CONTINUED here.
I can’t imagine this will end well.
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.
The police report tells an interesting story.
The Edge of the American West 
146 comments
July 20, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Vance
The comments on the Globe article are depressingly predictable.
The worst the report manages to pin on him (intemperate yelling seems entirely justified in this context) is “drawing the attention” of others in the neighborhood.
July 20, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Chris
I would be interested to see Gates’s side of the story. But it seems pretty clear even from the police report that Gates *was* a victim of racial profiling – basically the only reason the middle-aged white female witness gave for believing that a crime might have been in progress was that there were some young black men hanging around, and therefore, they must have been up to something criminal.
July 20, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Charlieford
Well, I want to sympathize with Gates, but man did Wilentz ever take him to the woodshed in TNR.
July 20, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Vance
“The incident raised concerns among some Silicon Valley engineers that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.” Also, some truck drivers, organic farmers, nurses, Benedictine monks and Area Man. Sheesh.
July 20, 2009 at 2:21 pm
eric
See, you should have done the post, Vance. I tried, but I couldn’t get there.
July 20, 2009 at 2:25 pm
herbert browne
Um, having been “interrogated & detained” in MY OWN residence, I find the officer’s apparent lack of candor & “cultural naivete” depressingly familiar. I guess that plainclothes officers should be equipped with “business cards” so that they don’t have to be subject to their victims’ verbal barrages (or at least can’t use them as a pretext for withholding pertinent information)… as they stroll through the premises of others, uninvited.
Too bad it wasn’t a ‘woman of color’ living next door… she & Gates might have been on first-name terms, in that situation… ^..^
July 20, 2009 at 2:34 pm
SEK
As I noted at TNC’s place, the oddest part of this story is that, in the police report, it lists the person who called in the complaint as Lucia Whelan, who works for Harvard Magazine, and so should be familiar with Gates. Even more so when you consider she also seems to be his neighbor. (I’m guessing her “7 Ware St.” address is in the vicinity of where ever Gates’s “Ware St.” addresses is, which would make this even odder. One of the most prominent humanities scholars in the world feuding with his neighbors?)
July 20, 2009 at 2:35 pm
herbert browne
*did Wilentz ever take him to the woodshed in TNR*
I had to go back to an article about Wilentz accusing Obama of playing “the race card”- at Clinton’s expense- early last year. It had something about 2 other TNR peeps calling Wilentz’ accusations “over the top’… ^..^
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5314720&mesg_id=5314720
July 20, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Charlieford
True. He belongs to that slim % of people who are sometimes right, sometimes wrong.
July 20, 2009 at 2:44 pm
SEK
From one of TNC’s commenters: “The only way they could have messed up worse would be to arrest Deval Patrick in the Governor’s Mansion.”
Ha!
July 20, 2009 at 2:46 pm
eric
ObChappelle, starting at around 4 minutes. NSFW.
July 20, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Barbar
The term “Professor Uppity” is used in the Boston.com comment section, apparently without irony.
It seems that Gates was arrested because he talked smack to the police officer (“I’ll meet your mama outside”).
The police were probably called because of the neighbor’s racial profiling (or because she was feuding with Gates).
July 20, 2009 at 2:52 pm
zunguzungu
While there is plenty of racist and plenty of weird in this case to go around, it’s also worth adding to the mix a WTF at the notion that “drawing the attention” of people in public is sufficient cause to arrest someone. The cop’s account is, of course, written in the voice of a person who would be shocked, shocked to be accused of racial profiling, but the magical moment in the narrative when Gates’ “tumultuous behavior…in view of the public” transforms him into a “disorderly” is the sort of transubstantiation that could only occur in the mind of someone for whom civilians are to be seen and not heard, for whom the idea of citizens’ having rights to not be arrested without some probable cause of a crime is a foreign notion.
July 20, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Anderson
As I remarked at CT, “disorderly conduct” is Norman French for “pissing off a cop.”
July 20, 2009 at 3:13 pm
serofriend
Isn’t disorderly conduct in public space an example of affective politics? Perhaps Gates sought to sustain the emergence of African-American citizens as full participants in the public sphere. Then the pigs put the smackdown on him. This is all theory, of course.
I’m still attempting to incorporate Whalen wagging her cell phone around while the police arrested Gates into my theoretical framework.
July 20, 2009 at 3:14 pm
SEK
Do Harvard IDs list your rank and affiliation? (They have to show at least the latter, right?) Because if so, the one he handed to the cop would have read “Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.”
July 20, 2009 at 3:17 pm
serofriend
I’m not familiar with all Norman French influences in the English language, although a longitudinal Atlantic analysis is a viable approach here.
July 20, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Scott Madin
(I’m sorry to nitpick, but as a Bostonian I can’t quite help it: the Governor’s name is Deval Patrick.)
[That’s what I get for copy-pasting. I’ve corrected it.]
July 20, 2009 at 3:28 pm
kathy a.
he got arrested on his own property, for getting upset that he was being accused of a breakin of his own property?
good thing he has an absolutely excellent lawyer.
July 20, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Scott Madin
Yeah, I assumed it was the original commenter’s error, not yours, SEK — and the point certainly stands anyway.
July 20, 2009 at 3:48 pm
TF Smith
Herbert Browne – Not that it makes a huge difference, but apparently – at least according to the report – the arresting officer was first on the scene and in uniform…
July 20, 2009 at 4:21 pm
wayne fontes
If I was engaged in a running feud with my neighbor I wouldn’t continue to stand on the side walk wagging my phone when he came out. It’s also tough for me to view this as an incident of racial profiling. Commenters are assuming that the same woman would not have called the cops if two white guys with back packs were leaning on the front door.
The cop who received the call had no choice but to respond and to start in on him about racial profiling was patently unfair. I’m leaning towards the professor was abusive and the cop probably should have just walked away in any event.
July 20, 2009 at 4:51 pm
rea
The thing is, if you read the police report, you see that there really was an attempted breaking by unknown persons, as Gates himself reportedly acknowleged. When Gates was arrested, arrangements had to be made to secure the door, which had been damaged, and could not be relocked by Gates.
July 20, 2009 at 4:54 pm
N Merrill
You all have read the police report, not just the newspaper article, right?
July 20, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Bruce Ross
Did y’all notice the part toward the end of the police report about how Gates could not lock his door because of a prior break-in? Good grief, it does sound like he over-reacted.
July 20, 2009 at 5:31 pm
minneapolitan
So you get back from a business trip, hoping to find that your landlord has managed to get your front door fixed from when it was broken into last week (or whenever). You finally get inside, huffing and puffing because you’ve got a bad chest cold and you’re not a young person anymore. Some cop, who couldn’t be bothered to respond within the first hour after you called to report that your door was forced, comes onto your porch and starts hassling you. You’re hot, out-of-breath and upset, and the cop keeps badgering you to show him your identification, while you’re standing in your own house. You show him your ID, and instead of leaving, he stands there provoking you, then tricks you into going outside, so that he has an excuse to arrest you.
Sounds like you’re a black man in America.
July 20, 2009 at 5:56 pm
bitchphd
It seems that Gates was arrested because he talked smack to the police officer (”I’ll meet your mama outside”).
I absolutely refuse to believe that Gates yelled YO MAMA at a cop. What is this, Good Times?
July 20, 2009 at 6:02 pm
SEK
Did y’all notice the part toward the end of the police report about how Gates could not lock his door because of a prior break-in? Good grief, it does sound like he over-reacted.
From the post I aborted when I saw eric post this one:
It should’ve been clear to the officer who exactly had broken in, had he but listened.
I absolutely refuse to believe that Gates yelled YO MAMA at a cop.
I agree, B. Also from that unpost:
July 20, 2009 at 6:05 pm
bitchphd
I’m just going to start yelling YO MAMA a lot.
July 20, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Kieran
YA MOMA would be more like it in that neighborhood.
July 20, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Bruce Ross
Well, according to the police report there were at least a dozen witness on the street to witness whether he was acting disorderly or not.
I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know anything personally about Henry Louis Gates. It is not at all inconceivable, however, that a powerful and important Harvard professor should be so affronted by being asked for ID by a hapless police officer investigating a call that he should pop off an act like an arrogant jerk to said cop.
July 20, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Sir Gnome
And they all talked it out, realized it was a whole big mistake in which each party shared their mutual portion of responsibility, and the press went their merry way without presupposing circumstances prior to their knowledge of them, and it didn’t snowball into another story amplifying dubious social differences forced through trite political prisms. Civil officers went on officering, professors went on professing, and no one was the less.
July 20, 2009 at 6:27 pm
grackle
Someone had broken into the home of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. earlier that afternoon.
All I read in the police report is, “…the door was unsecurable due to a previous break in attempt at the residence.”
July 20, 2009 at 6:37 pm
bitchphd
It is not at all inconceivable, however, that a powerful and important Harvard professor should be so affronted by being asked for ID by a hapless police officer investigating a call that he should pop off an act like an arrogant jerk to said cop.
Especially when he’s just gotten off a very long flight across several time zones. However, still very much not an arrestable offence. Plus, come on. YO MAMA? No. Way.
July 20, 2009 at 7:04 pm
kevin
I believe Gates was telling the officer about his favorite bit of scholarship from Robin D. G. Kelley.
July 20, 2009 at 7:16 pm
PorJ
I just read 35 comments, and nobody (I don’t think) has said anything about Cambridge cops. What’s their reputation? Any Hahvahd-types around here? I used to live in Belmont and I thought the really racist cops were in working-class areas of Watertown, etc. In fact, the Cambridge cops were proud of their diversity training, etc. and had (I thought) a pretty decent reputation compared to just about everyone else in the Boston area.
*I’m not saying they weren’t racist in this incident. I’m only asking if anybody can comment on the reputation of Cambridge’s police force in general. Do any other incidents come to mind?
July 20, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Barbar
Even if he said “Yo mama,” that’s not an arrestable offense. If the police officer simply apologizes to Gates and walks away, nothing happens. But the officer just couldn’t take whatever Gates was saying. Ridiculous.
July 20, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Anderson
A superior lawyer to myself translates “disorderly conduct” as “failing to kiss the police officer’s butt when he’s illegally detaining you,” which I’m sure is more precise.
… For all I know, Gates may’ve been acting pompous and superior, but is that really so unusual among Harvard professors? How many white Harvard profs get arrested for public assholery?
July 20, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Barbar
There was a story a couple years back about someone calling the police because they saw some black Harvard students playing frisbee. Haven’t heard much about the cops being racist or whatever, but once the cop showed up on the scene I think race was largely besides the point: Gates was pissed off and the cop couldn’t deal. There doesn’t seem to be any confusion about Gates’s ID or whatever.
July 20, 2009 at 7:56 pm
andrew
How many white Harvard profs get arrested for public assholery?
Well, there was the guy who was arrested and charged with stealing manure a few years ago. Looks like he was able to get a settlement that didn’t require him to admit guilt.
July 20, 2009 at 8:10 pm
serofriend
I think the better question is: “How many white Harvard profs SHOULD get arrested for public assholery?”
This blog does an effective job at “gray area” coverage, so I would like to continue that tradition for minneapolitan:
So you get back from a loitering call, hoping to find that the dispatcher has no calls for you. You finally get inside your car, huffing and puffing because you’ve got a bad chest cold and you’re not a young person anymore. Some important reporter lady, who seems really pissed off, called the police about two black guys. You go over there and nobody’s around. Then you see her on the sidewalk, waving her cell phone around and bitching as expected. You turn around, and lo and behold there’s a black guy. He’s old so you better check his ID before you push him against the wall. Damn, he’s some director for blacks at Harvard or something…wait, is he like resisting or something? What an a-hole. That reporter lady’s a reporter, so she’ll tell everyone. I’m going to arrest this black mofo.
Sounds like you’re a law enforecement officer in America. Or, at least in Cambridge. Apparently you missed the diversity training seminar, but whatever. Not a big deal.
July 20, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Sir Gnome
“*I’m not saying they weren’t racist in this incident.”
So the assumption is that “they” are racist, despite the extremely limited nature of the evidence, and despite the extremely limited nature of the incident itself?
Popular accusations of racism are cowardly and uncaring. It is begging the question of racism as some self-fulfilled absolute, because there is neither an evidential means nor any standard for affirming person or institution as being non-racist.
July 20, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Sir Gnome
That’s “…for affirming *a* person…”
I’m not trying to incite or play devil’s advocate, only questioning these floating presumptions. I don’t like them any more than calling them “cops” instead of police officers. I can already hear the fiery sermons to come, meaning it is time again to simply bite one’s lip and nod.
July 20, 2009 at 8:46 pm
herbert browne
Re: the arresting officer was first on the scene and in uniform…
Thanks, TF Smith. I was responding to the unmarked car, I guess.
About the reports, they have Gates’ sex, race, and age… but Ms. Whalen has an age record only. I suppose one may conjecture a sex from the first name, but not race, certainly. I wonder if that’s consistent with reports of this nature, ie that parties of concern (who aren’t being booked, themselves) are considered “race-neutral”… ^..^
July 20, 2009 at 8:51 pm
kathy a.
the householder was confronted and accused of burglary in his own home. he was asked to go outside, then arrested for attracting attention. this is a messed-up set of facts. i would be awfully pissed if this happened to me; i might even use bad words. loudly. but there is virtually no chance this arrest would happen to me, or to most people with proof they belonged in the residence.
July 20, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Distinguished Harvard Professor
What’s their reputation?
They don’t have much to do. If you had nothing but the police blotter to go by, you would think Cambridge was the most boring place on Earth.
July 20, 2009 at 9:50 pm
aep
You think they would have carted Thomas Schelling away? Nah… Ms. Whalen may want to freshen her resume. What would a racist cop do if he discovered that the middle-aged black man he had just “called out” to the porch was the legal resident and a respected member of the community? Uh, arrest him? Humiliate him with cuffs and a mug shot? Make him cool his heels in jail for a few hours to teach him to show a little respect? Ahem.
July 20, 2009 at 10:06 pm
serofriend
Cambridge is the most boring place on Earth…which is why I’ve never heard of a Harvard Prof getting arrested for “public assholery.” In fact, there SHOULD be ordinances for those professors in all fields regulating such behavior. Perhaps, then, his outburst wouldn’t come under fire as “oh, those radical intellectuals” and adumbrate the actual issue.
I’m interested in the question about Whalen, as well as other witnesses.
July 20, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Mr. Sidetable
It sounds like there may be even more gray areas in this story. Apparently Gates leases the house from Harvard–he doesn’t own it–which means that his driver’s license may well have a different address on it (and may even be from a different state). Which may have confused the officer further: here’s this guy who says he lives here, and he works at Harvard, but his license says he lives somewhere else.
It’s likely that racial profiling played a role in the neighbor’s making the call in the first place (would she have called if it had been two white guys?), and in what the officer was expecting when he showed up at the house. And it’s baffling why he led the confrontation outside, or why attracting a crowd of 7-10 passersby is “disorderly” (if it is, then please oh please start arresting those Andean Pan-flute guys that are always in Harvard Square).
But it also sounds like Gates did nothing to de-escalate the situation, and continued to try to assert his class prerogative (“you don’t know who you’re messing with…”). As someone who lives and works in the Boston area, it is problematic to think that one can simply show a police officer a Harvard ID and expect them go scuttling off.
July 20, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Carl
These conversations fascinate me. Of course you kiss cops’ asses. Every halfway competent kid I grew up with in white suburbia knew this, and the others got their own asses handed to them in various official and unofficial ways when they got mouthy. Cops being an unpredictably mixed bag including good ones, dimwits, power trippers, bored victims of blocked social mobility, disillusioned boy scouts, and whatnot, and being the ones with badges and guns, and it being their word against yours, and so on.
July 20, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Carl
Sidetable, leave the Andean flutists alone. They’re protecting us all from the giant homicidal guinea pigs.
July 20, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Unpredictable Cambridge Officer
Would the Distinguished Harvard Professor like to join the Academy and become an officer? If so, he or she might like to scan my “Cambridge Crime Rate” album, with such hits as:
Aggravated Assault
8:30 AM
Charles St. & Sixth St.
Victim was walking her dog in the park when the suspect deliberately slammed the gate door on her hand.
Arson
12:06AM
Cambridge St.
Police were dispatched to a building on Cambridge St. The left rear of building was engulfed in flames upon arrival of dispatched units. The Fire Dept arrived and put out the fire.
Housebreak
7.11.09, 9:30-9:46 PM
Fifth St.
Victim stated that an unknown suspect broke into his apartment by prying open the front door and removed a play station and mountain bicycle.
Housebreak
7.10.09, 7:40AM-7:20PM
Seventh St.
Victim stated that while at work, an unknown suspect broke into his apartment by way of the front door. The door knob was found damaged, and the apartment had been rummaged through. Missing from the apartment are a computer monitor, laptop, a wireless router, speakers, a mouse and two key boards.
Attempted Arson
07.06.09, 4:15 -4:35 PM
Hurley St.
The suspect threw an enflamed coke bottle with gasoline inside onto the victim’s front lawn. The Fire Department put out the fire.
Housebreak
07.04.09, 6:00-11:59 PM
Fulkerson St.
Reporting party stated that upon returning to their residence they noticed several items missing including laptops and various DVD’s.
July 20, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Barbar
As someone who lives and works in the Boston area, it is problematic to think that one can simply show a police officer a Harvard ID and expect them go scuttling off.
According to the officer’s own report, there was no doubt about whether Gates was a resident of the house when he was arrested.
July 20, 2009 at 10:35 pm
aep
Mr. S: the officer admitted in the police report that he had determined Gates was the legal resident. The “problem” came after Gates confronted the officer for assuming he was robbing the place–in the middle of the day, standing in FULL VIEW OF THE STREET, holding luggage. Come on, honestly. If your profession has systematically terrorized an entire section of the population for well over a century, you have to be ready for a little angry suspicion in the course of your job. The minute the policeman said, “Could you step outside, sir” in that voice that demands acquiescence, the entire history of African American subjugation must have flooded Gates’s brain and he said, “Oh no, NOT ME.” For god’s sake: apologize for bothering the man and move on. It’s clear to me that the officer didn’t like his authority (and his motives) being challenged, so he took Gates on by luring him outside. And he NEVER would have done it to a middle-aged white Harvard professor in a suit on a nice street in the middle of the damn day.
July 20, 2009 at 10:37 pm
herbert browne
Ah, there’s Cambridge for you… a plethora of gasoline & a paucity of laptops… ^..^
July 20, 2009 at 11:02 pm
serofriend
Sounds like Berkeley. Astonishing!
I’m glad someone made the perceptive point (apart from my satire) that Whalen should be included in any racial profiling discussion.
July 21, 2009 at 12:19 am
Extinguished Harvard Professor
Arson is a frequent problem here indeed.
July 21, 2009 at 3:20 am
kid bitzer
i’m just relieved that this happened in post-racial america.
if this had happened in pre-post-racial america, it would have looked pretty bad.
July 21, 2009 at 5:32 am
Wendy
Gates didn’t say “Yo mama.” He said “Your mama,” and there’s a passage in his book “Signifying Monkey” that talks about the history of “your mama” jokes. In other words, of course he said it. I hate to get name-droppy, but if you’ve ever known Gates for any period of time, you would know he most certainly is capable of saying something like this in this context. And because I’m familiar with Gates’ work, I don’t see it as some kind of “Good Times” moment. It was his way of saying “fuck you” to the cop.
July 21, 2009 at 7:04 am
Vance
Wendy, I’m sure you’re right. And sure, being rude to a cop is morally wrong (and imprudent, as others point out above). Still, is it a crime, justifying arrest?
Another way to think of this is from our position as collective employers of the police. In this situation, when the officer had the choice of walking away angry or pointlessly brandishing his power, what do we, his bosses, want him to do? I want him to choose the first option.
July 21, 2009 at 7:47 am
herbert browne
I don’t know if this was touched upon earlier, but, Is the cop in the kitchen in “hot pursuit”? HOW is he in the house without a warrant, &/or “being invited in”? This isn’t done… at least, in my experience, without some kind of ‘legal framework’/ excuse to be in the house… and maybe THAT’S part of the motive for Gates’ arrest- ie a way to shield the cop from charges of sloppy police work. ^..^
July 21, 2009 at 8:17 am
Josh
“i’m just relieved that this happened in post-racial america.
if this had happened in pre-post-racial america, it would have looked pretty bad”
Absolutely hilarious. I wonder if Pat Buchanan, who during his seemingly senseless invectives against Sotomayor claimed that Obama’s election had ended discrimination once and for all, will weigh in on this one.
And, for all the people who say that they can’t believe Skip Gates would say “yo mama,” I actually think it’s kind of awesome to hear that one of the west’s intellect giants can also speak casually and use slang. I sincerely HOPE he said “yo mama,” although it will reinforce the idea that academics are out of touch, ’cause “yo mama” is so ten years ago.
July 21, 2009 at 9:18 am
adamhenne
And sure, being rude to a cop is morally
wrongimperative.Fixed that for you.
July 21, 2009 at 9:30 am
adamhenne
But regarding your mama , I think Wendy’s right. Not only is Gates basically the world’s leading expert on that kind of talk, he’s also the one of the world’s leading African-American intellectuals, the population for whom the term “code-switching” was invented. That Gates is capable and likely to switch between high-toned rhetoric and “your mama” is not surprising at all. What’s noteworthy is that Gates is by all reports a sweet and gentle character, which means that we can assume that unlike many high-powered academics, he must have been quite provoked to reach for the verbal big guns.
July 21, 2009 at 9:30 am
adamhenne
Hm, I put a “rimshot” in after ‘regarding your mama,’ but I guess that’s not recognized html for some reason.
July 21, 2009 at 9:51 am
kid bitzer
speaking only for myself, i think the idea that one has an obligation to be rude to cops, or that one is brave for saying such things, is either woefully adolescent, or morally obnoxious, or possibly both.
the cop who dealt with skip gates fucked up in a big way and should be punished.
but law enforcement in america is a little more complicated than “piss off the pigs, man!”
i’m going to hope a bunch of rim-shots fell out of that first post. maybe a lot of “just kidding ha ha”s would make it not offensive.
July 21, 2009 at 10:29 am
lt
Yeah, it’s a little more complicated than ‘piss off the pigs’ – but surely it’s also a little more complicated than ‘be deferential to anyone no matter how disrespectful they are to you,’ no?
July 21, 2009 at 10:36 am
silbey
And now the charges against Gates have been dropped.
July 21, 2009 at 10:43 am
Adam Henne
Well, mostly kidding but partly not. I mean it’s a blog comment so you can assume rimshots pretty much wherever. But on the other hand, I emphatically object to the idea that being rude to a cop is morally wrong. Tactically unwise and potentially suicidal, and that’s not hyperbole. But I categorically reject a moral obligation to be polite to a representative of state authority.
Sure that cop fucked up. But it’s not like it’s some kind of isolated incident, “bad apple” kind of thing. I’m as white as they come, but I’ve had dozens of interactions with police officers in which it was clear that their authority was a higher priority than civility, public safety, the law itself, etc. Police abuse of authority big and small is a systemic problem, hell, it’s a foundational element of our society. So realistically I wouldn’t actually advocate being rude to an individual officer, but I do believe as a society we have a moral imperative to counteract their assumptions of absolute authority. One aspect of that is refusing to fetishize their office with reflexive deference. IYKWIM.
July 21, 2009 at 10:58 am
Carl
Kid, agreed about rudeness to cops. In my experience it was always the kids who knew they could get away with it because of their class privilege over the working stiffs who got the mouthiest with whatever authority/daddy figure was handy. If Gates really thought he was in danger of police repression I think he’d be smart enough to adopt a more cagey strategy. No wonder he was shocked to actually be arrested. This all reminds me of that scene with Arthur and the peasants from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” “Come see the violence inherent in the system! Look, look, I’m being repressed!”
Cops ask for ID like heron eat fish. It’s their default, their nature. Just give the man the freaking ID so he can get himself wound down from thinking he might have to deal, alone, with a real door-smashing criminal. It looks to me like Gates was being pissy. Why? Well, it may be that the cop came on all fat and blustery. Or it may be that Gates was still pretty steamed and embarrassed about locking himself out of the house and having to break in. I’d have been. Most likely an unfortunate confluence of both.
Also, how would this conversation be going if the cop had not responded promptly and vigorously to a call to protect the black man’s property? The arrest was almost certainly over the top, but right up until then it looks a lot to me like the poor sucker was just trying to do his job, maybe not winning any style points but these are allowances we make for other humans.
July 21, 2009 at 11:05 am
Vance
“Morally wrong” is starchier than I would prefer (and in any case I was arguing that the cop should not have taken the “wrong” seriously), but on reflection, I still mean it. Police can and do abuse their power, but I don’t think that makes direct confrontation against individual officers unproblematic.
As I said above — and this is informed, obviously, by my status as property-owner, member of the ethnic group qui n’en est pas un, etc. — I regard the cops as working, with all their institutional and individual fallibilities, for us. If there’s a problem (as there clearly is in this story), let’s address it through the system, to coin a phrase.
July 21, 2009 at 11:16 am
margarita
His reply was “ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside.”
Merry mix-up. Gates simply wanted to greet Yo Yo Ma, who was ambling up the walk, having just arrived for tea.
July 21, 2009 at 11:17 am
Bitchphd
For the record, I do not doubt that Gates is capable of
code switching or being pissy. I have read the man’s work. I also do not doubt that cops often lie on police reports.
What I doubt is that Gates acts like a sitcom Negro when provoked.
July 21, 2009 at 11:19 am
Adam Henne
I regard the cops as working, with all their institutional and individual fallibilities, for us.
See, that has not been my experience, nor do I imagine has it been so for Gates.
In my experience it was always the kids who knew they could get away with it because of their class privilege over the working stiffs who got the mouthiest with whatever authority/daddy figure was handy.
Also emphatically not my experience. Oh goodness no.
July 21, 2009 at 11:23 am
Barbar
Just give the man the freaking ID so he can get himself wound down from thinking he might have to deal, alone, with a real door-smashing criminal.
For crying out loud, the officer’s own report says that he got Gates’s ID and had no reason to believe that Gates was a real door-smashing criminal.
July 21, 2009 at 11:25 am
Barbar
On the other hand, Gates also asked for the cop’s ID, and the police report is curiously ambiguous about whether Gates ever got a clear answer.
July 21, 2009 at 11:25 am
Vance
I hear you, Adam, but I think we’re talking at cross-purposes.
I took the liberty of adding a visual aid.
July 21, 2009 at 11:36 am
Carl
Thanks Barbar, that was my point. An ordinary police transaction proceeding smoothly enough. So where did all that racist cop rhetoric pop out of? Nothing much in the police report or its implied antecedents supports it.
Adam, although we may occasionally be inconvenienced by the crudities of the proles we hire to betray their own class interests and protect our status, property and lives, no one with the luxury of sitting at a computer on a Tuesday afternoon shooting the shit about the latest academic gossip would be in a position to do so without the stabilized environment created by the disciplining apparatus of the state. The cops do work for us, and normally so well that we don’t even notice it. For Gates to be who he is and have what he has, they have to be working for him too. Accordingly none of this conversation is about systematic abuses of police power, but about the outrage of the privileged against occasional lumps in our smooth enjoyment of its effects. It’s the princesses demanding another mattress between them and the pea.
And sure enough, Gates’ charges were dropped. Rightly so, no doubt.
July 21, 2009 at 11:42 am
Bitchphd
“nothing much in the police report supports it.”
hmmmmmmmmmmm.
July 21, 2009 at 11:44 am
Vance
That is (still struggling to articulate this) I don’t deny the abuses you’re talking about, Adam, but I regard them as having been done not to me but on my behalf, in a sense by me.
July 21, 2009 at 11:47 am
Wendy
Adam said what I meant much more elegantly.
I think the area of disagreement is whether saying “Your mama” is acting “like a sitcom Negro.” I don’t think it is.
For me the big cipher in this whole case is the woman who reported the “break-in.” I just can’t imagine calling the police without trying to ascertain a little more information from the scene of the “crime.” The (I assume) limo/town car, the “backpack” that should have looked like the luggage it probably was. Didn’t she wait and see Gates tip the guy and the guy leave in the limo/town car?
July 21, 2009 at 11:49 am
Fats Durston
M-F’n ice tea in here, indeed!
Chiming in on the “your mama” bit: Having seen Gates’s personal (and it’s very personal) filmed odyssey through Africa recently, he certainly deploys phrases like this in the documentary.
July 21, 2009 at 11:51 am
JPool
The arrest was almost certainly over the top, but right up until then it looks a lot to me like the poor sucker was just trying to do his job
And then what happened Carl? Up until then he was just trying to do his job, and then he remembered that his job was to arrest people, and that home-owner sure looked suspicious. Seriously, if you admit that the arrest seems out of place, then shouldn’t that color your reading of the whole dynamic leading up to it?
It seems to me there are two general problems with the way that some people are responding to this incident. One is the tendency of some white commentors to take their own experiences with cops and generalize it onto incidents between police and people of color. You don’t know how you would have responded, because odds are the entire tenor and pattern of your interactions with police have been different from what people of color experience. The second thing is that there’s a depressing tendency of liberal white people on the internet to say “No, no. I agree. Racism and sexism and what have you are real problems in our society. I just can’t believe that they are at play in any particular case.”
July 21, 2009 at 11:57 am
Bitchphd
It’s a synechdoche. The report makes it sound like the cop was “just doing his job” and Gates played the role of the shrill black man. Not buying it.
And sharp tongue, class privilege or no, the man isn’t an idiot. “I’ll talk with your mama outside” is not only something one doesn’t say to the cops, it’s a lame-ass retort.
July 21, 2009 at 11:59 am
Carl
Well apparently the Globe has pulled the police report so it’s going to be a bit harder to have an evidence-based discussion at this point. As I recall, what the cop reports he did was rush to the scene of a burglary in progress, visually confirm that the front door had been forced, and ask the man inside the door for ID, at which point the guy started yelling at him about how police treat black men. Barbar, he then directly claims he gave the man his name several times but was drowned out by more of the accusatory yelling, on which point he is corroborated by the (Hispanic) other reporting cop who arrived as backup. I don’t doubt that he was doing some inaudible mumbling at this juncture as he began to grind gears from crisis: dangerous break-in to crisis: irate homeowner, so the actual delivery of his name was probably impaired.
Look, I think it’s entirely possible the whole police report is a cya concoction. What’s bugging me here is that I don’t think “cop vs. black man, cop must be wrong” is a great cognitive advance on “cop vs. black man, black man must be wrong.”
July 21, 2009 at 12:06 pm
JPool
Carl, I know that you’re trying to be provocative in ways that you find interesting, but how you get from “police are an important part of our discipinary society” to “rather than challenging the treatment he was receiving, Gates should have said, ‘Thank you sir, may I have another'” is beyond me. Really? So, Gates should be thankful that he’s allowed to be professional class and ignore the fact that he’ll never be treated like other wealthy people?
Argh. Don’t listen to me, listen to Mos.
July 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Anderson
Gates simply wanted to greet Yo Yo Ma, who was ambling up the walk, having just arrived for tea.
Margarita ftw.
July 21, 2009 at 12:14 pm
jazzbumpa
I’m arriving very late to this discussion. But, FWIW, the links intended to lead to the police report only go to dead pages.
July 21, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Barbar
Carl wrote: Just give the man the freaking ID so he can get himself wound down from thinking he might have to deal, alone, with a real door-smashing criminal.
And then that turned into: I don’t doubt that he was doing some inaudible mumbling at this juncture as he began to grind gears from crisis: dangerous break-in to crisis: irate homeowner
In all likelihood, the officer didn’t feel in control of the situation. He was being berated by Gates, who was standing in his own house having done nothing illegal. Worse, Gates was probably on the phone with his superiors. So to gain control of the situation, he asked Gates to come outside and arrested him for disorderly conduct.
This has nothing to do with “criminals” or a “crisis,” and everything to do with the officer’s feelings. I think it’s understandable to some extent but I don’t see why we need to emphasize deference to the police in every situation at all times.
July 21, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Carl
Hi JPool. Is that what I said? Huh.
You’re right though, I am bored by stereotyped thinking. Like everyone, I hope, I’m interested in what actually happened between those two people on that occasion. Movement rhetoric is all very well, but it’s pretty dull as a forensic instrument.
July 21, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Adam Henne
About this, Carl:
The cops do work for us, and normally so well that we don’t even notice it.
Like many here, I am a property-owning white man with a fine education. The police are in a certain (incomplete) sense working to protect my class interests. I say incomplete because in fact, most officers privilege authority and a certain kind of order over the property rights they are obliged to defend. But that aside, the fact that the police are tasked to defend my class interests in no way means that they’re looking out for me. As an environmentalist, a political activist, and a social worker, the police have been explicitly working against my interests on every occasion of direct encounter. Indirectly, the existence of an armed police force perhaps protects my house from squatters and my place of work from the mafia, but I think that might need to be established empirically, and an appropriate experimental control has yet to be established.
And for the record, young middle-class white dudes know that if they kiss butt the cops won’t bother them. Black kids, punks, political activists, and many women know otherwise.
July 21, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Vance
I uploaded a copy of the police report, and changed the link.
July 21, 2009 at 12:39 pm
kid bitzer
from about minute 6:00 to 8:30, this has an interesting disquisition on the proper role of police in society.
July 21, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Vance
And Adam, you’re fudging the distinction between “working for us” and “working for (furthering) our interests”.
July 21, 2009 at 1:04 pm
rosmar
There is a balance to be had between treating the police as if they are inherently assholes (which is unfair because the problems are more institutional and structural than personal) and kissing the ass of every officer you see.
I admit I don’t have that balance down–guns scare me, a lot, and I am well aware of the fact that, while I can be morally courageous, I am physically a coward.
My ex-husband is Lebanese and used to wear his hair in a big afro. He is not a physical coward, as those who knew him during the Lebanese civil war attest. And even he, when stopped in Nevada by two police officers who asked if they could search his car, let them. He knew they had no right, having no probable cause (they gave him no reason at all for pulling him over–he assumes it was because of his hair), but he also knew that he was in the middle of no where with two people who would probably get away with doing almost anything they wanted to do.
The police office in question here needs a bit of education in U.S. history. That he is, by his own admission, shocked that Gates was irate is hilarious and sad.
July 21, 2009 at 2:16 pm
johnston
Carl wrote:
“As I recall, what the cop reports he did was rush to the scene of a burglary in progress, visually confirm that the front door had been forced, and ask the man inside the door for ID, at which point the guy started yelling at him about how police treat black men”
Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that the cop actually started the yelling? ANY doubt?
July 21, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Chris
treating the police as if they are inherently assholes (which is unfair because the problems are more institutional and structural than personal)
Those theories aren’t mutually exclusive. People are drawn to certain institutions and repelled from other institutions because of the interaction between the person’s individual personality and the structure of the institution.
Or, in short, assholes are drawn to jobs that allow them to act like assholes. Police officer fits this description to a T. (So does prison guard, another occupation riddled with abuse of authority and self-serving coverups which frequently demands, and gets, basically unlimited deference from nearly everyone they interact with.)
The police officer had both the opportunity and the responsibility to de-escalate this situation once it was clear a crime had not been committed, and before it reached the level of arrests and police reports and blog posts. He did not do so. The theory that he used the authority entrusted to him by the public for public purposes to retaliate for behavior that annoyed him personally is not at all far-fetched on these facts, IMO. The theory that he perceived a black man as both more angry and threatening, and less entitled to be, than a white man in the same situation isn’t either.
July 21, 2009 at 2:31 pm
rosmar
Chris, I agree completely with your last paragraph. Your middle paragraph is intuitively plausible, but there is also a lot of evidence that we generally tend to discount structure and over-emphasize personality.
July 21, 2009 at 2:55 pm
kid bitzer
indeed, the mention of prison-guards in chris’ middle paragraph should bring to mind a certain psych study which seems to have shown that even non-assholes can start to act like assholes when the institution and structure encourage it.
(unless chris is right that certain people are drawn to certain institutions, and nascent asshole prison-guards are just drawn to go to stanford as undergrads. certainly can’t dismiss that theory out of hand.)
July 21, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Carl
I agree with Chris’ last paragraph too. As for the two before it, we could also talk about interpretive and behavioral biases of anti-authoritarian personalities, but I like rosmar’s approach better.
Interestingly the conservos seem to be wrestling with this event along much the same lines, based on much the same reflexes:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGNhMDBhYzY5ZTAzNTU3NTYyY2JjOGRhZTUxNGIzMzM=
July 21, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Cruss
Just heard the spokesperson from the Cambridge police department on WBUR. She said something to the effect that both parties overreacted; I think the quote was that “both parties were wrong.”
If they admit that the police officer did something wrong here, then how can Gates’ reaction be wrong too? He’s accused of yelling at the police officer– if the police officer was doing something “wrong”, wouldn’t yelling at him actually be a reasonable (if ill-considered) response to the situation?
July 21, 2009 at 4:01 pm
SEK
You’re all wrong, the lot of you! Racism is dead in America! (That’s what the kids call “proof.”)
July 21, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Chris
@rosmar, kid bitzer, Carl: Well, it can’t be *all* about structure, or different people couldn’t do differently in the same job. An honest cop (assuming you believe there are some, and I do) and a dirty cop are working in the same incentive system, but their behavior is very different.
I didn’t mean to imply that *all* police officers are assholes, or that all assholes are police officers. I have no evidence for either and such a perfect relation is a priori very unlikely. Also, in case it wasn’t clear, when I started my post with “Those theories aren’t mutually exclusive” I was explicitly *not* denying one theory by proposing another. I do think the institution and structure has a direct effect, in addition to any indirect effect it may also have. (And that, ultimately, the primary responsibility for the structure of our government rests with us, the people.)
But if there were some objective measure of assholishness, I do think it’s more likely than not that police officers would score higher than the general population (although I’m not really sure what the effect size would be), even if you tested them off duty.
If you’re not convinced by my self-selection idea, how about the reverse? A job that encourages you to behave in certain ways leads you to repeat those behaviors until they become habit, and those habits may be followed even outside the context where they originated. It’s a different method of causation but predicts the same result.
For that matter, it’s not necessarily mutually exclusive with my first theory – you could distinguish between them by measuring the assholishness of officer trainees or applicants vs. those with many years on the force. All three effects could coexist – trainees might have a slight preexisting tendency toward assholishness, veterans a bigger one, veterans actually on the job and working within its screwed-up incentive structure the biggest. (Statistically, of course. There would be individual outliers.)
We just need a definition (of a notoriously vague term), a way of measuring it, and some data.
July 21, 2009 at 5:42 pm
herbert browne
*(unless chris is right that certain people are drawn to certain institutions, and nascent asshole prison-guards are just drawn to go to stanford as undergrads. certainly can’t dismiss that theory out of hand)*
Or that Stanford undergrads, in general, come from a population that is generally Better Served by “our” institutions (& their “institutional parameters”)… so why not do what they tell you? Heck– it got ’em to Stanford… ^..^
July 21, 2009 at 5:46 pm
herbert browne
…and I’ll never hear “Louie, Louie” again without recalling this ( I don’t think)… ^..^
July 21, 2009 at 5:57 pm
margarita
If they admit that the police officer did something wrong here, then how can Gates’ reaction be wrong too?
Gates was wrong to let the officer into his house. And he was wrong to comply with the officer’s request to come outside.
July 21, 2009 at 6:22 pm
N Merrill
Crus:
Isn’t the police timeline like this? First Gates does something wrong (escalates the situation by yelling about racism and playing the “do you know who I am?” card) and the officer responds by doing something wrong (arresting Gates instead of just saying “calm down, have a good night”). Blame: not a zero-sum game!
July 21, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Barbar
Hurting a police officer’s feelings seems like a much weaker offense than putting someone in handcuffs and taking them to jail. But that’s just me.
July 21, 2009 at 7:19 pm
kid bitzer
the people who are drawn to law enforcement have really easily-hurt feelings.
you should feel sorry for them.
July 21, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Barbar
Hurt Feelings.
July 21, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Cruss
N Merrill:
I’m talking about legal rights and wrongs here, not etiquette. I assumed that the CPD was also talking about law enforcement. But maybe you’re right– maybe they meant that both parties were “wrong” according to Robert’s Rules of Order.
Does anyone really care whether the Cambridge police department thinks Gates did something wrong from the standpoint of personal courtesy or whatever? You think the police spokesperson should start giving her opinion out about who was morally right or wrong every time a cop and a teenager get into an argument about where the kid gets to skateboard?
July 21, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Martha Bridegam
Everyone knows about the Cambridge Police. Everyone has always known about the Cambridge Police. See just for example these two scrapbook items:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=144532
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=139798
July 22, 2009 at 12:27 am
serofriend
Money and family usually draws me to “institutions.” Also, I don’t get how Gates’ compliance is in any way “wrong.” But then again, it’s late and I need to rest. This post is topping 113 comments. Cheers!
July 22, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Sir Charles
I believe he actually said “Yo Yo Ma.” As in, Yo Yo Ma wouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit.
I think you have a weird amalgam of race and class issues here — with the slightly paradoxical fact that the guy who is saying to the cop “do you know who I am?” — which is always waving a red flag in front of the bull — is both a Harvard professor and a black man.
Once the cop determined that Gates was the rightful occupant of the house he should have left — even if Gates was trashing him. Gates had every right to be pissed — hell the broken door alone would have had me cursing.
July 22, 2009 at 4:22 pm
N Merrill
Cruss:
I don’t think this line of argument works. From the police department response, it sounds like their view of the officer’s action is “legally permissible, but not wise.” That is, he chose to arrest rather than to refrain from arresting, but arresting wasn’t legally wrong. (Dismissing the charges is compatible with thinking that the initial arrest was procedurally ok.)
July 22, 2009 at 6:48 pm
JPool
Karl Steel linked to this over at Scott’s place (where things have gotten noisy and stupid, the way they do sometimes) and it’s well worth reading Gates interviewed by his daughter Elizabeth.
July 22, 2009 at 6:50 pm
JPool
Huh. Maybe it’s just my browser, but the link doesn’t seem to be working. Here it is:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-22/my-daddy-the-jailbird/full/
July 22, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Carl
Thanks JPool. Gates’ lawyer’s statement was pretty thin and left room to wonder if Gates had acted in ways he wasn’t anxious to rehearse, but this interview is much more definite (and yet typically gracious) that the police report is a complete fabrication.
I liked Gates’ analysis that the cop became entangled in a racialized narrative that he was unable to find his way out of in the event, and I’m sure he’s right. Racialized narratives are easy to get entangled in, as no one knows better than he. I’m not sure I agree that the way to fix this is to teach everyone about the history of race so they can have those narratives readily at hand, but I suppose a lot of knowledge is preferable to a little.
July 23, 2009 at 6:10 am
PorJ
Curious clip from today’s Boston Globe profile of the officer:
people who know Crowley were skeptical or outright dismissive of allegations of racism. A prominent defense lawyer, a neighbor of Crowley’s, his union, and fellow officers described him yesterday as a respected, and respectful, officer who performs his job well and has led his colleagues in diversity training.
I remember reading somewhere that Cambridge PD was famous for its diversity training and proud of its record.
So, for the record – are Ari and Eric still around: 25 years from now, when historians look back at Obama’s first term, will the distraction of commenting on Gates’s arrest be blamed for the failure of health reform in America? I can just see many, many people on this comment thread and elsewhere seething that the media is running with this (look at the banner headline in today’s Boston Globe) instead of focusing on healthcare.
Well, I’ll get flammed for this but its not the media’s fault. President Obama chose to comment on this case, in the manner that he did, and in doing so, he made what should have been a simple digression into a major headline.
Imagine today’s headlines if he said the following: “I like Skip Gates, and I’m sorry this happened. But I would caution people not to rush to judgment one way or another. As the President of the United States, I’m not as involved in the issues involved in local law enforcement as I was when I was a State Senator, or even a United States Senator. That’s all I’m going to say at this point.”
Flame away!
July 23, 2009 at 8:18 am
silbey
So, for the record – are Ari and Eric still around: 25 years from now, when historians look back at Obama’s first term, will the distraction of commenting on Gates’s arrest be blamed for the failure of health reform in America? I can just see many, many people on this comment thread and elsewhere seething that the media is running with this (look at the banner headline in today’s Boston Globe) instead of focusing on healthcare.
Well, I’ll get flammed for this but its not the media’s fault. President Obama chose to comment on this case, in the manner that he did, and in doing so, he made what should have been a simple digression into a major headline.
Uh, you’re disagreeing with a position that Ari and Eric and “many” in this comment thread haven’t taken about events that haven’t yet happened in a time that will be 25 years from now?
July 23, 2009 at 8:26 am
PorJ
Uh, you’re disagreeing with a position that Ari and Eric and “many” in this comment thread haven’t taken about events that haven’t yet happened in a time that will be 25 years from now?
Since you put it that way – yeah. Stupid comment. But I’m really frustrated by this distraction from the big picture and that the media is already being held responsible (see TalkingPointsMemo) by Obama partisans. These people can’t admit that the President of the United States, speaking about a specific – and recent – local police case that remains (somewhat) ambiguous (and the facts remain in dispute) is a true rarity in a prime-time press conference. A president bloviating on health reform happens all the time (Bush did it with the new medicaid bill).
Obama really did this to himself, and I’m enormously frustrated with him and with people who will blame the media first.
July 23, 2009 at 9:33 am
Carl
I understand your frustration PorJ, but I’m inclined to think people smart enough to be much good on health care are also smart enough to multi-task for a moment on other issues. They may even do crossword puzzles in the morning with their coffee before buckling down to save the world.
For the rest I’m hoping for a mass attack of the wisdom-inducing egg salad intestinal worm infestation. (Bring out the helminths….) Failing that, distraction with shiny things so they don’t get in the way.
July 23, 2009 at 10:22 am
Chris
Are you suggesting that the media somehow needs Obama’s permission to sensationalize a story of little overall importance? Or that all the members of Congress and their staffs who are spending their time trying to reach a deal on health care reform are going to say “Well, now that Gates is in the headlines, we might as well not bother”?
If our government can’t function while the media is distracted by sensationalized crap, then it can’t function, period. (Which is possible, but I don’t think the media is the major reason.)
I’m not blaming the media for the legislative process, I’m blaming the media for the media process. Obama couldn’t be their gatekeeper if he wanted to be; it isn’t his job and he doesn’t have the authority or the inclination.
What makes you think anyone would be less likely to run a story headlined “Obama Refuses to Comment on Gates Arrest”?
July 23, 2009 at 11:09 am
JPool
Chris says it best, but, to drive the point into the ground, no one, including Obama and Gates, is trying to make a Mark Fuhrman case against the arresting officer. The only facts in dispute are Gates’s statements and demeanor while being questioned inside his own house. Even if you take the arresting officer’s statement as gospel, it’s difficult to imagine that he would have made the arrest if Gates had been white. Now, of course one can never prove couterfactuals. All Obama said, however, was that he could understand Gates’s indignation at being further questioned once it was established that he was inside his own home, and that this sort hostile police response continued to happen to blacks and Latinos far too often.
If you simply don’t think the President should acknowledge race or racism because it will distract from all of the other serious business that is not-racism (imagine some sort of Venn diagram here), then you’re out of luck, but I think we’re better as a nation for it.
July 23, 2009 at 11:59 am
PorJ
no one, including Obama and Gates, is trying to make a Mark Fuhrman case against the arresting officer.
I’m not sure where you live, but where I live this is exactly what the media is inaccurately portraying right now – and what people seem to want to hear and read about (that Gates can be conflated with Al Sharpton). On the radio, on the comment thread in the local newspaper, nobody – including the people who need healthcare reform the most – seems to be talking about his plan (judging by the indicators of today’s public sphere – local blogs, comment threads in local newspapers, etc.). I would probably feel more secure if I weren’t witnessing this in real time.
July 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm
PorJ
What makes you think anyone would be less likely to run a story headlined “Obama Refuses to Comment on Gates Arrest”?
What makes me think this is my experience as a professional journalist. This headline would appear on B1 in the Boston Globe, not A1, and, if it made it in the other newspapers, it would be on A23.
July 23, 2009 at 12:13 pm
ari
Not surprising that the Globe is covering the story that way, PorJ; it’s local news, after all. The Times, meanwhile, has a small piece on Gates, as well as a forum of public intellectuals discussing the matter. But health care, the Dow, and the New Jersey rabbi/organ harvesting scandals are the big news. The Plain Dealer, in Cleveland, is also more interested in local news, but puts health care above the fold (no mention of Gates, as far as I can tell). Closer to home, the Sac Bee worries about the state’s budget woes and some other local issues. Health care doesn’t get a mention. The same is true to the north, in Portland and Seattle, where health care isn’t a big issue, I guess, but Jon Stewart and Sarah Palin are. The Chicago Trib is reporting on the price of going to the theatre. Gates is nowhere to be found. But wait! Senator Reid says we won’t have a vote on health care until the fall.
Ah, I think I may have found my villain: the United States Senate. Same as it ever was. Seriously, if we don’t get health care reform, there will be many reasons. But Skip Gates’s arrest, and President Obama’s response to the same, won’t be among them. Which isn’t to say that people won’t claim otherwise.
July 23, 2009 at 12:30 pm
bitchphd
I feel like a really naive white person saying this, but I am frankly shocked (shocked!) that an arrest as obviously unwarranted as this one has its defenders. I really would have thought that you couldn’t provide a cleaner, less controversial example of police overreaction. Wow.
July 23, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Vance
Looking at front pages on Newseum, I think things are not as bad as PorJ suggests. Apart from Boston, only a small fraction of newspapers seem to be taking Obama-on-Gates as seriously as Obama-on-healthcare. (In Chicago, the Sun-Times did this, but not the Tribune.)
Hi, Ari!
July 23, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Neddy Merrill
I think TNC provided one a few days ago, B, you know, the one where the overreaction involved the death of a guy for saying “get offa my porch” to someone who turns out to be a plainclothes officer. Or, if you want to make this one cleaner and less controversial, remove the evidence that Gates started yelling.
July 23, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Ahistoricality
I am frankly shocked (shocked!) that an arrest as obviously unwarranted as this one has its defenders.
You forget, friend, how eager some people are to attack academics, Harvard, anti-racists, liberals, celebrities, and anyone who criticizes police in the specific or abstract.
Hell, even people who aren’t defending the arrest are using the opportunity to attack Gates, et al.
July 23, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Sir Gnome
Someone mentioned, quite importantly, that blame is not a zero sum game. Are we at that point in a case where the facts cease to have much priority over the effect of assimilating the case into a new case, media narratives?
I don’t fully agree with the officer’s actions, but I hardly agree with Gates’ actions by default. Personally, I highly suspect that Gates behavior and his language signify a misplaced sense of “lost” propietary space that abides with a well-protected upper class, and is in fact the very historical mechanism of inequality upon which he lays blame. There’s an enormous spatial discrepancy between the shared space of urban blacks who are subjected to profiling, and to whom he appeals his case nonetheless, versus the “my” space of someone like Gates himself. “Uppity” white folks would have been perceived no differently by any local officer.
The current formulation of the incident carries the implication that no other outcome was possible, in spite of its limited nature, that neither party could have demurred an inch (how very gendered, as little as that dimension has been mentioned). While it divides the issue neatly into familiar socio-political polarities, it is simply not true:
Gates: “I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong.” (Do you know how many different sources and formulations of this statement Gates disseminated the night of his release?)
Crowley: “As I said yesterday, that apology will never come… It won’t come from me as Jim Crowley, it won’t come from me as a sergeant in the Cambridge police department.” (one quote)
The thing is, what may now look like entrenchment is the making of a teachable moment, especially for Gates. Honestly, what better individual to have such ammunition. And more power to—whomever—for creating an incident of such useful discourse. But I’d rather hear responses of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, or Barbara Smith before we start the national “defame-the-po’s” tour, or yet more victim rhetoric whilst polishing one’s guns.
But days now and no shaky cell footage? You’re letting us down, Big Brother.
July 23, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Dr J
Just to make it more complicated, now comes a report that the arresting officer teaches other cops how not to engage in ethnic profiling, etc.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106936583&sc=fb&cc=fp
I know there’s a “UR TEACHIN IT RONG” joke here, but I’ll refrain for now.
July 23, 2009 at 2:26 pm
bitchphd
Neddy, seriously: the evidence that Gates yelled is *from the cop’s own report*. Nor is yelling in an arrestable offense, I don’t think.
July 23, 2009 at 2:32 pm
bitchphd
Gates behavior and his language signify a misplaced sense of “lost” propietary space that abides with a well-protected upper class, and is in fact the very historical mechanism of inequality upon which he lays blame. There’s an enormous spatial discrepancy between the shared space of urban blacks who are subjected to profiling, and to whom he appeals his case nonetheless, versus the “my” space of someone like Gates himself. “Uppity” white folks would have been perceived no differently by any local officer.
I’m a little dubious on that last point, although I can imagine a cop deciding to teach a pissy white professor a lesson, sure.
In any case, god knows this comment is the most intelligent thing I’ve seen about the Gates thing. Responding to it, I want to say that at *least* Gates’s reaction is to recognize that his own experience has some bearing on the experience of much poorer Americans. I doubt that the hypothetical pissy white professor would react to being arrested by deciding to produce a pbs show about police behavior and profiling among non-elites.
There’s something in there about the effects of “race” solidarity across class lines.
July 23, 2009 at 2:46 pm
PorJ
My hometown newspaper has Obama healthcare on A1. Buried deep inside is the AP report titled “Arrest of Black Scholar Stirs National Debate.” Obama Healthcare has 5 comments. “Arrest of Black Scholar Stirs National Debate” has 52 comments.
There’s the newspaper and then there’s what many* people are talking about. If you look at TalkingPointsMemo and The Corner today, you’ll see two different conceptions of the Public Sphere. I hope TPM is more accurately reflective, but I don’t know.
I admit I’m really frustrated and am jumping to conclusions. But I see the Republicans making Crowley into Joe the Plumber and using him to catalyze white resentment and derail important policies. I fear we’re going to hear alot about Crowley in the 2010 election.
I know I need to chill.
*can’t (and wont) define “many” in this instance.
July 23, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Vance
While Sir Gnome is not wrong, exactly, I think that if we’re clear that Gates’ actions didn’t warrant arrest, then further analysis can wait until the far more important question of the policeman’s actions is settled.
The officer, predictably, has responded to charges that his actions were racist by arguing that he’s not personally a racist. That grinding sound you just heard was eyeballs rolling up into skulls around the nation.
July 23, 2009 at 2:56 pm
kathy a.
the pissy white professor would not have been arrested at his own home under these circumstances.
does anyone here know a single mature adult professional african-american male who has *not* had some experience of being hassled by the police, one place or another, on specious grounds? because, i don’t.
July 23, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Sir Gnome
“I’m a little dubious on that last point, although I can imagine a cop deciding to teach a pissy white professor a lesson, sure.”
The comparison obscures, in my own prejudiced opinion, that a white, upper class feller would probably be comparably more obstreperously prone to disbelieve that their actions might prove sufficient cause for their arrest because of “spatial” perceptions. I’m approaching this whole thing with the semi-informed, semi-intuitive feeling that I’m wrong about the whole thing. From there, it has given me good waypoints for exploring what my feelings are, what might be unconsciously informing them, and thus a kind of post hoc agreement with Gates goals and his sudden publicity. As for the officer, it’s probably just my milky whiteness that says Gates would make better progress being kind to be cruel, so to speak.
“There’s something in there about the effects of “race” solidarity across class lines.”
Interesting point.
July 23, 2009 at 3:01 pm
kathy a.
the officer has responded by saying he is an expert in racial profiliing, because he teaches it to police officers. which doesn’t explain much. one would think a training officer would have an understanding of racial tensions, and the smarts to de-escalate. one would think a training officer in cambridge, teaching racial profiling, would have some passing familiarity with a well-known local professor’s work in a similar area.
July 24, 2009 at 6:52 am
PorJ
Ron Paul?
Ron Paul!
[Comment #141]
July 24, 2009 at 7:51 am
Chris
“Uppity” white folks would have been perceived no differently by any local officer.
I don’t think so. Whites have a culturally defined right to demand their rights. We even expect some of them to be kind of jerks about it.
But a black person thinking they’re a person and deserve to be treated like one, that’s just unnatural. (To some.)
Uppityness may not have been what he was charged with, but it’s definitely what he was arrested for; but the range of behaviors that qualify as noticeable uppityness depends *a lot* on who is doing the behaving, and a black Harvard professor is a lot more black than he is Harvard professor in that calculation.
(See also “abrasive” women.)
July 30, 2009 at 12:06 am
Tom
As a matter of principle the police had a perfect right to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct. To teach him a lesson he would never forget. And which he would convey to others so they could learn the lesson too. Bottom line is that disrespectful treatment towards the police is oftentimes a precursor and pretext that criminals use to assault the police. And sometimes to kill the police too. That is why police departments throughout the country and world exercise a zero-tolerance policy towards people who are defiiant and disrespectful towards them. Even if those individuals are personally not dangerous. To teach the lesson to the public, so that anybody who still then defies the police and is not obviously harmless can reasonably be treated as potentially dangerous. Because they should know better
July 30, 2009 at 12:16 am
Vance
It’s quite astonishing how this episode has brought the authoritarians out of the closet.
July 30, 2009 at 12:49 am
ari
It’s quite astonishing how this episode has brought the authoritarians out of the closet.
Astonishing. Lamentable. Scary, even. It’s turning out to be quite a Rorshach, isn’t it? I mean, it seems completely cut and dried to me: Gates may have been acting like a jerk but clearly was breaking no law; Crowley apparently arrested him for being insufficiently obsequious; the Cambridge Police dropped the charges like a hot potato. The rest is shouting, as far as I’m concerned. But it really is stunning how many defenders Crowley has, ranging from anti-intellectuals, to racists, to thuggish authoritarians. It all gets creepier by the day. Calgon, take me away.
July 30, 2009 at 7:53 am
Ahistoricality
To teach him a lesson he would never forget. And which he would convey to others so they could learn the lesson too.
Can we say “Discipline and Punish,” boys and girls?
When did police become Daddy?