Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested last Thursday at his home in Cambridge, MA. It seems, though that many people are confused as to what he was arrested for. He was not arrested for breaking and entering, rather he was booked for disorderly conduct, which all accounts thus far certainly justify. Here are some pertinent links:
1. The Crimson article that broke the story
2. The first AP story re: Gates
3. The New York Times story from this AM
4. Perhaps most importantly, the Cambridge Police report of the incident (PDF)
Read the police report and you will see the foolishness with which Mr Gates conducted himself. If anyone is curious what a jail cell looks like, the best way to find out is to disrespect and taunt a police officer. It's called disorderly conduct, and it's illegal.
It's very clear that the officer was willing to let Mr Gates go scot free. He had confirmed that the residence belonged to Mr. Gates and was ready to leave. However, Mr Gates' continued disrespect, childish bullying, and the worst of Harvard Entitlement Syndrome ("You don't know who you're messing with!") was criminal, and it showed how truly arrogant a human being Mr. Gates is. And now he (and his army of bloodthirsty race-card soldiers) have the audacity to make this into a race issue?! What a joke!
People like Mr. Gates have their fingers on the trigger waiting, longing really, for an opportunity to Rodney King-ify every last encounter they have with authority. Their entire existences are built upon the conspiratorial notion that the world is against them (e.g. when Gates exclaimed "Why, because I'm a black man in America?!" in response to the police officer asking him to produce identification to prove the house was his). They have no credibility whatsoever when it comes to these accusations of racial profiling. I will say this: if anyone is guilty of racial profiling, it's Lucia Whalen, the woman who upon seeing two black men trying to pry open the door on the house across the street, called the police to report it.
The bottom line is this: the argument that Gates would not have been arrested had he been white is completely ridiculous. Calling a police officer "racist" and repeatedly yelling and taunting him is illegal (which means that even a black Harvard professor can be arrested for it, despite what Mr Gates seemed to think). It's also highly unprofessional for someone who holds the esteemed position that Mr Gates does, both at Harvard (University Professor) and within the black community writ large. Instead of coming to his defense and claiming racial bias, people should be lambasting Gates for his foolish behavior, more reminiscent of a rebellious teenager than a grown man.
Harvard should suspend him indefinitely for his unprofessionalism. But of course they won't, because irrational outrage at faux racially-charged events is chic.
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8 years ago
Granted, Gates was furious at the officer. Yes, he was yelling at the officer... But doesn't it strike you as highly curious that the officer repeatedly asked Gates to "step outside" if he had any other questions about the incident? The officer reasoned that the "acoustics were bad" inside the kitchen (or wherever they were). C'mon, if the issue was settled at that point (i.e., Gates had provided ID by then), then why would the police officer need to continue contacting ECC by radio? And what's up with the REPEATED request to speak "outside"? It smells of intimidation... The police is powerless inside someone's home. Out in public, well...
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