This account of his own arrest from Henry Gates is impressive. He’s correct about one thing: the degree of open racial animosity and stereotyping that occurred during this engagement is shocking.
Posted by Apollo in Race
July 23rd, 2009
Who’s the Racist?
2 Responses to “Who’s the Racist?”
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Tom says:
It is pretty hard to escape that. For all the extenuating circumstances (and for crying out loud, how embarrassing to have the cops called to stop you from breaking into your own house) I can’t help but conclude that Gate’s belligerence and certainty that he was being victimized were what landed him in jail.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm -
Apollo says:
It doesn’t strike me as very embarrassing at all. The one time I had to do something like that, I was disappointed how easy it was to break in my house without neighbors seeing me. I actually wanted someone to call the cops, and felt less safe when they didn’t.
The embarassment factor here, for a reasonable person, should have been pretty minimal.
“Yes, sir, I’m investigating a report of two black males breaking and entering at this address.”
“Oh, that was probably just me and my friend. I’ve been away for a couple of weeks and I couldn’t get the door open when we got here.”
“Do you have any ID to show that you live here.”
“Sure, let me go get my driver’s license.”
“Thank you very much sir. Everything seems to check out. Mind if I have a look around the outside of the place just to make certain everything’s fine?”
“Sure. Go ahead. The busted window on the front porch is from me, but if you see anything else, please let me know.”
Perhaps I’m more relaxed when dealing with cops than are most people, or perhaps the cops in Texas are just friendlier than elsewhere. But this shouldn’t have been difficult or embarrassing in the least.
Now perhaps the cop in this story was unbelievably rude, but going by Gates’s own account, that doesn’t seem to be the case. And considering that Gates was a respectable-looking 60 year-old man in a golf shirt and slacks (at least in the arrest picture I saw), I would be extremely surprised if the cop was all defensive out of fear. Gates’s description of the cop’s behavior is that of a perfectly reasonable cop, at least until Gates starts calling him a racist.