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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You know.... it was sad when he killed himself.
Made perfect sense to ME......that's what's got me worried....:))
The "bad" cops usually resort to taking money to look the other way so that others can profit from illegal activities of some form or another. But the "bad" cops who will sometimes take matters into their own hands to insure certain criminals and bad people in general get their just due when the courts can't seem to get it done are the ones I think you may be referring to, and are the ones I respect.
They may be law breakers themselves in a way, but they perform a service to society, and make many of us safer in the long run. I know there will be people on here who will not agree with this, and that's fine by me. Rogue cops can be good people, as long as they don't take things too far.....and normally that's what ends up happening....the vicious cycle of good turns bad, bad turns even badder.
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, .....>>>
I totally agree with your perception of Powell's statements.
zz
Maybe Gates, having "sucked it up" his whole life, got tired of playing subservient to any power hungry police officer and decided he didn't want to role over and play dead anymore. I know I'd probably get tired of being told to "suck it up." I worked in the corporate world in the 80's and regularly put up with comments about my appearance and sex (from "We'll just send Jean there in a bikini to drum up business" to "I've heard you're EXCELLENT in the afternoon" with a wink and on and on). I sucked it up and never complained. But, maybe after a lifetime of that, I'd consider speaking up and maybe that one comment would be the straw that broke the camel's back and overreact.
It reminds me of a comedian I heard once who said he'd regularly do things that bothered his wife. But, one day 20 years later, he put the peanut butter in the refrigerator, after she'd asked him not to, and she freaked out and told him she wanted a divorce. An overreaction to putting pb in the refrigerator but just the straw that broke the camel's back. As Powell said, this is a regular occurrence. If you keep sucking it up, you keep getting tread on.
It's STILL an assumption that Crowley was a "power hungry police officer". Nor does Gates' past lead one to believe that he tolerated what he perceived as racial bias. For God's sake, the man made a career of enumerating incidents of African American oppression. It was his focus of being. I just don't think such a way of life can be construed as passivity or sucking much of anything except possibly a lemon.
It gets a bit wearisome to repeat it but will do so again since the fact is missing from so much of the narrative (HAH!) coming from those defending Gates. A woman had called in what she thought might be a burglary, apparently in response to the concerns of yet another woman. There was no substance to suggest racial profiling coming from anybody but the man who has made a living cataloging racial offenses and teaching their history to students at a premier institution of higher education.
I think Gates was exhausted after a long trip and did snap, but not necessarily because he was antagonized by a racist police officer.
As regards the sexist comments, I put up with a lot of guff when I was younger. Worked at a pharmacy one year and one of the senior pharmacists pinched my rear-end whenever he thought he'd be unobserved. I made a point of avoiding him. At another job, a co-worker used to make raunchy and overtly sexual jokes. Ignored him.
Just figured it was testosterone poisoning and best treated with the anodyne of indifference or avoidance. One has to feel a bit sorry for those whose actions are dictated by their smaller head. Not much thinking takes place. Sad.
Jabberwocka
"A woman had called in what she thought might be a burglary, apparently in response to the concerns of yet another woman."
And yet, while they never mentioned race or backpacks, Crowley's report said that the original caller said it was two black men with backpacks. There's something to that. Why did he write that when it wasn't true? He was either 1) intentionally lying, which I don't think or 2) added his bias. Either way, he was wrong.
Had Gates always made a big incidence about every time he'd been confronted, in a situation that he felt unfair, given what happened this time, we would have heard about it.
"the man who has made a living cataloging racial offenses and teaching their history to students at a premier institution of higher education."
Just because someone documents something doesn't mean he is overreacting when it happens to him. But, situations where blacks are treated differently happen often, as Colin Powell and Obama have said. Does that mean that they're all unobjective when judging?
As I've said before I don't think anyone knows what happened, and would even go as far to say neither men have an objective memory of the situation (just look at the fact what Crowley wrote about two black men with backpacks reported when it didn't happen). I don't think we know enough to say who, or if both, were at fault. I thought Obama was premature in blaming Crowley and feel the same about people automatically assuming Gates is at fault. Obama ended up with egg on his face. We don't know what happened, when it escalated, who got angry when, or anything. And, I have the feeling neither men are remembering correctly anymore either.
As for putting up with sexist comments, it's unfair that you had to put up with it. For many women, it was a matter of survival if it came from bosses and they had to suck it up. But, that doesn't make it right. I'm thankful for the women who didn't because they're the ones who changed things, not the ones who sucked it up (as I did). Women who behave rarely make history, as the saying goes. "Boys will be boys" doesn't cut it.
And yet, while they never mentioned race or backpacks, Crowley's report said that the original caller said it was two black men with backpacks. There's something to that. Why did he write that when it wasn't true? He was either 1) intentionally lying, which I don't think or 2) added his bias.
Or option #3:
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