Gates
Have you heard the headline news this week about Harvard professor, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates? If not, I’m surprised – it’s all over the place. But, in a nutshell, Professor Gates (who happens to be black) comes home late at night without car keys. He and his driver root around the property finding the best way to get in. Neighbors call the cops, alerting them to two black men breaking into a home. Cops arrive. Gates shows them identification stating they he lives there and he’s a Harvard professor. Situation escalates (Gates has one story; office has another) and Gates is arrested for disorderly conduct.
The story has now become the basis for all the major news outlets to touch on topics of racism. President Obama had something to say about it during last night’s press conference focusing on health care. In response to a reporter question, he said the police officer acted “stupidly.” Even the chief of police in Cambridge, where Gates lives, has publicly apologized for what took place.
I took note of this story for a couple reasons. First, as many of you can guess, it perked my ears because I recently blogged about race relations. My personal experiences with them. My views on the northeast (in particular, Boston). And the idea that racism is still very much an issue in our country. Clearly, this is an unfortunate situation.
But, it also peaked my interest because I know Skip Gates. Well, I should probably state it differently by saying I met Skip Gates. Years ago, my father and Skip both attended a research thingamagig in Italy. They were there for six weeks and became very chummy during that time. Upon their return, they stayed quite close for a long time. Our family attended Christmas parties at the Gates’ gorgeous Cambridge home. I met him. His wife. His children. And though, I’m not friends with him. In fact, I don’t think he’d be able to pick me out of a line-up. I do have a more personal connection to him than most people reading about this situation.
So, here’s my two cents on the situation. From what I’ve heard, I think the officer has his own set of personal beliefs that he let get in the way of doing his job. And I think he chose the wrong person to express these beliefs. Skip Gates is very outspoken. He will not be pushed around, as is evidenced by this story. And I don’t doubt he had strong words for the officer who was questioning whether he actually lived in such a nice home. I personally think the line becomes blurred when the officer chose to arrest him.
Should that officer have believed Gates after he showed proper identification? Absolutely. Should it have ended there? Absolutely. But, when it didn’t, should someone, anyone, doesn’t matter your race or gender or hair color, be mouthing off to officers? Probably not. While the officer had the ability to tell Gates to go inside before the situation escalates, the officer probably felt he had the authority to arrest Gates when strong words came from Gates’ mouth.
But, there’s still something I don’t get. Gates was trying to get into his home in broad daylight. Don’t his neighbors know who he is? Don’t they know where he lives? Why isn’t anyone questioning their motives or intentions or race biases? I get that they felt security at the home was being breached. But, it just seems strange to me that they wouldn’t know or even think it might be Gates at his own home.
But, that’s just me. Some Midwestern white girl’s opinion.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:16 am
That was my first thought. Didn’t the neighbors recongnize him? Very strange. I suppose there are places where neighbors don’t know each other. But in a neighborhood of single family houses? Of course I am also used to giving neighbors a key in case of emergency, so maybe the neighbors didn’t know him. Or was it a maid or landscaper person who called the police?
In any case, though this is a bad situation, it brings to light (yet again) that there is a problem in this country and hopefully will be used for good in that people will talk about it and become more aware of racism.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Sadly, some people only see color. Not the fact that he was a neighbor.
It is very disheartening!
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 am
I thought the same thing too, how could his neighbors not recognize him? I live in a big apartment building and I recognize quite a number of people who live here. How could they think that was someone breaking in? And after showing ID, what the hell was the cop’s problem?!
How stupid, sad, racist and ignorant of the neighbors and cop. To be quite honest, I would have flipped a lid had something like that happened to me. I don’t think I would have been able to compose myself and think with a clear head as someone was arresting me from trying to get into my own house.
Ridiculous.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:07 am
Gates has every right to be angry!
The cop should feel very ashamed. It takes a high level con-artist to have proof he lives in a house he’s trying to break into and the cop should realize that. I would have cursed up a storm if someone had tried to arrest for me accessing my OWN HOME.
And the neighbors should feel really, really shitty for how they acted and they subsequent trouble they caused.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Kate Harding has a very interesting take on the whole thing that you would probably be interested in reading. Basically, what she says is that Gates’ worst crime was probably being an asshole, and that’s still legal in the US, even if it’s not commendable.
Also, she points out that his driver was trying to help him get in the front door, and maybe the neighbor could only see the driver’s face and not Gates’ face? Who knows.
Anywhere, here it is: http://kateharding.net/2009/07/21/this-is-what-happens-to-black-men-in-america/
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:47 am
Agreed—something is going on with the neighbors.
Racism is alive and well, quite sadly.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
First this, then the fiasco in Paris Texas the other day, and I pretty much want to walk around the country slapping people.
What is most infuriating for me about the Gates situation is not only that it happened, but that if he were not a prominent man with friends in the right places he would never had had any recourse. He would simply be another black man in jail. No voice, no respect, no one to believe him.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:19 am
When I saw the news, I was yelling at the tv… “don’t they know who he is???”
I would probably be arrested too if someone was trying to say I was breaking in to my own home. I would be absolutely belligerent. This harks back to your post on Chicago Police. Lots of bad experiences with them.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
you can imagine all the hype about this around here. all over the news, everywhere.
and i completely agree with you. totally, 100%. i think that the cop was a little extreme, but i also think gates was out of line also.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 am
Yeah, I am with you…once ID had been shown, he should have gone inside, and called the Chief to complain about the officer’s bias…but once he chose to get mouthy…well….
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
i don’t like that this is the first thought that came into my head, but i feel like i’m relatively safe sharing things here, but one reason the neighbors might have been wary, especially if they are rich white people (and again, i know this is horrible to say or even think), is that to them, all black people might look the same. this seems to be a recurring argument both in jokes and in defense of situations like this. all asians look alike, all spanish people look alike, etc etc, i’ve even heard blacks ask how one can tell any white people from the others. it comes up with almost every race and it’s awful.
but i agree with all of the comments above, those neighbors are not people i would want to live by if this is how they react to my coming home. being loud and obnoxious when being interrogated about whether or not you live in the house you’re trying to get into, especially after showing ID is no crime. that officer should feel ashamed.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
This may not be a popular opinion but no, I don’t think that the police officer should have a right to arrest Gates for lipping him off. Gates didn’t physically attack the officer; he reacted strongly -- with language, not violence -- to a disgusting situation. I don’t think that being a police officer means that you can act like an ignorant fool and then arrest the person who is calling you out on it.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
He was not arrested for breaking and entering. He was arrested for disorderly conduct. I am sure he gave that cop a piece of his mind and as can often happen, it went out of control. I wasn’t there but it’s not okay to bully police officers and there are consequences for that. It’s not okay for cops to bully people once they know there has been a mistake.
I would be more worried about who called the cops than the cop. I don’t think the cops would automatically know a Harvard academic..probably not their style realistically. Different circles and all. His neighbor might have come to his rescue after realizing it was him. There may be a lesson in knowing ones neighbors here. I wouldn’t be sure if anybody by us was breaking in or not.
Both appear to have helped it get out of control but the guy wearing the badge and gun always gets the final say and it seems this man was trying to test that theory. The cop didn’t dispute it was his house. He disputed how he was treating the cop.
Without having been there I place any racism suspicions on the caller to the police. I won’t assume that about people though.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html
for what it’s worth..looks like the arrest report. might be worth a gander. i would imagine it shows a series of bad decisions by all involved.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Is anyone else reminded of that fabulous West Wing episode where the President’s SCOTUS nominee gets arrested for drunk driving?
I think so much of this case comes down to whether you believe that police officers are there to save lives and help keep the peace or whether you think that they are, by and large, ex-military assholes on a power trip getting their rocks off by harassing anyone and everyone they can through fear and intimidation. I’m of the latter category and so don’t see anything wrong -- or arrestable! -- with mouthing off to a police officer. Unless Gates verbally or physically threatened violence (“You don’t know who you’re messing with” doesn’t count), then I think the officer was in the wrong.
Karen B -- It’s not at all unlikely that a Cambridge cop would recognize a Harvard professor. In my experience, blue collar folks in the Boston area are more educated and well-informed than most people in this country. They’re not the LAPD. Not trying to be disagreeable, just pointing out something no one would really know unless they’d spent some time there.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I had the same thought as you about the neighbors. What a--holes. We moved to a condo in Super White Suburbia a couple of years ago. I walk my dog twice a day around the neighborhood and always speak to my neighbors, even though they rarely spoke back. After living there for 2 months, one neighbor accused me of trespassing with my dog. The next month, 2 neighbors on 2 different occasions asked me if I was visiting someone on the property. All of these people I had spoken to before.
Maybe its a case of what Lys said, all [insert ethnic group here] look alike…
I can understand why Skip was disorderly. His response was based on centuries of mistreatment of black people by people of so-called authority. If the cop would have left once residency was established, it would have never escalated to that point.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I’m with ya, sister. One white girl to anotha’.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
i heard about this and it pissed me off too. and i thought the same thing…why doesn’t anyone recognize him as the person that lives there?! i mean, don’t they know his car? so weird.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I know that often times people get offended and upset when the police stop/question them. I imagine that it has to be a more sensitive issue for people of race than for white folk. But if you are respectful and modest when dealing with an Officer, your restult is ALWAYS better than puffing your chest and trying to bully the officer back.
I will also always give the police tremendous leeway in making decision when they are in the line of duty. They have training and put themselves in situations that the average citizen cannot understand. They honestly do face danger everyday. Of course, there are individuals who abuse their powers, but as a general rule, police get the benefit of the doubt in my book.
The only independent witness that I have heard on the news said Prof. Gates was out of control. I would say he was trying to play a “race card”, but everything I have heard about him leads me to conclude that he is not that type of person. I would say that it is an unfortuante situation and that both parties were having a bad day. But I think it was totally irresponsible for Pres. Obama to condem the officer. There has been no finding that the officer did any thing wrong and his union and his superiors are saying he acted appropriately.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
This story made me mad and I, too, wondered what the neighbors were thinking. I do think that the policeman should have stopped after Gates showed his ID. I generally have a bad vibe when it comes to cops though.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
This is horrible. The man had proof. Thanks for sharing your opinion!
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I think neighbors are weird (no offense to neighbors everywhere) — some pay attention, some don’t. A friend of mine a few years ago was using her *house key* to her parents’ home and the neighbors called the police… my friend was African-American and her adoptive parents were white. They had lived in that home for a while, as had the neighbor.
I think a small but not insignificant number of white people view African-Americans as some sort of homogeneous group and don’t pay much attention to specific characteristics of individual people. (This also probably happens in regard to Asians and Latinos as well.) I think this might happen across all races toward anything that isn’t “your” race, but I’m not certain.
It’s true that Gates probably shouldn’t have been argumentative, but that in itself is a race thing, too. I’m remembering Peggy McIntosh’s work about white privilege (see a PDF of the general scope of her work at http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf), and how it’s probably the case that a white man (a) wouldn’t have been reported to the police — even if it were two white men and (b) wouldn’t have HAD to argue with the police.
That being said, I’m just a Midwestern white girl, albeit one who studied critical race theory for several years as part of my academic studies. It’s disheartening to see that these sort of things happen to such a public figure, but even moreso when you realize that this is a daily occurrence a thousand times over in many people’s lives, most of whom don’t have the intellectual or social clout to make it into the newspaper. In fact, the only reason THIS is horrendous and newsworthy is BECAUSE he is a African-American man who “made something of himself.” The news media doesn’t notice if it’s a minority man (or woman) who hasn’t otherwise proven him(her)self to be worth of coverage.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
The officer, James Crowley, who arrested Gates is a diversity-training instructor. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106936583
This is the underlying issue -- what are cops taught about communicating across a cultural divide? Individual cops are making choices all day long about how to handle different situations. I think we all agree that this cop was not at any time in any danger. So we are then discussing how a cop communicates when he encounters someone who is upset about possible racial bias.
What does the diversity training model that they use suggest for a cop in this situation? One would hope that this would be one standard case that would be covered during such a training program. Given his status as a diversity-training officer, was Officer Crowley’s ego bruised when Skip Gates accused him of racial bias? Again, he was never in any danger — why would he make the choices he did to escalate the exchange? Out of pride?
In the police report, Crowley claims that he did identify himself although he was careful to write that it was while Gates was speaking. Gates says he asked numerous time for Crowley’s name and that Crowley would not give him his name.
I still can’t believe we are talking about Skip Gates. It might have well been Nelson Mandela. The symbolic nature of this event, given all the discussion about this country being post-racial is extraordinary.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I went to a park to train my students the other day and I brought in a medicine ball. A cop stopped me and said in the most smug and asshole voice ever, “ummmmmmmm, you CAN’T bring in any exercise equipment, so if you could GOOOOOOO BAAAAAAACK to your car and put your ball away I’d appreciate it.” Immediately I was pissed not because he asked me to do it, but how he said it. My first inclination was to tell him to quit being a fucking asshole about it (but I’m sure my face did all the talking). As I walked back to my car he followed me to make sure I was really doing it and yells out the window, again in a smug tone, “thank youuuuuuu” I totally ignored him and muttered, “fuck off” under my breath because I’m adamant about being on time and now I was late. hmmm, wonder why I wasn’t arrested. hmmmmm.
July 29th, 2009 at 12:07 am
[...] Gates: Nilsa discusses the Skip Gates incident and takes on yet another tough topic of racism in America. while living down south i experienced the great debate on a rgular basis. Is the north or south more racist? Southerners swear its the north, northerners swear its the south. While both are world’s different, i’ve come to the conclusion that they see the same amount of racism day in and day out, its just the level of acceptance, the way it is handled and the way it is hidden. [...]