Henry Louis Gates Jr. Should Not Sue
More Constructive Ways Exist to Address Concerns About the Police
Aug 14, 2009
"I want to sue them!" That is probably what gets said a hundred or more times a day by people who feel they are somehow the victims of racial discrimination either in the work place or at a public or private business establishment. But often the best way to reduce tensions is to calmly confront people who seem to have racial, gender, or lifestyle biases with the fact that you are not feeling uncomfortable with the way they are acting around you or treating you.
The situation and the circumstances revolving around the arrest of noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is by no means A-typical of the kind of treatment African-Americans or other minorities in America have come to expect and often accept. However, the difference here is that like the Rodney King beating the knowing glare of the national media spotlight has been shined on this incident and the cockroaches are running for cover, while the chickens come home to roost.
Dr. Gates is an American and International Educational Figure
Henry Louis Gates is by no means just another ordinary African-African man, he is unarguably one of the preeminent scholars of his generation, regardless of race and has achieved numerous accolades for his work as an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, documentary flimmaker and public intellectual. According to his Harvard biography Dr. Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
Professor Gates is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African-American Studies Center, (the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African-American Studies and Africana Studies) and of the Root, an online news magazine dedicated to coverage of African-American news culture, and genealogy. Dr. Gates has also been honored with nearly 50 honorary degrees and numerous academic and social action awards, in addition to being listed in Time Magazine's "25 Most influential Americans" in 1997.
Dr. Gates has traveled the globe to film documentaries for PBS in places like Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and around the U.S. Some of his most recent work includes a trip to China for an upcoming PBS project entitled, "Faces of America," which according to Dr. Gates, "will reveal in rich detail the fascinating stories about our guest's ancestors, both since their arrival as immigrants to the United States, and before their arrival here, in the countries from which they emigrated."
The Arrest: A Toxic Mix of Race, Class and Politics
Dr. Gates who was in his own home near Harvard Square when he was arrested for disorderly conduct, apparently had trouble gaining entry into his front door and a neighbor called the Cambridge police department. According to the official report given by Sgt. James Crowley, Dr. Gates was loud and somewhat irritated and combative from the very beginning of his investigation of a reported break in at the home on Ware Street. (The Race Angle), The other item worth mentioning is that there was a recent homicide in a dorm of an a non-university student, a Mr. Justin Cosby on the campus less than two months prior to the incident involving Dr. Gates. According to an article appearing in the New York Daily News, a Harlem man, a Mr. Jabrai Jordan Copney has been arrested and charged in the fatal shooting and is the son of a retired New York City police officer. Two additional suspects are being sought in the case.
As both the victim and the and the alleged perpetrator are African-American males, the community (including the police department) were already on a heightened state of alert when Dr. Gates had the problem with his door. (The Race/Class Angle), This is where perhaps the issues of both race and class became a problem in the Gates incident. Again according to to the official police report, Sgt. Crowley writes that, "he asked the the older black male in the home to step out onto the porch and it was reported that Dr. Gates replied "No, I will not." Dr. Gates then said he wanted to know who the police officer was, and when told that the officer was investigating a report of a break in progress at this address, Dr. Gates was reported to have opened the door and said, "why because I am a black man in America?"
Clearly Dr. Gates was not happy, and he went further as the police report states that he (Dr. Gates) placed a phone call to an unknown person, telling them to "call the Chief and that he was dealing with a racist cop in his home." To which Sgt. Crowley probably felt offended and also most likely felt these comments and actions by Dr. Gates went beyond the pale of what he was used to in dealing with in a citizen that he made need to get under his control. So he asked for Dr. Gates to show him his Harvard Identification and called in for backup.
Please see the Suite 101 article, "Giving Advice to a Harvard Professor," by Paul Edward Hamilton for further reading about this subject.
References for this article:
Beverly Ford, Brian Kates, ad Corkey Siemasko Harlem man arrested in murder at Harvard is son of retired NYPD cop,The New York Daily News, May 22nd 2009.
Sgt James Crowley Cambridge Police Department Incident Report #9005127, report entered: 07/16/2009.
Harvard University Bio: Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.
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