From the Associated Press:
BOSTON – Police responding to a call about “two black males” breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives there — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation’s pre-eminent black scholar.
Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.
Adolf Hitler was purposed to have dismissed Albert Eintien’s Jewish Theory of Relativity, as if atoms recognized ethnic bounds. Like atoms do not recognize ethnicity, neither does scholorship. If a person is indeed a scholar there no need to preface ths distincton. It is not like truth is the least biet dependant on race.
So when the Associated Press describeS Henry Louis Gates Jr as a black scholar, you have wonder about Gates scholarship. Further this supposed scholar completely mangles the concept of racial profiling, which is the idea that police stop a person based on his race.
Gatess and his driver were seen tryng to break into his front door. Gates neighbor called the police to report a ssupect burgalry. That is what good neighbors do. Gates should count himelf lucky. When the police officer arrived the officer asked Gates for identification. That what good police officers do. So rather than congradulating his good neighbor and the good police work, Gates tried to make this into somekind of racial incident. That is what race mongers do.
William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection:
But none of those analogies fit. The police did not profile anyone. They received a call of someone trying to force open the door to a home. They asked the person attempting to force the door open who he was. Had Gates answered, that would have been the end of it.
I got stopped te other day. Gave the officer my driver license and the entire affair went down much like Jacobson said it would have for Gates, had he but cooperated.
Addendum: (Update and Bump)
Steve Gilbert, Sweetness & Light, comes up with thi2 gem. In 1994, Professor Gates told Brian Lamb, C-SPAN:
I’m the chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard and a professor of English.
Gates claimed to be both the chair of Afro-American Studies and a professor of English. Yet when asked by Lamb why he used the word “Nigger” so often in his book “Colored People”, Professor Gates, the self-avowed chair of Afro-American Studies and professor of Eng lish, got the orgins to the n-word wrong.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, albert eintien, analogies, associated press, black males, black scholar, boston police, clear case, good neighbor, good neighbors, harvard university, henry louis gates, henry louis gates jr, insurrection, police work, racial incident, racial profiling, theory of relativity, ths, thursday afternoon
July 21st, 2009 at 23:35
Of course they are deferring to the police we have spent a lot of time constructing the Black man as a criminal the fact that he is a Harvard professor is probably just some sort of aberration.
runescape money
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:56
your facts are wrong. Gates was IN the house when the policeman showed up. One wonders how this would have gone differently if it were a white man who answered the door.
Enjoy this cesspool you call a blog.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:57
Henry Gates was seen forcing his way into a house, albeit his. The neighbor called the police. They responded and asked the persson seen attempting to enter Gates’s house by force for indentification. Ot do any less would have been shoddy police work.
We have a distinguished professor or African-American studies who does not know what racial profiling is. As a big a deal as the professinal race mongers make of racial profing, you would expect they could at least know the definition of it.
Racing profiling is stopping somebody because of their race. Gaates was questions because of his actions, forcing his way into hins house. That is not racial profiling, as also stated by Professor Jacobson.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:15
Your writing is not even coherent or literate, and you are questioning whether someone is a scholar? ROTFLMAO!
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:24
Obviously, he got the point across, else you’d not be trying to minimize the impact of his words.
Next!
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:24
Unlike Henry Gates, I neither claim to be a scholar, nor have mangled the definition of racial profiling. Professor Jacabson makes the definition of racial profiiing quite clear, and he a law professor.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:59
‘scholorship’. The jokes write themselves.
I seem to recall a lot of fierce manly rhetoric about opposing tyranny, bullet boxes, secession, and so on. Can one of you scholors please clarify? Explain whether we are to stand on our constitutional rights like Americans, or offer meek cooperation with the state as they march us to the FEMA camps? Would that explanation perhaps hinge on a technicality, or a matter of disputed fact in this case? If that’s too tough, perhaps you can explain how come Gates’ home isn’t his castle, but yours is?
ice
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:44
Professor Gates was seen breaking into a castle. albeit his. A concerned neighbor called the police. They responded, and asked the person they found breaking into Gates’ castle for identification. That is what good police do.
If the police found me inside your castle, would you want them to assk me for indentification? If not, why not?
For the bonus raound, can you describge how wnat went down fit the definition of racial proflling? Hint, Gates wasn’t asked for identification because of his race, bur rahter becausse he was found inside a house he had been seen breaking into. Sure Gates is the legal resident of his home, but how could hte police establish htat fact without asking for identification?
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:11
Um, DavidL, my lad, you keep eliding important parts of the story. Based on what I’ve seen, the policeman asked Gates for identification while inside the house. Gates produced said identification and if the traffic stop story were typical, that would have been the end of the story.
The dear professor, perhaps taken aback to find a policeman asking him for identification inside his own house (ala being profiled), became vituperative in his depiction of the motives for such request for identification. The policeman, recognizing as he should that the professor was within his rights inside his own house to declaim as he saw fit, asked the professor to step outside. The professor complied whereupon the policeman arrested him for saying inside the house what he could not say outside the house.
By the way, do your neighbors know what you look like? Would they call the cops if they saw you trying to force your way into your front door? Do the B&E experts in your neighborhood usually gain ingress in this manner?
Now, please, return to your rationalization of the actions of a Boston policeman interacting with a black man.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:43
Professor Gates was found inside a house which he had been reported breaking into. So how was the police officer supposed know that Gates was the legal residence of that house, unless he asked for identiication? Even cops can’t read minds.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:04
What weaseling. Are you or are you not the party of self-reliance, Amendment II, Going Galt, and Tea Bag Parties? Do you have no sense of moderation, or of the value of consistency?
The pathetic quibbling only underscores the fact that you don’t care about double standards. I for one forgive the cop–street-level profiling is not a grand political strategy, it’s a survival tactic. That it’s morally questionable isn’t going to make a cop less aggressive, because aggressiveness is what works. They have a difficult job without having to actually act on all the diversity training they are no doubt subjected to.
But that’s the only reasonable defense: sorry, charges dropped, too aggressive, err on the side of caution, yes sir, sorry sir. Then you have to stand still for Gates’ response–he’s a blowhard, but he’s got a freakin’ point. Then it becomes one more chapter in the rocky process of bringing black folks to parity in our culture, courtesy (as always) of a mix of strong personalities and luck.
To attack Gates and unequivocally back the officer is just stupid.
White privilege means the negotiation between a police officer and a citizen is easier and much less fraught with the danger of misunderstanding and hair-trigger error.
But here we have conservatives suddenly all warm and fuzzy about the state. Laughable hypocrisy from the teabaggers and the party of Gordo Liddy’s “headshots.” Precious.
ice9
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:48
Apparently, you\’re not interested in fact that run contrary to your mantra. Place yourself in the cop\’s shoes. He gets a report of someone breaking into a house. What do YU suppose the proper response would have been? He\’d want to know for certain the guy he had was the homewoner.
Let\’s imagine this from the opposite scenario. What would happen had the guy he stopped not been the homeowner? Do you suppose the real homeowner would have had a legit beef, because the cop hadn\’t at least asked for some ID?
Argue against the power of the state if you like. But that\’s not the point here, unless you\’re going to argue that police powers themselves shouldn\’t exist. At which point, you\’ll have labeled yourself.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:56
I have not, nor likely will not, defended the arrest of Professor Gates. The arrest seems to have been an over reaction. Patterico came to that conclusion and I am inclined to agree with a prosecutor.
I have made, and will continue to make the point, that the police response was not ‘racial profiling.’ It was not racial profiling when the accusation was made by a profesor of African-American studies, nor when the same, sorry, lame accusation was made by a supposed professor of constitututional law.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:56
By the way, nice to have you along, Anjin.
(Snicker)
July 25th, 2009 at 18:34
Yall just stay off of Henry Louise Gates Jr.’s case! He a good man! He and Marion Berry good humantariums! Trying to do good in a sea of evil white folk! Evil jive-ass honkey mutha-fukkuhs! President Obama is the moral high ground! He half honkey! He know! He know! Yall the evil white devils!