racial profiling of famous man,Scholar’s arrest is a signpos

[natina]

Scholar’s arrest is a signpost on road to equality

Case signals there’s ‘nothing post-racial’ about U.S., colleague of Gates says

VIDEO

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...61094#32061094

It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling — it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.

The news was parsed and Tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all Henry "Skip" Gates: Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale. MacArthur "genius grant" recipient. Acclaimed historian, Harvard professor and PBS documentarian. One of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997. Holder of 50 honorary degrees.

If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average blacks can expect in 2009?

Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

"My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness," he said Tuesday. "Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to white law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever."

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a white police sergeant arrived.

Racial profiling?
Gates and the sergeant gave differing accounts of what happened next. But for many people, that doesn't matter.

They don't care that Gates was charged not with breaking and entering, but with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. It doesn't matter whether Gates was yelling, or accused Sgt. James Crowley of being racist, or that all charges were dropped Tuesday.

All they see is pure, naked racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Graves.

"It never would have happened — imagine a white professor, a distinguished white professor at Harvard, walking around with a cane, going into his own house, being harassed or stopped by the police. It would never happen."

Racial profiling became a national issue in the 1990s, when highway police on major drug delivery routes were accused of stopping drivers simply for being black. Lawsuits were filed, studies were commissioned, data was analyzed. "It is wrong, and we will end it in America," President George W. Bush said in 2001.

Yet for every study that concluded police disproportionately stop, search and arrest minorities, another expert came to a different conclusion. "That's always going to be the case," Greg Ridgeway, who has a Ph.D in statistics and studies racial profiling for the RAND research group, said on Monday. "You're never going to be able to (statistically) prove racial profiling. ... There's always a plausible explanation."


Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

"My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness," he said Tuesday. "Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to white law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever."

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a white police sergeant arrived.

Racial profiling?
Gates and the sergeant gave differing accounts of what happened next. But for many people, that doesn't matter.

They don't care that Gates was charged not with breaking and entering, but with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. It doesn't matter whether Gates was yelling, or accused Sgt. James Crowley of being racist, or that all charges were dropped Tuesday.

All they see is pure, naked racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Graves.

"It never would have happened — imagine a white professor, a distinguished white professor at Harvard, walking around with a cane, going into his own house, being harassed or stopped by the police. It would never happen."

Racial profiling became a national issue in the 1990s, when highway police on major drug delivery routes were accused of stopping drivers simply for being black. Lawsuits were filed, studies were commissioned, data was analyzed. "It is wrong, and we will end it in America," President George W. Bush said in 2001.

Yet for every study that concluded police disproportionately stop, search and arrest minorities, another expert came to a different conclusion. "That's always going to be the case," Greg Ridgeway, who has a Ph.D in statistics and studies racial profiling for the RAND research group, said on Monday. "You're never going to be able to (statistically) prove racial profiling. ... There's always a plausible explanation."


Click for related content
The Grio opinion: Gates' case is not clear cut
Discuss Gates' case on Newsvine

Federal legislation to ban racial profiling has languished since being introduced in 2007 by a dozen Democratic senators, including then-Sen. Barack Obama.

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said that was partly because "when you look at statistics, and you're trying to prove the extent, the information comes back that there's not nearly as much (profiling) as we continue to experience."

But Davis has no doubt that profiling is real: He says he was stopped while driving in Chicago in 2007 for no reason other than the fact he is black. Police gave him a ticket for swerving over the center line; a judge said the ticket didn't make sense and dismissed it.

"Trying to reach this balance of equity, equal treatment, equal protection under the law, equal understanding, equal opportunity, is something that we will always be confronted with. We may as well be prepared for it," he said.

'Tumultuous' behavior
Amid the indignation over Gates' case, a few people pointed out that he may have violated the cardinal rule of avoiding arrest: Do not antagonize the cops.

The police report said that Gates yelled at the officer, refused to calm down and behaved in a "tumultuous" manner. Gates said he simply asked for the officer's identification, followed him into his porch when the information was not forthcoming, and was arrested for no reason. But something about being asked to prove that you live in your own home clearly struck a nerve — both for Gates and his defenders.

"You feel violated, embarrassed, not sure what is taking place, especially when you haven't done anything," said Graves of his own experience, when police made him face the wall and frisked him in Grand Central Station in New York City. "You feel shocked, then you realize what's happening, and then you feel it's a violation of everything you stand for."

And that this should happen to "Skip" Gates — the unblemished embodiment of President Obama's recent admonition to black America not to search for handouts or favors, but to "seize our own future, each and every day" — shook many people to the core.

Wrote Lawrence Bobo, Gates' Harvard colleague, who picked his friend up from jail: "Ain't nothing post-racial about the United States of America."

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32077998...ity/?GT1=43001

VIDEO

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...61094#32061094

[notdrunk]

One of his neighbors called the police on a possible breaking and entering. The police have to investigate if a crime is possibly in progress. Gates' attitude towards the officer caused this mess. Gates tried to make something out of nothing and succeeded.

[techi]

Gates was being an idiot by trying to be clever with the cops. Cops don't do clever.

Gates should have just cooperated and then called contacts at Harvard to give the police chief a beatdown after the fact.

It also could have been worse, the police could have blown the front door off it's hinges, shot the family dog, bodyslammed grandma and then checked the man for id!

[trish]

We do not know what transpired within Gates’ home. We do not know why Gates’ was upset with the officer. One would presume the officer did or said something that was either inappropriate or perceived by Gates as inappropriate. Police officers should not react personally to allegations of citizens. Good police officers will diffuse these sorts of confrontations. This one either couldn’t or didn’t want to. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, a charge that could not be brought within the walls of his own home. But Gates followed the officer onto the front yard where he continued to express his dissatisfaction with the officer. In this public setting the officer thought he could make the charge of disorderly conduct stick. The police commissioner correctly thought otherwise. The officer was just being an idiot. If the uniform commands respect, then so does the attire worn by everyday citizens.

[hippifried]

Why can't we all just get a long...neck?

[beandip]

Gates is a whining cunt and needs to STFU.

Refusing to provide police officers with ID, EVEN in your own home will get you arrested.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/...reports_062109

[hippifried]

First of all: This isn't aparthied South Africa. We don't have internal passports in America. Nobody's required to produce identification on demand, or even carry any.

That said, secondly: He did produce identification. He showed his campus identification, & his identity was confirmed by the campus police.

Finally: The entire altrcation leading up to the arrest happened across the threshhold of the front door. He was arrested when he finally stepped out onto the porch. The charge was disorderly conduct. That's going to be a pretty hard sell. How can your conduct be disorderly inside your own home?

The police are in the confrontation business. That's what they do. That's what all their training is about. I don't know what was said & don't care. A trained police officer needs to maintain his calm. If a situation gets out of hand, you call for backup, even if it's just so cooler heads can prevail. The hotheads & amateurs need to be weeded out.

[trish]

Beandip, you didn't even read the link you yourself provided. As hippiefried mentioned above, the arrest was not for failure to provide ID (which Professor Gates did in fact provide, though the report declines to reference the fact, and did not have to provide) but for disorderly conduct; i.e. contradicting a police officer in the "public area" of his own doorway in front of witnesses. The officer was taking Professor Gates' expression of dissatisfaction way too personally (which is to say, non-professionally). The officer was outraged and embarrassed. So in front of those astounded witnesses, he arrested Gates for the trumped up charge of disorderly conduct. The prosecutor agreed it was an unprofessional and inappropriate arrest.

The whining cunts are those cowards at Fox who, goaded by their fear of uppity people of color, uploaded the arrest warrant against Professor Gates. Why? I'm sure the Boston Police Department wishes the arrest was never made. The prosecutor dropped the charge. They're all hoping Gates won't sue. So what do the bigots at Fox have to gain by posting the link? Answer: They get to disrespect an uppity internationally reknown black man by posting his mug shots in a police report that should never have been filed in the first place. Oh that's not racism, that just being racist cunts.

I'm sure that you, beanship, will lick the ass of any policeman who bursts into your home and asks for ID. Probably suck his dick too. But then, nobody here expects anything more from you?

[hungbrandonfan]

Unbelieveable spin.

Obama the great speaker obviously fucked up by trying to make this into a racial incident and prejudging the situation. He just can't resist putting his .02 cents into the situation because of his personal ties and bias to Gates.

And this is going to bite Obama in the ass big time just when he needs credibility the most. As a black man, i'm tired of the Sharptons etc turning everthing into race and dividing black and white. I surely didnt vote for this and definately will be voting independent party...Barbara Boxer and now Obama stirring the pot in the black community...Democrats have found a new low

[trish]

Hello there hungbrandonfan.

I surely didnt vote for this ...

I think most would interpret this as meaning you did indeed vote for Obama, but not for the divisiveness engendered by this recent comment. I heard of single issue voters before. But your future vote is already decided on the basis of one comment? Not an issue? Not a domestic policy decision? Not economic performance? Not foreign policy issues? It was this off the cuff answer to a reporter’s question that changed your mind? It’s difficult to believe you voted for Obama the first time around. Are you sure you’re not pulling someone’s leg?