Skip Gates Comes Up With His Own Silver Lining

agree with poneil

By: phpeter | Thu, 07/23/2009 - 08:03

Let me start by saying that Dr. Gates' book "Colored People" is one of my favorites.

Now, the players involved doesn't automatically make this a case of racial discrimination. Police act like jerks on power trips often, but elites of all types can be demeaning and condescending. You put those two factors together, and this unnecesary result comes out. Could race have been a determing factor, sure, but why jump to that convenient and lazy conclucsion. It seems that this conclusion is the one that requires the least thought, is the easiest to propose, and puts you on the argumentative high ground where anybody arguing otherwise is posited as a racist or ignorant.

By the way, as a white youth(19) I was arrested for a simple mistake after a long day of work as a waiter. I lost a liscense plate from my truck, reported it as lost but came up as lost or stolen on the police computer. When the cop pulled me over, I showed him my paperwork I filed for the new replacement plate, explained the situation, was deferential, respectful etc and was still arrested. Everything was dropped the next day and my towed truck returned to me. I learned though that a bored cop will often create work on a slow day. I know that people of color have more stories like this, but the fact that it happens to all people makes it not automatically a racial issue.

Presumptuous and unfair to view this as racism

By: poneil | Wed, 07/22/2009 - 12:54

As a Public Defender who has been involved in thousands of criminal cases, I must say that it is presumptuous to view what happened as an act of racism.

It is very common for law-abiding white people to be wrongly suspected of criminal activity and wrongly detained by white cops. And then the situation is exacerbated when the person does not give the officer the respect and deference to which many cops feel entitled. So the cop nails him for breach of the peace or obstructing justice. Happens all the time and the charges are frequently dropped.

In the Gates case, there is some evidence that the detainment was unlawful. But I've heard no evidence, not even circumstantial evidence, that the cop's actions were racially motivated. (It's ironic that, on the one hand, we get outraged that the cop would suspect Gates of burglary based on so little evidence; while, on the other hand, we've already found the cop guilty of racism based on NO evidence.)

Our society has a counter-productive habit of assuming that any perceived mistreatment of a black person by a white person as a product of racism. (Classic example is black guy that feels ignored by rude white waiter; I'm white and rude white waiters ignore me all the time.) Maybe the cop is liable for an unlawful arrest; let Gates sue him. But until there is some evidence that it was racially motivated, give him the benefit of any doubt.

coming from the Boston area

By: misslkodell | Wed, 07/22/2009 - 10:49

Sorry to all of you who say the cop did no wrong, he did, it just shows that you have little to no experience with the police. I don't either but my small experiences have differed dramatically depending on my age and the company I was with as well as my clothing choices. My first experience was being picked up for shoplifting at 13, I was treated better than Gates, a 13 year old white girl caught red handed with a tube of lipstick that she stole, was treated better than him. My next experience was being pulled over for speeding, 2 friends and I were on our way home and I happened to be going 20 over the speed limit. Thats 2 16 year old girls and a 21 year old boy, all white and not even a written warning and the 21 year old was obviously drunk, again better treated than Gates. My 3rd experience with police, I was pulled over leaving a gas station I had stopped at to get some advil after the police officer saw my fiance leaving the store and getting in the car, he is not white and was in sweats and hadn't shaved that day, I was pulled over for having a tail light out, that was the first time a police officer walked all the way around my car and checked in all the windows he though my fiance was selling me drugs! He checked the glove compartment and the trunk!

So sorry everyone else, try being pulled over in racially mixed company and see how it goes, especially in the Boston area. You will also be scoped if you have books on black history in the back seat (4th encounter, pulled over for going 5 over the speed limit) and if you have Obama campaign materials on or in your car (5th time, again 5 miles over the speed limit). Yeah and I'm white, and I've seen it and experienced it first hand. Gates could have been calmer but seriously if a cop is in your house after you've proved they don't need to be there, tell me how calm you are.

Racial? Hardly matters.

By: ryanbeed | Wed, 07/22/2009 - 08:07

This might be a case of racial profiling, but more importantly it's a case about police misconduct, and how it's never, ever dealt with properly. We are talking about a man who didn't harm anyone being detained for hours and nothing is going to be done about it. They dropped the charges? Great, it's always wonderful when an assailant stops hitting you, but it doesn't make you whole.

Essentially he was kidnapped. And by dropping the charges the police are admitting that the had no reason to hold him. Someone should be up on charges.

If we did away with sovereign immunity so that police (as is proper) exposed themselves to charges for their assaults and kidnappings they would be a heck of a lot more polite and careful about how they treated their employers (the citizens).

Sorry for the tone, but the "just obey the cops and crap like this won't happen to you." people drive me up the wall. It is good to be nice to the cops? yes. It's good to be polite to everyone, but they have just as big a responsibility as any of us to adhere to that, and because they are allowed to use force they have a much larger responsibility to behave civilly and properly.

I'm furious over this story

By: P Starling | Thu, 07/23/2009 - 02:52

First off, @ kluhman, the Harvard prof thing was relevant because the home is owned by Harvard as faculty housing.

Now, I'm going to start out by saying that I'm a white girl. I grew up in a part of the country with a black population of approximately 0%, although there was a significant minority Hispanic and Tewa population. I also worked for the cops in a small college town for seven years. I'm truly sympathetic to their struggles, particularly with the "do you know who I am?" type of professors. For four years, I was also a licensed trainer through the state Police Officers Standards and Training commission, specializing in emergency communication and disaster planning.

The cops in Cambridge were as wrong as it is possible to be.

Gates was also wrong, which confuses the issue somewhat. Yes, being nice to the cops is good. Not being a jerk or throwing your weight around? Good. Not flipping out? Good.

But there is something here that no one has pointed out, probably since civilians usually don't realize it: the cops are soooooo used to that crap. If they arrested and processed everyone who gives them a hard time in a standard day, the streets would empty. In most states, in fact, disorderly conduct (which is indeed a crime) is not actually punishable by time in jail. It's a citation-level offense, along the same general line as letting your dog run around off leash.

In the seven years I worked for the police, there were many times when my coworkers would have loved to arrest someone on the "being a general asshole" clause. They never did. Not once. Because it would have been an abuse of power. And believe me, I didn't work with a group of unusually wise and humane cops. There were superb ones, stupid ones, young ones, and those whom I personally would never have let carry a gun. There were ones who were later suspended or dismissed for domestic violence or conduct unbecoming. We had the whole gamut. And still none of them would have arrested Gates, although they would have complained bitterly about him to the rest of us.

The controlling factor here is what I call the "emergency exception": essentially, people who are in unfamiliar and frightening circumstances are not held to the same standard of conduct as people who are not. Most people, when confronted by the cops, are in the emergency exception category. It freaks them out. It alarms them. They sometimes say or do dumb stuff, or make themselves jerks. The cops, however, have a higher standard of behavior because, for them, this is routine stuff. Responding on a burglary complaint in the middle of the day is routine. The emergency exception doesn't kick in for them until something unusual happens--shots are fired, for instance, or their patrol car is rear-ended.

A man confronted in his own home by a squad of armed and uniformed people is allowed to be a mite freaked out. He can object vociferously to the officers' behavior. He can threaten to complain to their supervisors (and he should always be provided names and badge numbers so he can do just that.) The complaint will probably receive short shrift--the officers were doing their job, thanks so much for calling, don't let the door hit you on the way out. But that is absolutely what should have happened. If Gates was making a scene and annoying the neighbors, the cops ought to have smiled and got the hell off his property (where, at that point, they no longer had any reason to stay, since he had provided documentation of his address.) But arresting a person who hasn't done anything but try to complain about you? That's police state behavior. That's out of line.

So did race matter? Probably. You don't do stuff like this, if you're a cop, because it will get you in trouble. The fact that these officers did suggests that they viewed Gates as too powerless to cause a real fuss. In view of what they knew about him (Harvard professor), that impression may have been because he was a black guy, and seemed easier to push around. It probably wasn't a conscious decision. It might not have happened if Gates had been, say, wearing a suit. But it does say something about the officers, and it's not a good thing. People who carry guns around ought to have better self-control.

We're missing some things here.

By: Lisa96 | Wed, 07/22/2009 - 07:20

According to Gates, when he couldn't open the front door, he went around the back and let himself in. Then the driver helped him open the front door. The driver was on the outside and Gates inside. We don't know when the police were called but it is just as likely that they were called because of the DRIVER pulling on the front door as they were by Gates going around the back.

Secondly, Gates was not arrested for breaking into his own home but for disorderly conduct. Gates leaves out of hia account the fact that HE brought race into this conflict. From the NYTIMES:

"By the police account, Professor Gates initially refused to show identification, and Sergeant Crowley did provide his name. When told that Sergeant Crowley was investigating the possibility of a break-in, the police said, Professor Gates yelled, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” and accused the sergeant of racism. Professor Gates followed the officer from the inside of the house onto the porch, yelling at him, the police report said.

Professor Gates said Tuesday that he did bring up race during the confrontation but that he was not disorderly. He also said he wanted to make a movie about what had occurred and take other steps to keep it from happening to someone else. "

Given Dr. Gates' field, his belligerant conduct with the officers, and his very public demands and threats that this might have been an event that he took advantage of what could have been a short incident and turned it into a racial media frenzy.

This article takes it as a

By: kluhman | Wed, 07/22/2009 - 01:48

This article takes it as a given that Gates was arrested because of his race without citing any solid supporting evidence. There are two conflicting accounts of the circumstances of his arrest. On what basis does Ms. Bazelon accept Gates' account and disregard the policeman's? It's surprising that so few people have applied any objective scrutiny to this case. For instance, the accusation of racial profiling on the part of the police doesn't make sense here. The police didn't stop by his house because he was black. They stopped there in response to a 911 call of a possible break-in. After doing so, it's natural for the police to ask to see the ID of anyone who they found at the residence, regardless of that person's race. Even according to Gates' account, after this was done, the police were on their way out of the residence when he stopped them and was arrested. The reason for that arrest depends on who you ask, but it doesn't make sense to say that it was because of race since even Gates acknowledges that the police confirmed his identify and were departing. So he was arrested either because he was berating the officer, or because the officer overreacted to the questions from Gates. But in either case, I don't understand how racial profiling was the reason for his arrest.

P.S. According to Gates' account, after meeting the officer, Gates told him his name and that he was a professor at Harvard. It seems strange to me that he would tell the officer the latter? The only relevant information in that situation was the fact that he was the owner of the house. Why is his profession and rank relevant? I think that this indicates that Gates expected special treatment because of his profession, when in fact any citizen should receive the same treatment by the police regardless of who they are.

Completely Agree!

By: Jennifer James | Tue, 07/21/2009 - 22:11

I have to agree with you, Emily! This just goes to show that even though we now have an African-American president it doesn't undo hundreds of years of racism. Unfortunate as this is for Professor Gates, his arrest is a wake up call for the nation.

I always find it odd

By: blackstocking | Tue, 07/21/2009 - 17:54

when people excuse the behavior of the police and others by invoking the norms of white polite society. Which if folks had some honesty and clarity, they would know don't usually apply when non-white folks are involved.

The whole Gates incident leaves me shaking my head...did the neighbor who called the police know Gates? Or did she fail to recognize him w/o his usual distinguishing markers -Harvard sweathsirt and/or his white wife accompanying him? Before you accuse me of being racist- I find that white folks usually don't recognize black folks they are aqquainted with w/o such clues. I have had such encounters continuously throughout my life. Sit next to a white person at conference, recital, introductions are made, maybe even have a conversation... later see me at grocery store, or Target, and I am another (black) stranger again. A "friend" sent me an email today- she thought she saw my husband and daughter at a local shop, but she wasn't sure, so she didn't speak to them.

Or could it be that Gates and the driver were both black? 2 black guys surely equals a break-in. Yeah I know, we are supposed to be in the all new, post-racial America, but the pollyanna-thinking regarding how race plays out in all encounters with the police (and yes it is in play whether the police are black, white, or other) is a sad reminder of how misinformed most whites are about the realities that POC face daily in this country.

This has lowered my opinion of Gates

By: CandyKay | Tue, 07/21/2009 - 15:58

Clearly, there was a mistake made here - the man was breaking in to his own house due to a faulty door, and an observer who didn't know him understandably reported it as a potential break-in.

The cops responded and, completely fairly, asked to see his identification, which he provided. This is where the story goes awry.

It seems as if Gates lost his temper, as I probably would in the same situation - tired from a long trip, annoyed by the faulty door, doubly annoyed by a cop asking a lot of uninformed questions. I can easily picture myself, or a highly educated Harvard professor, blowing my top and getting myself into some serious hot water.

But I wouldn't think to to paint myself as a noble martyr in the situation, or to see an extreme irritation as an example of America's intractable racism. Then again, I don't have national name recognition or a own web news site linked to the Washington Post online.

Gates acted like a jerk (and the cop may have also acted like a jerk), but this is hardly another Selma. What Gates is selling is his own self-importance, and it makes me think less of him.