Forgive me for throwing in my two-cents' worth, but I must post my thoughts about the recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for "breaking into" his own house. Gates, who is black, was arrested in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by a white police sergeant, James Crowley, for disorderly conduct when Gates continued to upbraid Crowley after Crowley had seen proof that Gates was in his own house. Many are defending Crowley, who is by all accounts an excellent officer, and who indeed teaches younger police officers the wrongs of racial profiling. Many (myself included) are outraged that Crowley arrested and handcuffed Gates at all, despite the fact that the charges were later dropped. President Obama called the officer's actions "stupid" at the end of his press conference Wednesday night. I have to agree.
First, the real source of the problem has been totally ignored so far. That source? The woman who called in an apparent break-in and robbery in progress. Yes, she was correct to call for help instead of investigating herself, but here's the problem with what she did: if she was so aware of what was going on in her neighborhood that she saw Gates leaning his shoulder into his front door in an effort to get it to open, why didn't she recognize Gates? Her brain seems to have shut itself off the moment she noticed that the man at that door was black. That's the real root of the problem.
Yes, Gates could have restrained himself and his tongue--but why should he have had to? He was in his own home. He'd proven to the police it was his own home. The ER character Halle once pointed out to a white character that "for black folks, it's always about race." And it is. People who say Crowley did nothing wrong because he would have done the same thing had a white suspect so berated him are forgetting that no white suspect ever would have found himself in the position in which Gates found himself in the first place. Let alone the fact that Gates is a professor at Harvard. His status and his skin color simply don't match in the minds of way too many people in this country, and they mix and match their reactions to Gates' behavior by pointing to whichever factor suits their prejudices. He is a professor, in his own home? He should have understood the neighbor's concerns and been grateful that the police responded so quickly to protect his property values. But he was out of line in the way he spoke to the officer? He's a hypersensitive [read that "uppity"--Ed.] black man. In short, he's in a no-win situation, a situation no white person would ever have had to face.
The other major point that occurred to me, and which seems to have occurred to no one else besides Joseph McMillan, the head of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, is that the police contact with Gates should have ended the second Gates proved who he was and that he was in his own home. Crowley should have just walked away, even if Gates continued to excoriate him verbally. He should have closed his ears and kept on walking. The man was in his own home. He had every right to be upset. Let him blow off steam. Don't try to talk him down; don't even listen to him. The fact that the disorderly conduct charges were dropped proves Crowley could have just walked away. The charges were not dropped due to adverse publicity, for the charges were dropped before the events had become widely publicized.
No, Crowley technically may have done nothing wrong, but he of all people should have known that exercising his police power under the circumstances would come to no good end. He may claim it's because he doesn't look at people's races in making his decisions, and he may really believe it. He may even be right. But that's not really the point. The point is that some people on the receiving end of the exercise of police power have collectively been on the receiving end of centuries of abuse of that power. Crowley was in the position of power and authority in the situation in which he found himself vis-a-vis Gates. He could have chosen NOT to exercise it out of deference to the right of a man in his own home to be, well, pissed off. He should have made the choice not to exercise his power in that situation. The fact that he did not choose just to walk away demonstrates that he still has a big blind spot in his thinking about and understanding of the realities of race relations in this country. Judging from much of the subsequent commentary, Crowley is not alone. And that is very, very sad.
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