White Men Can't Judge
The most disturbing aspect of the news coverage about Henry Louis Gates' arrest has been the running commentary by white men about appropriate decorum for black men.
Of course, it was no surprise that blowhards like Rush Limbaugh would jump in to defend the white police officer and impugn Professor Gates. Nor that the conservative radio talk show host would turn his attack to President Obama after the president labeled the Cambridge Police Department behavior "stupid."
Limbaugh's an easy case. More troubling is the commentary from Sergeant James Crowley himself, an "expert" on racial profiling who still doesn't understand why a black man would be upset to be accused of breaking into his own house.
"From the time he opened the door it seemed that [Gates] was very upset, very put off that I was there in the first place," Sergeant Crowley told Boston sports radio station WEEI this week. "Not just what he said, but the tone in which he said it, just seemed very peculiar -- even more so now that I know how educated he is."
So educated people can't get upset?
I'm a Harvard graduate, and I reacted angrily just a few days ago when a New York City police officer stopped me Sunday inside a Manhattan subway station and accused me of jumping the turnstiles, which I clearly had not done. I made a scene, much like Professor Gates probably did, because I felt I was being unfairly singled out.
After I proved that I had entered the station legally, an unknown black woman standing nearby came to my defense. "Do you know who he is? He worked in the White House," she said, much to my surprise.
In fact, it's the "educated" and "successful" black men who are most likely to become indignant in racial profiling situations. Many younger black men I know suffer through random police stops on a regular basis and have grown accustomed to the procedure. But older, middle-class and upper-income blacks are often shocked when the police come for them, too. Yet in the eyes of the police, a black Harvard professor is just another potential suspect.
The officer in the Gates case wrote in his police report that the professor exhibited "loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place." Actually, the professor was in a private place until the officer -- who admitted in the report that Gates "appeared to be a resident" -- asked him to step outside. But even in public, why can't a black man be loud when he's angry about real or perceived police harassment?
And why wouldn't an expert in racial profiling understand the long history of police abuse of African American men and consider that in evaluating Gates' response to the situation? After everything black men have been through in this country, from slavery to segregation to racial denialism, it's a wonder that well-educated black men like Gates and Obama are usually so controlled.
That's what CNN anchor Lou Dobbs seemed to miss Thursday night on his show when he asked CNN contributor Roland Martin to calm down in responding to the ridiculous charges about Barack Obama's citizenship. "You're yelling and you're getting awful excited about something that doesn't require this level of remarks," Dobbs scolded Martin.
Dobbs had just finished expressing his doubts about Professor Gates in a segment with CNN's Soledad O'Brien when he expressed sympathy with those who questioned the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate. So let me get this straight. We're supposed to believe a lone white police officer in Massachusetts but not believe the entire state of Hawaii about Obama's birth?
Yes, in our society, white men are considered believable and those pesky people of color (Hawaiians or African Americans) are not. That's why all the evening news anchors on every news network (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC) are white, and nearly all of those are men. And that's why a 42-year-old cop is more credible than a distinguished 58-year-old Harvard professor.
No matter how much progress we've made, black men still don't have the right to get upset and indignant, even in their own homes. Crotchety old white guys like Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs can foam at the mouth on radio and television all day about immigrants and blacks, but a black male public figure can't complain too loudly. That would be ungrateful and undignified.
And it doesn't matter what your status if you're a black man. A black TV personality can't get upset with a white guy on CNN. A black White House veteran can't get upset with the NYPD on the subway. A black Harvard professor can't get upset with the Cambridge Police in his house. And apparently a black president can't get upset in his house either.
She won't say it, but Judge Sonia Sotomayor was right when she spoke about a wise Latina judge often reaching a better decision than a wise white man. Many white men still can't judge these situations fairly because they don't understand what it means to be black in America.
Whether you're a pundit, a professor or the president, if you're a black man you better know your place.
Follow Keith Boykin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/keithboykin
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Interestin
Who was it that said that racism is as American as apple pie?
Through the comments I have been through I just realized that the majority of
the American population don't even know they are racist, no matter their level
of education or political affiliation(s) and the most severe cases are the educated
ones because they are able to rationalize their racist views.
At least America is doing something that not many so-called democracies in
the world have the strength to do:facing their demon.
Kudos to HuffPo to be the platform for this kind of open talk and President Obama to
be the moral compass of this nation.
enough
My caucasian son is often stopped by highway patrol while traveling on Interstate-40 between our home and the university he attends. His car is always searched; the probable cause being that he is a college student driving 4 miles over the speed limit. ( My caucasian nephew has identical experiences driving Interstate-35 into Texas where he attends college.) All of their caucasian friends have stories of being stopped/searched while driving to large college towns.
Interestingly, my lead-footed husband and I drive the same I-40 route to visit our son, and we've never once been stopped. My point being that profiling by law enforcement is not an alien concept to all white folk.
That is not racial profiling. All police forces all over the world will take particular note of college age adults (male and female) as insurance and road fatality statistics show quite clearly that they form a demographic at risk. That's not to say that it should be done, but it just is so. Nature being what it is, college age adults eventually grow up and are no longer the target of over zealous police. With racial profiling, however, you are NEVER out of view of the over zealous law enforcement, unless you indulge in skin lightening techniques.
I did not say my example amounted to racial profiling. I said I suspect my son's experience, and that of his contemporaries, is law enforecment profiling of male college students. My attempt is to illustrate that certain caucasians have indeed been the subject of law enforcement profiling and can at some level understand the injustice.
There's not a thing wrong with profiling, as long as it's not done on the basis of race, or of any of a *very* short list of grounds enumerated in the constitution.
If the police want to profile wearers of blue shirts or drivers of red cars, they're operating within the law. If a cop profiles the inhabitants of black skin, however, he's out of line and in breach of the constitution.
Stopping a car for speeding, gives them no right to search the car. Black or White people.
They actually write a citation for 4mph over limit ?
Not too many years ago in NYC a young black man was shot on his own doorstep by pulling out his wallet, the police, again, over-reacted and shot the man over 50 times, in a panic. This situation could have ended much differently.
I grew up in a predominantly black and Hispanic housing project in Boston, MA where a white man, whose name was C h a r l e s Stuart, shot and murdered his wife, then accused a black man of the crime. The B o s t o n Police treated every black man that lived there like they were guilty; kicking in doors, harassing, searching and questioning anyone they could get their hands on. There did not seem to be the same concern for the well being of the neighborhood residents, given that there was a murderer on the loose.
I have never seen nor heard of an instance when the Police combed through a predominantly white neighborhood in this fashion. Unfortunately, because of the way race is played out in this country, the Police immediately took the word of the white person as gospel. Because in their mind there was no way Mr. Stuart could have committed this crime. Seems like the same thing happened to Prof. Gates, the 'White' police officer's words were taken as gospel and Gates was made out to be the angry Black Man...does this story sound eerily familiar to anyone?
Sadly, the closest that I've seen to that was when a friend of my daughter, in an attention gathering scheme, wrote a suicide note on her mirror, then ran away..... The police showed up at my home, and only my daughter was there..... When she asked if she could call me before she let them in, she was told "No, you cannot, and we're coming in now!" So she let them in, and then called me.
When I talked to the officer, and complained about it, I was informed of two things, BOTH of which were unimportant to me:
"We don't have time in situations like this!"
"If we'd found anything illegal, we couldn't have used it!"
They didn't seem to understand my point that they could have waited the ten seconds it would take to call me, and that I didn't CARE about if I had anything illegal in the house (which they COULD have used to determine probable cause for a warrant...
It's not an illegal entry if they have a solid reason to believe that there's someone trying to commit suicide on the other side of the door. This one should be a no-brainer.
great piece .....i'll save this ... i remember the 60s and early 70s when Women's Issues in Canada where only discussed by men on TV and the house of parliament
I don,t need a pundit to tell me what happened..
I am very saddened to read this piece. I hate that our country has this history. I have no idea what it is really like to ever feel this way (I am a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white girl in Oklahoma-I do not stand out in any way).
I instantly felt sorry for Mr. Gates, how humiliated he must have felt. He just got home from an overseas trip to find him door jammed. It was probably hot out and (if he's anything like me) he probably had to pee real bad. NOTHING puts me in a worse mood.
Then to have an officer come to my door and insinuate that I am a burglar. I'd be pissed too. It is the officer's job to keep a cool head in that situation-as soon as he determined that Mr. Gates was the resident he should have left. (after making sure there wasn't someone hiding in his house secretly threatening him).
I have been ruder to cops for lesser reasons than that (where I am obviously at fault) and I haven't even been told to calm down. Mostly they just send me on my way--so from my experiences I think the officer was being too hard handed & possibly a little racist.
You should happy that this problem is being debated by normal "citizens" in the
open air, all countries have racial issues but their elite are good at hiding it or
turn a blind eye on it.
......so how long has prof. gates lived at this address ? 2 weeks ? 2 years ?
don't his neighbors " know" him ? would be interesting to know how long he has lived in this neighborhood ?
An excellent piece, Keith...
In several cases, the courts in Massachusetts have considered whether a person is guilty of disorderly conduct for verbally abusing a police officer. In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, a 2004 decision, an appeals court held it was not disorderly conduct for a person who angrily yelled at an officer that his civil rights were being violated. In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct
Very enlightening article, Keith.
As a Black woman who has been the victim of discrimination more times than I care to recall, I can empathize and relate to the issue at hand. But it saddens and angers me that young Black men are subjected to random police stops/searches each and every day for no good reason. That these young men are 'used to it' is even more disheartening. To feel like a perpetual target, an outsider in your own country -- on a DAILY basis -- MUST play with the psyche. It undoubtedly eats at the soul and diminishes the spirit.
I am against racial profiling, but the Gates case has nothing to do with it.! The policeman was doing his job protecting the community. And his two backup policemen were black and hispanic. Obama should just apologize for the mistake and let's move on. And if we want to discuss racial profiling, let's leave the Cambridge police out of it. Talk about bias reporting.
out of it.
"let's leave the Cambridge police out of it. "
Let's not. Let us open up the discussion of the de-facto continuation of second-class citizen status for persons "of the colored persuasion
Because this has all gone on for far too long.
Racial Profiling is wrong. All of the things you speak of are fair game for discussion and investigation. But This case has Nothing to do with Racial Profiling.
Maybe other racial issues are here, but NOT Racial Profiling.
Sorry, but this is all about racial profiling.
Ideally, when the cops broadcast what used to be called and "APB -- all points bulletin" the purpose was to provide enough information to help the police narrow their search to only those persons who truly fit the description in the broadcast. If the only information the police offer up -- and fail to elicit more detailed information from the person reporting the incident -- is "two black males with backpacks" that's profiling. ANY black men (or heck androgynous black women) are targets. There was nothing that would have narrowed the Cambridge PD's search to real perps (if there are any). Any black man regardless of age, height, weight, coloring, facial hair or lack thereof, hair color, hair or lack thereof, clothing or lack of anywhere near the scene is suspect. And includes the black 33-year old MIT doctoral candidate who lives in the brick building next door. And it includes the 58 year old, grayhaired, spectacle-wearing, cane using, PhD, documentar
That, folks, is real world racial profiling.
NO because Officer Crowley and the Police force weren't driving up and down the streets looking for " 2 B/Ms wearing backpacks" Stopping and questioning every black Person they see. ( might have just ditched the backpack)
They were dispatched to a specific home address, to investigate a suspicious incident/possible Burglary. Two b/ms seen " trying to get in??" a residence.
An "APB" or BOLO (be on lookout) alerts Police Officers with descriptions of people who need to be watched for.(crimi
You would never hear..'BOL
If you heard ' BOLO.. 2 w/ms carrying backpaks , at a specicic location, robbing passersby with firearms in back pack' This is NOT Racial Profiling.
Neither is Crowley/Gates.
Whenever the balck community uses these terms whitemen this or that it is also racist.
Oh, please. To state a truthful observation about a particular group or demographic is not, in and of itself, r-cist. The truth may hurt, but that doesn't make it r-cist -- or any less true.
I am always doubtful of one's objectivity in a debate when the words
"truth" or "truthful" are used to justify an opinion,even though when
you are at the receiving end of an injustice.
When anyone condems an entire race because of the actions of a few, It is Racism.
Maybe with good reason. But it is what We must get past in the US.
Oh you can use the term "black community" but we can't use the term "white men"??
You're right zan, plenty of blame to go around. Habit hard to break.
WE got a lot of work before US don't WE ?
Great article. I wish everyone could be respected the same way. President Obama has a right to comment on any question posed to him. He shouldn't have to change his 'choice of words' when dealing with what he sees as injustice. We should be adult enough to accept that everyone won't agree on everything. Freedom of Speech lives. It applies to everyone.
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