Harvard Professor Arrested At Home
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| Tue, 07-21-2009 - 10:28am |
Police Report Says Henry Gates Called Officers Racist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072001358.html?nav=hcmodule
Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African American scholars, was arrested last week at his home near Harvard University after trying to force open the locked front door.
According to a report by the police department in Cambridge, Mass., Gates accused police officers at the scene of being racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America." The incident was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.
Gates, the director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies, has been away from his home much of the summer while working on a documentary called "Faces of America," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and friend of Gates who is working as his lawyer. Gates returned from China last week and had trouble opening the front door with his key.
Gates, 58, was arrested Thursday by police looking into a possible break-in for disorderly conduct "after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior" at his home, according to the police report. Officers said they tried to calm down Gates, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report.
Ogletree said Gates was ordered to step out of his home. He refused and was followed inside by a police officer. After showing the officer his driver's license, which includes his address, Ogletree said Gates asked: "Why are you doing this? Is it because I'm a black man and you're a white officer? I don't understand why you don't believe this is my house." Ogletree said Gates was then arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and racial harassment.
Gates did not return calls to his office Monday, and the police department would provide no further details on the arrest. He was released four hours later, and arraignment has been scheduled for Aug. 26, but Ogletree said they hope to resolve the case sooner.
Gates is resting on Martha's Vineyard, according to Ogletree, and will soon resume traveling. He is scheduled to interview cellist Yo-Yo Ma, whose genealogy he was researching in China.
Gates, is a founder of the Root (http://www.theroot.com), a Web site owned by The Washington Post Co. He is also host and co-producer of "African American Lives," a Public Broadcasting Service show in which he uses genealogical resources and DNA testing to trace the family lineages of prominent black Americans. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981 and was among Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997.
Gates's arrest points to broader racial disparities in the criminal justice system, said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst at the Sentencing Project, a think tank that researches incarceration rates.
"If you look at every stage of the criminal justice system from initial police contact all the way through sentencing and incarceration, you see that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by each stage," King said. "What we ultimately see as disparate incarceration rates are contributed to by all of these factors."
As news of the arrest spread Monday from Harvard into broader academic circles, one professor who follows Gates's work said the arrest was both "not surprising" and "disheartening."
"I felt bad that I would hear about something like this happening, especially to someone as recognizable and distinguished as , but in the academy we still sometimes encounter that. I've been in situations where I encounter people who don't believe I'm a college professor," said Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College in Atlanta. "We have obvious signs of progress, but we're not there."



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Ummm, yeah, ok.
Note to self:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090729/ap_on_re_us/us_powell_harvard_scholar
Asked how he dealt with the situation, Powell said "You just suck it up. What are you going to do?"
"There is no African American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation," Powell said.
And that just shows how unfair our society still is.
Powell brings at least one thing to the table which isn't part of the average U.S. citizen's psyche, regardless of race. He was a soldier and they regularly "suck it up" on orders, salute smartly and move out. Didn't stop Powell from rising through the ranks and eventually serving in high office, partly because the military became "integrated" long ago. For Powell, remaining quiet and "condoning" racial profiling, wasn't as deleterious as we might have expected. He went around the obstacles instead of ranting at them.
Seems to me that there are more ads and commercials with African Americans in them. IMHO, by seeing different ethnicities doing the things all humans do, we desensitize the "different" part of our identification process. Diversity becomes the norm.
Powell made many of the same assumptions I did, so naturally I agree that he's right (though how Gates would have "waited awhile" with a policeman at the door, escapes me) ;-).
Jabberwocka
Based on what you've posted here, I don't get the impression that you take whatever injustices you perceive without some sort of response.
Sorry if I sounded preachy since the homily was directed at the nation in general, not you in particular. Was a political science major in college and learned the dangers of citizen apathy.
So the miscreant who arrested you without provocation eventually self-destructed. Justice of a sort, but still sad. Would have been so much better if he'd found a way to modify his behavior for the better and live.
Jabberwocka
"Seems to me that there are more ads and commercials with African Americans in them. IMHO, by seeing different ethnicities doing the things all humans do, we desensitize the "different" part of our identification process. Diversity becomes the norm."
ITA! It has both social & economic benefits.
My belief is that Powell would have handled things differently than Gates did only because he understands the importance to both blacks and whites to not get into an altercation or argument with the police. Nothing good ever comes of it, and Powell knows that from past experiences. He's a man who i have the utmost of respect for, and I would never think of him as an individual who would sit back and be quiet when he sees an injustice being made, so as to act like he "condones" it.
He WOULD be the type to do whatever it took to smooth over the situation with the officer that night if he were Gates, then do whatever he could to rectify things the following day. IMO anyway.
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