I am about to shock M* regulars by writing something I have not written in a long time: President Obama was correct about something. The Cambridge police did act stupidly in arresting Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates. You want proof: read the police report here.
Here are the quick details: Prof. Gates and his driver (both of them black) are trying to get into Prof. Gates’ house, but the door is stuck. A neighbor calls the cops because she sees two black guys apparently trying to force a door. One policeman, Sgt. James Crowley, arrives at the scene and asks Prof. Gates for ID. He gets incensed and is rude and disorderly. But he clearly is the owner of the house. This would have been the time for Sgt. Crowley to say, “sorry about this — have a nice day.” But instead he arrested Prof. Gates for being disorderly.
Look, there is no doubt that Prof. Gates had a chip on his shoulder. There is no doubt that he acted rudely and was insulting of a police officer. It sounds to me like Prof. Gates is a complete jerk with a persecution complex. But the police are there to deal with threats to the public safety. Prof. Gates was not a threat to anybody. Time for the police to leave and go find some real criminals.
I have a friend, the most soft-spoken guy you have ever met in your life. He was in a bar with a loud, brash woman who was drunk. The woman got a bit out of control. The police were called, and they were about to arrest the woman. My friend, who is a lawyer, very calmly asked the police why they were arresting the woman, what the charge was. He was slammed to the ground, knee in the back, handcuffs slapped on. The police pulled his shoulder muscles and he was hurting for weeks. He was shoved into a police car and charged with disorderly conduct. My friend happens to be white.
The lesson for me is: if the police ask you to do something, you do it. Leave the police alone.
Prof. Gates went way, way, way out of his way to provoke the police into doing something stupid. But the point is that they took the bait. If they had simply left him alone, the story would have ended there. Now we have an ongoing racial drama for the next several months that is completely unnecessary. Not too smart on the part of the Cambridge police.
Obama has invited both Sgt. Crowley and Prof. Gates to the White House to meet together with the President.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/24/AR2009072400451.html?hpid=topnews
Following the gesture of Obama, I think we should all get together sometime and have a conversation over some food and drink. Any takers?
In the actually press conference, Obama says that he invited them to have a beer together. Not sure if I can go that far, but I will let you all choose your own beverage.
Chris H, I am unfortunately very rarely in Utah. I have many relatives there asking when I will be there so I can get together with them. I wish I could get there for FAIR conference, but I will be on vacation that week with my family.
No problem. I can wait.
I think Pres. Obama’s invitation to meet at the White House was excellent and should have been his first comment. The president claims he wants to bring people together and his first response was very divisive!
Many have wrongly asserted that this wouldn’t have happened to a white man. These people have clearly not watched any episodes of cops. Whenever someone starts screaming at police officers outside their homes, sometimes inside, they are awarded two nickle-plated bracelets. An officers job is already hard enough and they don’t need to take “stupid” comments from anyone. That said, I will agree that the smartest course of action may have been to treat Gates as the member of a “protected class” that he wants to be. In other words treat him better than a similarly situated person who is not part of a “protected class.”
I’ve also read the ridiculous comment that if Gates was white they would not have asked for ID. Clearly, these people have never watched cops or had any interaction with the police.
I don’t know for sure that Gates was race baiting. It may appear that way from the officer’s report, but you have to remember that this report was issued by the very officer who is being accused by Gates of committing a racist act. It may have felt to Gates that this officer was being a racist by coming to his house and demanding that he proves that he lives there.
A lot of times people may feel like they have been prejudiced against regardless of whether or not any prejudice has actually occurred. Until you have lived your life as a member of an oppressed group, then it is difficult to say whether or not you can fully understand what was going through Professor Gates’ head.
Also the commentary above about English degrees being useless is rude and unnecessary. Without majors in English, you would not be able to learn the language and appreciate its complexities. I don’t go around making snarky remarks about people that have majors/degrees in fields I am not interested in because such comments are entirely useless and are really wrong in most cases. Every degree contributes something to some field that makes this world a better place. If he were a sociologist, then that too would be an important field. We cannot just judge people because they didn’t get a degree in medicine or engineering or any other field that has become venerated in American society.
The value of the study of English literature and language notwithstanding, contemporary humanities departments are notorious for being hot beds of fevered radicalism. Sociology nearly as much. Departments of medicine and engineering are respected in part for not appearing to be dedicated to promoting the proposition that contemporary society is a fraud.
Janet,
Your first two paragraph are right on. Thank you.
The English major comments were meant to be silly. I am a professor in the humanities and social sciences. Just trying to break the tension on the thread. I am one of the fevered radicals that Mark speaks of (I am far to the left of Gates).
Mark D.,
I love you (I would say what I really think, but I am pretty sure that Geoff would erase it).
Radicalism is fine, but as I said radicalism is rarely the high road to respectability. Secondly, there is no reason why people should be required to fund the promotion of non-empirically establishable doctrines they completely disagree with. Science is respectable largely because its internal methodology and empirical results give weight to its claim to truth.
Where on the other hand, the humanities these days tends to be taken with the idea that truth is something we make up, and indoctrinate every passing student accordingly. Such relativism is incompatible with the very idea of the academy. If some private organization wants to promote their own brand of manufactured ethics or religion, that is fine, but there is no reason why the public should be compelled to do so by force of law.
Hmmm, now we’re discussing academic disciplines on a thread about Gates’ arrest? Guys, please try to keep on-topic. Thanks.
This one is all Gate’s fault, and has nothing to do with race. I’m no fan of police when they abuse their power, and have given one or two a hard time myself. (Albeit in a very respectful and lawful manner to insure I don’t end up in jail.)
What would you want the police to do if they responded to a breaking and entry call at your home address? I would expect them to request ID from me. I would happily provide that ID and thank them for following up on the person’s tip. Explain I had to force my way in to my own home because I didn’t have my key, and wish them a good afternoon. At which point the officer would leave.
Had Gates done likewise, this incident would not have made national news. Gates would not have been arrested, etc.