My ascent into the middle class began in earnest after I landed two coveted full-ride scholarships. The first was to Mills College in Oakland which is often called the Vassar of the West. And the second was to USC after I promised to write for their award winning newspaper.
Both schools cater to the wealthy and without exception the professors at both places condescended to this ' bright' kid with the 'awful' background. What I learned in all those years of being the white working class 'help' was college professors are for the most part silly asses, my Dad was smarter than all of them and they do not like to be challenged.
Enter Skippy Gates! Can you say entitled? Who is this honky asking for my ID when I am jet lagged. Gotta be racial profiling. I am calling the Chief of Police, right now, y'hear me white boy?
To the best of my understanding, Gates never did show his driver's license, only his Harvard ID, and this only after much protestation; he never stopped haranguing Crowley for his race ; he never stopped to consider what it might have looked like to a passerby as he and his cab driver tried to force open his "stuck" front door; and he never for a second considered it was a good thing the police had been called to investigate a possible break-in at his home.
In view of Gate's behavior, it would not be far fetched to see him calling the Cambridge police racists, if his home were broken into, and they failed to investiage. Goddamn honkies. Good for nothing. Or alternatively They knew this was the home of a black man, its racial profiling I tell you.
My working class view is not popular here at Salon or anyplace else on the web. That is because it is the view of a white working class person who understands class bias and prejudice and we be small in number in bloggersville.
This reality of being out of step with my peers on certain issues is of old standing and painful. I blogged for Hillary in the primary contest and I was called a racist every time I wrote something unflattering about Barack Obama.
Every time I have stood up for my 'kind ' it is the same deal.
What I do not understand about this bias against the white working class, particularly when race is involved, is this: are black individuals the only ones allowed to be post racial? Is Barack Obama the only person in America who is credited with not seeing race first, although in this instance he did, but that's okay because he was defending his friend.
Sgt. Crowley, because he is a white man, cannot be post racial?
Sure, there was a wee bit of backtracking in media reports when investigations into the honky's background showed a man committed to racial equality, who had tried to save the life of NBA star Reggie Lewis and years later was still haunted by the fact he failed -- and who had been asked by a Black Chief of police to give a class on racial profiling. But no one has been able to say unequivocally, without hedging their bets, that Gates was an Ass. Although Colin Powell came close.
Powell on Larry King Live mirrored my own understanding about the police -- which is that talking back to a cop is stupid. So all those who have blogged about how we still have the first amendment and so mouthing off to a cop is not a punishable offense live on some planet other than one I, and apparently Colin Powell, inhabit. But we still need to faced the larger isue at play here.
If we want to be a post racial society, we have to strive to be one; and this means we look at facts not skin color, we do not assume that old patterns are re-emerging and we acknowledge that class prejudice is as profound a distorter of reality as any other ism-- regardless of skin color.
We also need to acknowledge the influence of class across racial lines.There are black upper class folks--Skp Gates being one, and there are also black working class folks, Michele Obama's parents among them.
America is much more fluid and profoundly less biased than we acknowledge. Working class people in Ohio and West Virginia, Pennsylvania too, did not vote for Hillary because of her skin color. They voted for her because she spoke to their issues. Obama did not get them -- not the other way around. It was class. And no matter how he tried Obama came across as an elitist. White working class people did not trust Obama on class issues. They didn't care a fig about his race.
In the early days of the Gates v Crowley story, there was one image that haunted me. It was the bewildered, anguished and puzzled face of Sergeant James Crowley who clearly could not grasp the idea that he was being labeled a racist. His face haunted me because this was the way my very own face looked during the primary campaign.
But I am heartened by the beer diplomacy. And let's be honest. In the face of each of these three men we will all be there in the White House having a beer together taking one more step into a post racial world where knee-jerks are not the standard and seeing beyond race is the norm. And if at first you don't succeed; try, try again.
In reading many of the comments by African Americans not only on this incident, but others, one would presume they are more likely to be pro-racial than post-racial. That is to say they look for the race angle in everything. And that angle will not vary quite a bit in degree. If African Americans were more likely to be post-racial then we would see diversity in observations. To the contrary They appear to be as unified as they were on election day.
I don't beleive I can describe most of the white commentors as post-racial either.
They're concern for the plight of the black man is almost always directly proportionate to the extent they have gone to in insulating themselves and their families from black society. From the safety of their sub-urbs they issue thier heartfelt lamentations for African Americans and their hatred and disdain for the ignorant white man etc... etc...
Their requiem would be harmless if it were not for their corresponding need to annihilate the character of the white person involved, and impugn likewise, any one foolish enough to lend aid or understanding to the aggreived.
They care more for assauging their own guilt/fears/prejudices than looking objectively at the particulars of the instance. Each one climbing over the other as if it were some sort of feeding frenzy of hypocrits.
With great sincerety, I thank you for this candid piece.
Fact: The police arrested a (famous ) black professor for breaking into his own home. It was a mistake (and I agree with Obama, a 'stupid' one) to have GONE THROUGH WITH the arrest, despite the homeowner's angry tirade, once the identification was produced. Nothing about the cop's admirable history or working life goals changes the fact that HE made THIS mistake this time.
I should know. One time, I found myself in the situation of arriving home late at night to find out I forgot my keys. My banging on the door woke everybody else in the neighborhood except my family. Cops were called, and I found myself in the glare of a police helicopter. I cooperated fully with them, gave them my ID, etc., etc. They did some banging on the door themselves in an effort to get someone to the door. Failing that, they let me go. Now note they let me go even though they still had no proof I belonged there. Would that have happened if I were black or Hispanic? I seriously doubt it.
I, too, am haunted by my own image. It is that of many blacks denied jobs and political power simply because they were black. It is of police officers arresting and stopping people simply because they are black. It is of white racists who refuse to acknowledge that unconscious bias exists and influences the way they race influences how they see black people--even as they proclaim that they are not racist. It is possible for racism to persist, without "racists." ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15mon4.html) ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/opinion/05kristof.html) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-milazzo/whiteous-indignation_b_245183.html) (http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2009/0/
30/in_matters_of_race_research_shows_key_role_for_unconscious_bias/) It is that kind of racism that is most chilling because we do not talk about it openly.
(Both schools cater to the wealthy and without exception the professors at both places condescended to this ' bright' kid with the 'awful' background. What I learned in all those years of being the white working class 'help' was college professors are for the most part silly asses, my Dad was smarter than all of them and they do not like to be challenged.
Enter Skippy Gates!")
Enter Skippy Gates? That is a non-sequitur. You assumed that Skippy Gates was like the professors that treated you as inferior. If you wish to make a point, there has to be some logical connection between what you wrote previously, and the next part of your piece: "Enter Skippy Gates!" The only connection is that he is a professor, but you went to school on the West Coast, Gates is a professor from the East Coast. Are we to assume that there are no differences between the academic elites of both coasts? Even if there isn't, you fail to make that clear. You are allowing your emotion to overwhelm your logic. ("Can you say entitled?") What evidence is there for this?
There are outliers-wealthy, upper class blacks and oppressed working class whites, but society has not systematically oppressed whites and vestiges of that system remain today. So, if we are to be "post racial" we need to acknowledge the ugly legacy of race relations that has not hampered the social mobility of working class whites in the same manner or degree that it has hampered blacks.
I don't know that a society founded on white supremacy and black inferiority can ever become post racial. It is easy to say that we not look at skin color when the person we are looking at is white (Crowley for example, or plaintiffs challenging affirmative action or Title VII), but this ignores the harsh reality that social science teaches us: blacks are more likely to be discriminated against even by those who abhor racism. (http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2009/07/30/in_matters_of_race_research_shows_key_role_for_unconscious_bias/) That is the intractable problem. We cannot chant that we need to be colorblind when it whites who lose out and ignore the fact that society is systematically constructed to take the race of non-whites into account. You say that we should not "assume that old patterns are re-emerging," but that is not possible. Black people have always got to be vigilant: it is an ugly legacy of race in this country. We cannot afford to just brush off what appears to be an "old pattern". Victims of crime, injustice or what have you, tend to be hypervigilant, lest they fall victim again. It is human nature.
4) Gates did provide his license to Officer Crowley. Though, if you read the report, Crowley appears only to have requested ID after Gates became angry at him, not because he was unsure that Gates lived there.
1) Crowley's report states that L. Whalen told him she had seen two black men, which she has categorically denied. She was happy that the 911 tape came out b/c it verified this. She stated that she only briefly spoke with Crowley before he went up the stairs to the Gates house. (If she did not tell him this, how did it make its way into the report. Neither Crowley or Cambridge PD would comment on the discrepancy between Crowley's report and Whalen's account. Whether Crowley lied or not, has yet to be determined, but it's clear that there hasn't been any follow up on this. (http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/07/30/whalen_says_she_would_call_911_again/)
2) Crowley was not "invited" into the home. Per his own report, Gates was ignoring him. He never makes it clear how he came to enter the house. Crowley states that he was led to believe that Gates lived in the home, this defeats probable cause. Probable cause is not "mere suspicion". It is not against to law to yell at a cop. Even if cops tack on extra fines/charges/tickets or what have you, their behavior is illegal and not to be condoned. Further, Massachusetts has relevant cases that make it clear that Gates's behavior does not qualify as "disorderly conduct".