with its 2,000 very loud teenagers? Tumultuous? What is meant exactly? Was Gates calling for the crowd to rise up in arms?
I get it that people are pulled in all the time for not being properly deferential to the police. But that does not make their arrest right.</p>
<p>Just one post from me on this thread, in support of Northstarmom (and others). I am not African-American. However, I understand Professor Gates’ outrage. I have African-American friends who know me well enough to talk about being stopped for “driving while black.” I hope that members of this forum will re-read the posts and consider thoughtfully (outside of debate mode) what they reveal about the experience of being African-American in the U.S. today. It is still very difficult.</p>
<p>Quant mech
I think that very few are arguing that racial profiling and dwb doesn’t occur. What is disturbing is that this police officer is accused of being racist by Gates without anything to support that…prior to the altercation that led to arrest. Gates was jumping to the racial conclusion before anything controversial had transpired.<br>
Let us use real racial incidents to spark discussion and change not trumped up ones.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Drosselmeier, for someone who accuses whites of not listening to blacks, you did not listen to me. I EXPECT my local officer to care enough about my safety that if there were reason to believe that my home had been broken into, he would take me outside and ask me privately if everything was ok, because for all he knew there was an armed intruder in another room. I expect that same officer to apply the same level of caring about safety to the whites in my neighborhood and the blacks in my neighborhood. You really aren’t listening when some of us are saying that the “step outside” was designed to ensure Gates’ safety, and not a racist move in and of itself. </p>
<p>And as has been pointed out before, just imagine if there really had been an intruder but the police hadn’t cared enough to bring Gates outside so he could indicate he needed help, but instead left him alone inside and tragedy had ensued. You’d be yelling “racist police don’t care about the safety of blacks trapped alone with intruders.”</p>
<p>Marite, I believe that, were we discuss this at one of the coffeeshops in Boston, we would realize rather quickly to be able to reach a full agreement. </p>
<p>In so many words, I do understand why Prof Gates became irritated or infuriated by being questioned in his own home. I believe anyone who has faced an uniformed and overbearing police officer would understand that. I fully understand how incredibly annoying it must be to arrive at your home after a lengthy trip from China to discover someone might have attempted to pick your lock and enter in your home. I can understand that he felt annoyed to have to report the damages to the Harvard Real Estate office. I do understand that he did not feel obliged to accomodate the police officer who asked him to step outside. Where we might have a slightly different opinion is that Prof. Gates became fearful for his safety at the sight of the police force of Cambridge. Perhaps I am wrong but I believe that a person with his life experience and eloquence should have been able to defuse such situation. Actually, this seems confimrmed by the fact that the police officer ended up inside Prof. Gates’ home and allowed him to retrieve the IDs.</p>
<p>It is what happens after the IDs were shown that borders the ridiculous. Prof. Gates desire to elevate the problem and not letting the officer leave without further ado as well as the decision for the officer to arrest Prof. Gates. </p>
<p>My conclusion is that this is something that could and should have been avoided. Perhaps I am being unfair in placing greater expectations of decorum onto Prof. Gates, and holding him to a higher standard than the police force of Cambridge. Perhaps I am naive that from great men much is expected! Perhaps I am naive that someone who has engaged in the intellectual debates at the hightest levels as well with students who know a bit about challenging the authority of elders should have been able to survive the challenge of a journeyman cop. </p>
<p>Oh well, we really will need to find the time for that cup of coffee! Perhaps some day at one of the terasses overlooking the Louvre pyramid. :)</p>
<p>Driving while Black isn’t really comparable to having a police officer come to protect your home. I can see what would have gone through Professor Gates’ head in that moment. He was probably completely confused and the officer was probably on heightened alert, thinking he might have come upon a robbery in progress and not knowing if there was a weapon.</p>