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<p>Does Harvard really have an “African and American American Studies department”? Or is that a typo?</p>
<p>poetsheart, I agree - the president had his Joe Biden moment. “A word is not a bird, if it gets out, it cannot be caught” “Measure seven times before you cut once” - my grandpa used to say that, and my grandpa was a very smart man. I was very disappointed with our president’s choice of words.</p>
<p>Soccerguy, what is the Americorps? I am a little ignorant in that respect.</p>
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<p>The Harvard ID card identified that the man whose picture was on the front is named, Henry Louis Gates, and that he is a professor of the University (a fact of which reportedly Officer Crowley demanded proof). The Prof’s driver’s license, which he relinquished along with his Harvard ID, served as a second visual confirmation of his identity, as well as establishing the Ward Rd. address as The State’s official domicile of record. Why Officer Crowley felt it was then necessary to call the Harvard Police in on this incident is beyond my current ability to understand.</p>
<p>To be honest I am glad the President spoke it elevate the entire thing. The reason for this is that every time a racist accusation is levied you have the usual white people (who ironically tend to be white men) who blame the black person, but you also hear about white people who are sympathetic and understand that at times a person’s race does disadvantage them, which always makes me remember that white people are not racist, ignorant people are. </p>
<p>As another aside: Perhaps people like myself and drosselmeier have a nicer view of white women because white women tend to be the ones who are more inclined to express sympathetic views.</p>
<p>I too find Drosselmier’s post in #646 and his many other replies highly offensive. He’s already made up his mind that: White + Guy + Cop = Racist. So he will refuse cooperation at every chance and provoke an incident. By his reasoning, anytime a white “guy” cop stops a black man driving is 100% because the driver is black. If it was not, Drosselmier will act with bravado and black attitude to make sure it becomes such an incident. **Does that not sound familiar with what happened at Cambridge ?
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Drosselmier and others, your answers are welcome.</p>
<p>I think you are misinterpeting what drosselmeier was stating. I am black so perhaps I am more emphatic to his position. I can honestly say that I don’t think anyone wants to be confrontational to a cop, and if a cop is not rude I am sure that the cop will not be reciprocated as such. </p>
<p>Look, I have said it time and time again, black men are not making it up when they say that white male cops are abrasive. If I got bite by dogs all the time I would have a negative opinion of dogs too.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately from experience this is the only one that really occurs. We are not trying to say white men are racist, they are just the ONLY subgroup of officers who seem to act in a manner regularly that would lead one to conclude they are racists.</p>
<p>Sethcolby, please explain what you mean by “black attitude.”</p>
<p>Speaking of racism.</p>
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<p>Typical shoplifter is a white female. Why aren’t cops tuning in their sensors and checking white women? Why don’t security guards follow them around in shops?</p>
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<p>Gates never showed the officer a driver’s license or any other ID with his address - just his Harvard ID.</p>
<p>It is standard procedure when a town officer is interacting with a college professor or student to notify the campus police, as a matter of courtesy. Swarthmore town police always radio the campus security when they are on campus or dealing with a person from the College. It’s a standard courtesy at all colleges. Campus police and town police monitor each others radio frequencies, so a reported break in one block from Harvard Yard would bring cruisers from both Cambridge and Harvard police. That’s smack dab in the middle of Harvard’s urban campus, and a Harvard owned house.</p>
<p>Crowley left the house as soon as he saw the Harvard ID. He was attempting to call it in, letting his dispatcher know that the situation was resolved and to stop any additional units from arriving, but couldn’t use the radio in the house because Gates was screaming at him. Gates had been yelling at him and calling him a racist from the instant the officer arrived. The officer told Gates he was going out on the porch to radio his dispatcher and Gates followed him back outside, still yelling at him the entire time.</p>
<p>[Sgt</a>. Crowley talks one-on-one with 7’s Kim Khazei](<a href=“http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO119845/]Sgt”>http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO119845/)</p>
<p>The above link takes you to a news article with a full unedited 22 minute interview of Sgt Crowley by channel 7 TV in Boston today.</p>
<p>For further credence to the point, look at instances in the real world. Overwhelming white males on this thread have been the only group to accuse Professor Gates of being in error, while others (even white women) have acknowledged that the police officer was partly in the wrong. Or look at the Sotomayor thing, white men were the ones who really took offense when in actually her statement should have been offensive to ALL people, because she suggested that difference races have different methods of evaluation. </p>
<p>In addition typically from a historical perspective white men have been the most racist group of people. They at one point in time even opposed white women from enfranchisement. Just look at Pat Buchanan’s ridiculous comment that “white men” built this country and that is why white men dominate. I have the distinct suspicion that many white males hold the conception that this is “their” country and other people are only inhabiting it, and it is this innate perception of superiority that causes arrogance to manifest when dealing with other groups who are not white men. That is why (in my opinion) the officer reacted the way he did, and why so many have categorized gates reaction as “arrogance” when in fact he was simply offended that someone would question him in his own home.</p>
<p>Perhaps that is why white men are arrogant to minorities (especially black men who are the were the MOST oppressed group in american history). Because the cop expected respect not only because he is a cop, but because he believed that he is innately superior because he was a white male.</p>
<p>And before people respond that I am being racist, I know there are several white men who are not at all racist, since they allowed their daughter to marry black men. So I am not saying that every white guy is racist, only those who are racist would even hold such idiotic conceptions as the above.</p>
<p>I have had now a few engagement with officers. The female was most recent, and it was just no issue.</p>
<p>One earlier time I was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt by a white guy cop. He tried to claim I had quick buckled it and that I was still going to be ticketed. I think the cop really did think I was not buckled in, because the lady cop saw the same kind of thing years later. But that was not the problem. I WAS buckled. The real problem was that the cop was really mean. It was the way he came after me with his accusations of dishonesty. He starts trying to search my car, and asking me questions about having anything illegal, and when I told him I didn’t give permission, it just made things worse. He ratcheted everything up, forcing me to wait, telling me he would get a warrant, asking me all kinds of questions. When he insisted again that I was lying about the seatbelt, my kids protested. Finally, he just barked at me to go. It was a nasty encounter, and there was no need for it. So yeah, when some cop does this to me, and when I hear similar things and worse from so many other black guys, I am thinking yeah, these cops are nasty racists.</p>
<p>Another time the cop was just outright nasty to me, and humiliating. This was in New Jersey. There was not even a seatbelt issue in this encounter. This guy was obviously interested in just embarrassing me. He started out at the outset being really loud, and I felt that if I moved, I’d get shot. He commanded me to get out. My heart’s thumping. All I wanted to know was what I had done to bring this on, and when I asked him, he’d just become really tense with me. I knew enough to tell the guy he couldn’t search my car, but was a bit afraid to just say it. He led me to believe that it would be better if I let it happen, and I in fact thought that it would help me because I knew I had nothing to hide. Well, that was a real mistake. The guy took all my stuff out of the car and just had it on the side of the road! He emptied my glove compartment, my tapes. He even took out my seats, searched me, threatened me with jail, and told me he knows all about me, where I lived, where I worked, and who I knew. People were passing by and slowing down to look. And he sometimes sneered and yelled at me to tell him where the drugs were. I told him I had never even so much as held a joint, and that just made him scoff. I tried to explain that I had no idea what was going on. He just kept going. Now my wife is seeing all this and trying to calm me down. It makes things worse somehow. I start getting really angry, until I have just GOT to fight back somehow. So I tell him he has made a mistake, he gets threatening all over again. I just didn’t care if he hit me, which thankfully he never did. But he got really loud and it seemed he’d soon get violent. I just kept telling him he had the wrong guy. I said it over and over, asking if he was going to charge me with anything, and was I free to go. He stopped talking to me altogether, but started getting really really rough with my stuff, trashing it. By the time he was done, everything was everywhere. I think another cop came up just as both of them left, but I don’t think he did anything. I can’t remember him much. I remember the first guy very well. Then they just left me with all that stuff on the side of the road.</p>
<p>I may have gotten the sequences wrong. It was a bit ago. But essentially that happened to me. This cop was really nasty, telling me he KNOWS I have the drugs, and that when he finds them I’ll be sorry and all that trash. I have never had drugs in my entire life! I have never even held a cigarette in my entire life! (this is true, btw, not hyperbole) But there he was. Trashing my stuff, and claiming I had the drugs. No way was that cop going to file all that in his report. I’ll bet he simply stated that he pulled me over to ask questions. And had I stated a contrary story in court, the whites on the jury would have simply dismissed me just as whites are dismissing Gates. They would have pointed to the cop’s official report as gospel, just as they are doing now.</p>
<p>If it was just my experience I would just chock it up to my encountering a few bad cops. But tons of blacks have gone through similar stuff with white cops all over America. So, yeah. I think they are racist. I don’t think this of all cops. I have encountered kind white guy cops. But when so many black guys report similar stuff to my own experience, it just seems reasonable to me to think that white guy cops are transferring a lot of racism to the job.</p>
<p>And for all those people who think black people are just overreacting my grandparents live about 20 minutes away from Jasper, TX where James Bird Jr, was brutally dragged to his death in the 1990’s (when I was about 6 or 7). When I heard of the incident I could literally visualize the road on which he was killed because it was a road I had driven on dozens of times in the course of my life. When I would visit over the summer i would lie awake counting the hunting guns that my grandfather owned to see if we could fend off the KKK if they ever attacked us. When I was only 7 years old I would make sure the front door was locked because I was afraid that white men in hoods were going to come in to kill us, and I was literally terrified. I had numerous dreams of the KKK coming in to kill me and my family. And I have personally had the misfortune of driving down the street and seeing white men in hoods yelling terrible things about people of my color. I don’t know if anyone else has ever known what it feels like to be a child and literally be afraid that you were going to be killed because of the color of your skin, but I can simply and unequivocally attest that it is an even that tends to shape a person’s view of the world. </p>
<p>For most people in America that event (and events like them) are just a terrible misfortune that they probably have forgot about, but when you are a black man who has driven on the road where a black man was dragged to his death for being black it has the tendency to linger. To make a long story short when you personally have encounters that blatantly reveal that some people are racist (people who tend to be white males) you become a little more cynical of even the slightest actions. </p>
<p>So did the professor overreact, probably, but given the history of this country it is understandable. But also I wonder, what do you think black men would think.</p>
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<p>We already know what he means. It is the sort of thing that informs him, vast numbers of whites, and vast numbers of cops.</p>
<p>Ha. There was a time when I lied to myself that racism was not a big issue, so desperately did I want it to be so. Well, it is a big issue. I am just not willing to lie anymore about it. I had so much hoped my children could escape it. And it turned out they couldn’t. I think that has a lot to do with why I see things as I do. I wanted to have my kids take on a new view of things, radically different from my own. And they do see things differently. But they do have this sad awareness of the nature of things. I think whereas it makes me sick, it energizes them. That’s good. Still, I wish it didn’t exist in the first place. And I wish it would not come after my little boy. But it will.</p>
<p>Gates knows all about what I am saying. That guy and I don’t even know each other, and I sense where he is. I think we are possibly coming at this from such vastly different experiences, you folks and us, that we cannot help but hear and see different things, though we are all looking at the same thing.</p>
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<p>And it would be quite foolish and ignorant to allow that view of the world to be that every white man is a member of the KKK, is completely racist, and is not to be trusted, and that if they wear a badge, they are just that much worse. You’re damn right there are racist people out there, but these people come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and to paint the world with the broad strokes that you are espousing is just wrong.</p>
<p>Dbate:</p>
<p>Let us try to get beyond this as a thought experiment. I am going to try to step outside of myself here, and see some other possibility.</p>
<p>Is it possible that race really had no role in this issue from Crowley’s perspective? Let us just try to assume it play no role. Can you imagine Crowley seeing a white professorial type at the door in that ritzy neighborhood, and “professionally” asking him to step outside and show is ID? Could you honestly see this?</p>
<p>I just can’t. It seems nearly hardcoded in me. LOL</p>
<p>@debate
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<p>Actually, most of us have agreed that the police went a little too far with their arrest. For what it is worth, I am a Middle Easterner, living in a post 9-11 America, and I cannot see how race has anything to do with this case.</p>
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<p>Interesting…Prof. Gates says that he did indeed show Officer Crowley his driver’s license. Where’s the proof that one or the other is lying? You’ve obviously chosen to believe that Officer Crowley’s account of events is entirely true. I have serious doubts that that’s the case with either account.</p>
<p>That said, I have a hard time understanding why, if Prof. Gates failed to render his license, the one document that definitely proves that he is indeed legally entitled to occupy the dwelling, that Crowley would earlier admit that he soon came to believe that Gates was indeed the homeowner. Elements of this story seem to change almost hourly since Sgt. Crowley began saturating the airwaves with his own account of events. Whom one believes has the most credibility almost certainly reflects a complex mish-mash of a person’s own history, socio-political perspective, and need to stake out a literal black and white position on the issue. I, personally would be very keen to hear the tapes the Cambridge Police are reputed to have in their possession of the incident. I’m surprised, actually, that such tapes have not already been released if they definitely show Prof.Gates to have been the totally uncooperative, out of control !@#wipe they would have us all to believe he was. </p>
<p>Yes, I do believe that Henry Gates at one point became highly upset, and vocal about what he genuinely believed was racially motivated disrespect being directed toward him by Officer Crowley. Whether or not his perceptions were even remotely accurate, I honestly cannot say. I wouldn’t bet my life on it one way or the other. </p>
<p>But, I so know how insidious covert racism can be, having experienced countless incidences whereupon I later spent the night, tossing and turning, wondering if it could be that I imagined what felt like racism being directed toward me in a given situation. If racism is now only defined by the use of the “N” word, or overt acts of Federally defined discrimination, then one would have to say that racism largely is a thing of the past in America. But, I’m not so stupid as to think I’m imagining every incident of racist condescension I experience, or that I’m being followed around and watched as I shop.</p>
<p>I know that things have improved exponentially from what they were when I was a child, and even a young adult. But I’m also often reminded that we’ve got a ways to go when I see books being published by mainstream publishers which insist that blacks are (“on average”) genetically inferior, and people who, even as they insist that these books are right, say, “Oh, but I’m not racist!”:rolleyes:</p>
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<p>I do not think all white men are racist, now do i even think a plurality are. I was simply stating that people’s past experiences dispose them to having a skewed perception of the world that more than likely causes them to react to people in different manners. Being that the professor is a professor on African-American history he is well acquainted with the abuse of the past and perhaps he instinctively reacted in a hostile way (which probably was the case). That aside, he shouldn’t have been arrested for screaming.</p>