The circus comes to Cambridge: Skip Gates arrested

[Gentle Giant]

I'll start off by saying that I don't particularly care for Henry Louis Gates. Harvard's head of black studies was arrested yesterday for creating a disturbance at his home in Cambridge, and he and god-awful Al Sharpton are screaming racial profiling all over the place.

What happened is that he and his black driver (he was returning from a trip to China) were trying to get his front open, which was jammed. A passer-by saw the scene and thought they were trying to break into the house, and so called 911. The police arrived and when an officer entered Gates' home and asked him to go outside, Gates was verbally abusive. Then he was arrested.

So by latest reports, it doesn't seem like the Cambridge police were racial profiling at all, merely responding to a call they received. And Gates wasn't an innocent victim of being "a black man in America" as he said, he was abusive and uncooperative.

Anyway, it's going to be in the Boston papers for a long time to come, so permit me to virtually vomit now.

Note the "racist" black officer in the foreground.

[Monte Smith]

Let me put in my two cents. We don't know what the fuck happened. Now can I get my change?

[clinthopson]

Too bad these guys don't have more cards in their deck.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I'll start off by saying that I don't particularly care for Henry Louis Gates.

Why?

[Ron Thorne]

I like this portrait of Henry Louis Gates. I'm not much interested in seeing his mug shot, though.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Pete C

Why?

I've read some of his stuff, I've seen some of his docs, I just don't think he's all that. Around these parts, and especially when I used to work at WGBH, he's ubiquitous but he doesn't seem to bring much with him other than his own spotlight. This isn't the first time he's yelled racism. God forbid one of his faculty is refused tenure; the sparks will fly.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I've read some of his stuff, I've seen some of his docs, I just don't think he's all that. Around these parts, and especially when I used to work at WGBH, he's ubiquitous but he doesn't seem to bring much with him other than his own spotlight. This isn't the first time he's yelled racism. God forbid one of his faculty is refused tenure; the sparks will fly.

So let's break this down. A black scholar has underwhelmed a white citizen with his professional work. He is viewed by this white citizen as a spotlight grabber. He would probably stick up for members of his department if they were denied tenure.

He was abused in his own home, without having a chance to explain himself. He was uncooperative because he didn't prove who he was in his own home to the cop's satisfaction on the cop's timetable. A white neighbor called because some black men were trying to get into this house.

So, plenty of white people think it's much ado about nothing, which is easy, because they probably wouldn't find themselves in the same situation--either it wouldn't have been reported, or the explanation might have been dealt with more calmly by the cop.

Plenty of black people will think it's profiling and abuse, and not without personal experience informing that opinion.

Maybe it's not a clear as black and white. Monte, to his credit, had the right answer. Gentle Giant, on the other hand, seems to be reveling in this incident.

[walto]

When Rollie first posted this story a couple of days ago, I wrote:

"Law suit, novel, movie."

Today's Boston Herald confirms.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Boston Herald

As it turns out, there won’t be any need for Rev. Al to exploit the incident on Ware Street, because Skip Gates has decided he’s going to create a full-length documentary for PBS based on his arrest.
“The idea never crossed my mind,” Gates told The Washington Post yesterday, “but it has now.”
I expect the documentary will soon be prefaced by Skip’s 10,000-word treatise in The New Yorker.
Exploitation can assume many forms - including Skip Gate’s sudden decision to train his historian/journalist eye on the subject of racial profiling. Obviously, there’s no need to ask why he wasn’t moved to make such a documentary before yesterday.

Perhaps he didn't make such a documentary before yesterday because he had a busy agenda with lots of projects on the boards, and perhaps he wants to do it now because many writers, scholarly or otherwise, are understandably moved to tackle projects that relate to personal experience. Obviously, this is a loaded opinion piece. Gates may write a piece for the New Yorker, but a "treatise"?

[Uli]

Originally Posted by walto

When Rollie first posted this story a couple of days ago, I wrote:

"Law suit, novel, movie."

Today's Boston Herald confirms.

I don't see the lawsuit confirmed, nor the novel.

[Root Doctor]

I love how the police report indicates that Gates was belligerent towards a police officer in a public place, that being his own porch. "Disorderely conduct" is cop speak for "You haven't done anything wrong, but I'm going to hassle you anyway."

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Pete C

So let's break this down. A black scholar has underwhelmed a white citizen with his professional work. He is viewed by this white citizen as a spotlight grabber. He would probably stick up for members of his department if they were denied tenure.

He was abused in his own home, without having a chance to explain himself. He was uncooperative because he didn't prove who he was in his own home to the cop's satisfaction on the cop's timetable. A white neighbor called because some black men were trying to get into this house.

So, plenty of white people think it's much ado about nothing, which is easy, because they probably wouldn't find themselves in the same situation--either it wouldn't have been reported, or the explanation might have been dealt with more calmly by the cop.

Plenty of black people will think it's profiling and abuse, and not without personal experience informing that opinion.

Maybe it's not a clear as black and white. Monte, to his credit, had the right answer. Gentle Giant, on the other hand, seems to be reveling in this incident.

blah blah blah blah blah blah. Reading you is probably even worse than knowing you.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

blah blah blah blah blah blah. Reading you is probably even worse than knowing you.

I suggest you do neither.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Pete C

Monte, to his credit, had the right answer. .

That's right.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

I love how the police report indicates that Gates was belligerent towards a police officer in a public place, that being his own porch. "Disorderely conduct" is cop speak for "You haven't done anything wrong, but I'm going to hassle you anyway."

I have a lawyer friend who used to be a local cop, and he told me once about a guy on the force who was such an antagonistic asshole that every encounter with a member of the public turned into a charge of "assault and battery on a police officer" after people inevitably got tired of listening to his demeaning conversational tone.

[Root Doctor]

I'm sure he was battle-scarred from breaking up all those teenage drinking parties in the dunes. You have to be a strong man to deal with that kind of malfeasance.

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I'll start off by saying that I don't particularly care for Henry Louis Gates. Harvard's head of black studies was arrested yesterday for creating a disturbance at his home in Cambridge, and he and god-awful Al Sharpton are screaming racial profiling all over the place.

What happened is that he and his black driver (he was returning from a trip to China) were trying to get his front open, which was jammed. A passer-by saw the scene and thought they were trying to break into the house, and so called 911. The police arrived and when an officer entered Gates' home and asked him to go outside, Gates was verbally abusive. Then he was arrested.

So by latest reports, it doesn't seem like the Cambridge police were racial profiling at all, merely responding to a call they received. And Gates wasn't an innocent victim of being "a black man in America" as he said, he was abusive and uncooperative.

Anyway, it's going to be in the Boston papers for a long time to come, so permit me to virtually vomit now.

Note the "racist" black officer in the foreground.

Jason, were you there? How do you know he was "abusive" to the officers? Their word? Sorry, I don't buy it.

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I've read some of his stuff, I've seen some of his docs, I just don't think he's all that. Around these parts, and especially when I used to work at WGBH, he's ubiquitous but he doesn't seem to bring much with him other than his own spotlight. This isn't the first time he's yelled racism. God forbid one of his faculty is refused tenure; the sparks will fly.

...and how do you feel about Allen Counter and David Evans?

[jeff54]

I had something similar happen to me once. Many years ago I lived on the 1st floor of an apartment building. A friend and I were loading some stereo equipment that we had used for a party the night before into his van but we were removing it from the apartment by way of the window because it was much closer to the street then the door. Anyway someone must of thought it looked like the place was being robbed because about an hour after my friend left a cop sticks his head in the window while I'm sitting in the living room watching TV and asks if I lived there. I told him I did, and he asked for identification. In those days NY state drivers licenses had two parts, one was the actual license the other was a record of driving violations, both had an address on them. I gave him the violations part because it was the first one I fished out of my wallet. The cop looks at it and says this isn't the license. I said well I'm not driving so what's the difference. He gets annoyed and starts asking me questions about why I was taking stuff out the window, just then a second cop comes up and sticks his head in the window as well, looks at the TV and says hey is that "Animal House". It was. Then he looks at the identification, it turns out he knew my sister. So they left.

Cops don't like to be questioned or talked back to. I had one arrest me once for disorderly conduct for calling him a creep.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I'll start off by saying that I don't particularly care for Henry Louis Gates. Harvard's head of black studies was arrested yesterday for creating a disturbance at his home in Cambridge, and he and god-awful Al Sharpton are screaming racial profiling all over the place.

What happened is that he and his black driver (he was returning from a trip to China) were trying to get his front open, which was jammed. A passer-by saw the scene and thought they were trying to break into the house, and so called 911. The police arrived and when an officer entered Gates' home and asked him to go outside, Gates was verbally abusive. Then he was arrested.

So by latest reports, it doesn't seem like the Cambridge police were racial profiling at all, merely responding to a call they received. And Gates wasn't an innocent victim of being "a black man in America" as he said, he was abusive and uncooperative.

Anyway, it's going to be in the Boston papers for a long time to come, so permit me to virtually vomit now.

Note the "racist" black officer in the foreground.

I read the story in today's paper.

Maybe if he just gave the officer an ID and not bad mouthed him...the problem could have been avoided.


I dunno. Almost seemed like a set-up.

[jesus marion joseph]

The more I hear/read about this incident, the more it seems Goody may have nailed it.

The cops were probably agitated because Gates was agitated and yelling at them; one thing leads to another and before you can say "Al Sharpton's your mouthpiece" you've got an international incident.

[ran]

Does anyone really think that 2 white guys would have been treated the same way , especially after showing that he lived there ?

I don't think so.

Like the Pres. said they acted stupidly.

Maybe worse.

[Pete C]

That answer was the highpoint of Obama's speech. Otherwise it was like watching one of my boring college professors.

[Root Doctor]

Maybe it's me, but I don't think the cops have the right to arrest you for being lippy in your own home, particularly given the circumstances in the Gates incident. Too often police forget the first part of "To Serve and Protect."

[me wag]

Obviously they all went bonkers including Mr. Gates, but aren't police trained to keep their cool? Seems like it was sorely needed in this situation. They should have just apologized for inconveniencing him and got the hell out of there.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

I don't think the cops have the right to arrest you for being lippy in your own home

[Al in NYC]

I've stayed away from this until it became clearer what actually happened here, but it looks to me like this is one of those incidents that's just going to be perceived differently by most black people and most white people. With the charges now dropped the whole thing could eventually blow over, but certainly Obama will take some heat from a lot of white folks for calling the actions of the Cambridge cops "stupid." Whatever what one thinks of Gates, or his actions here, arresting someone in their own home, after they've already proven that they live there, there has been no physical assault, and no other offense has been committed other than some cross words, is more than a little unusual. So, it doesn't seem like reaching at all to ask if the arrest, indeed the entire incident, would have occurred at all had it been a white professor involved.

I will say this from my own personal experience, I have never seen cops that were so intrusive, rude, and downright tribal as the ones I ran into when I lived in the Boston area. And the Cambridge cops I was unlucky enough to experience during the rather brief times I lived there were particularly bad. They were often openly belligerent, with a chip on their shoulders a mile wide for the college populations there, both student and faculty. In fact, anyone other than their fellow Irish- and Italian-American townies seemed to be immediately perceived as an enemy. So maybe it wasn't just Gates' race, but his status as a high-falutin' uppity Harvardian that got him into handcuffs.

[rollhead]

I've had similar experiences with police, which is that if they don't like the way you answer questions or the words you use in answering them, they get hostile and threatening.

Our car was stolen a few years ago, and we were immediately treated as the prime suspects in the crime.

I say this as the son of a 20-year career cop. Maybe it is my imagination, but cops 40 years ago were more like Andy Griffith and Gunther and Toohey in Car 54 where are you. Today, if I see a cop, I just assume he is a thug in uniform, and I do my best to avoid him.

Oh, by the way, I've read Henry Louis Gates Jr. and I think he is a fine writer and thinker.

This is an especially worthwhile read:

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by rollhead

Maybe it is my imagination, but cops 40 years ago were more like Andy Griffith and Gunther and Toohey in Car 54 where are you.

The change started in the late '70s. Call it the Starsky & Hutch Syndrome.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

The change started in the late '70s. Call it the Starsky & Hutch Syndrome.

No more sleepy days at the barbershop. They want someone to make their day.