A Teachable Moment

Dominating the news this lazy July week of summer was the arrest of the prominent Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates. Professor Gates teaches undergraduate and graduate courses as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and as Professor of English at Harvard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates

Although there have been varying accounts of the story, the gist appears to be that Professor Gates returned from a trip to China and was unable to enter his home. Gates and his driver proceeded to enter the home by a side entrance. A suspicious passerby called the police to report a break in at the residence. The police officers, including Sergeant James Crowley of the Cambridge Massachussets police, who is the subject of dispute with Gates, responded to the call. All that has been agreed upon is that words were exchanged and Gates was arrested outside his home.

What is also agreed upon, and is the most troubling to me, is that Gates was arrested after he submitted identification indicating he resided in the home. But, as with every story there are two sides. Officer Crowley, who is white claims Gates, who is black, was verbally abusive and thus he arrested him for the amorphous crime of being "tumultuous." Gates claims the officer would not identify himself and was abusive.

Leaving aside who is at the most fault, here's my take on the incident: neither side spoke to one another, during the exchange, and neither side understood the language of one another. President Obama made the most salient and provocative statement about the incident in his recent press conference; specifically, that it should translate into a "Teachable Moment." To me that means the moment when we learn to talk to one another and not simply at-- or about one another through the prison glass of our great cultural and ethnic divides.

In 1994, 8 men of various racial and ethnic groups attended a racial dialog retreat in California, (the retreat featured only men so as not to confuse the dynamic of men/women relationships). Facilitator, filmmaker/community therapist Lee Mun Wah, created a powerful documentary of this retreat entitled "The Color of Fear," http://www.tcnj.edu/~kpearson/color/packet.html, which dealt with racism from many points of view, specifically: African American, Asian, Hispanic. The film starts off by defining what it means to be an American. Interestingly, it becomes immediately clear that each of the men, have a different perspective on the term, " Being American." However, as the retreat progresses, the participants seem to grow and to listen to one another as they explore racial perceptions in America. The retreat is most powerful to me, and it is the type of dialog we need in this country if we are ever to end this racial chasm. It can be found on youtube.com parts 1-5 or 6 http://www.youtube.com/results?feature=moby&search_query=color+of+fear+documentary&search_type=&aq=0&oq=color+of+fear

As indicated, from my perspective, Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates spoke different languages in that moment in time in the house of Dr. Gates. Gates spoke the language of history, oppression, and racial profiling. Crowley spoke the language of enforcement, protection of citizens, duty, and power. The election of President Obama is not going to end racism alone. I would advocate we use this teachable moment, and hold a series of townhall retreats, which are open and honest as in the "Color of Fear." Maybe then, we can--- even through our diversity of thought, culture, and language-- speak one language of America.

Comments

[joe2143]

For those who are silly enough to put race as the leading issue in this arrest...
Read the police report, then imagine if the resident of the house was white. The same outcome would have surely happened. Anyone whos yells and uses crude and callous speech to a police officer in public is disturbing public order and should be taken into custody and evaluated. Whether he is charged with a crime or not is irrelevant. Anyone who thinks this is race based should try walking up to a police officer and loudly disagree with whatever he/she is doing and then see what happens. If anyone is racist it is Professor Gates, who uses the color of his skin as an excuse to vent his anger at a public servent who was trying to do his duty and follow procedure.

[kmp2008]

Crowely has a disease that afflicts many police officers . . . that is pride and arrogance resulting in the demand and expectation for unquestioned yielding to their authority. That's why the black officer that was present, didn't find anything wrong with his colleague's behavior. He's afflicted as well. Yes, Gates should have been more patient and less flippant, but since when its talking trash in one's own home an arrestable act? Both men were blinded by machismo, however only one of them had a badge and a gun and was so called acting under color of law. Race played a role in this but male egos played a bigger role.

[Paula B. Mays - Huffpost Blogger]

IrisBittencourt, you are right about our need to understand the lessons ourselves. Thats the point. However, we will never understand if we dont listen to one another. Thats the lesson we learn from this case.

The officer may have acted out of a pre-conceived notion and an unreasonable fear from an African American man who apparently was angry. The way we dismiss these notions and better prevent such incidents or abuses of authority is to bridge the gap of understanding and start actually talking to each other. Thats what you learn if you watch "The Color of Fear" documentary.

We need to have such discussions on a national level.

[IrisBittencourt]

To teach, we must first understand the lesson ourselves. Unfortunately, no one writing today seems to understand the fundamental lesson that we need to learn here: the police officer lied in order to justify this unlawful arrest. How do I know that the police officer lied? Well, just look at the first sentence of the police report narrative (of which you quote one word): Gates was arrested for "exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place." It is sad and troubling that no one seems to understand the clear implications of the phrase "in a public place" in the context of an arrest that all agree occurred on Gates' front porch.

Help me out on this one: since when has someone's front porch become "public" property? Does that mean that if someone falls on my front porch, they cannot sue me, but rather should sue the city or the town? Does this new definition of "public place" also include the steps and walkway to the curb? Does this mean that I can pay less insurance premiums? Will the state reimburse me for damages to my front porch or front yard caused by fire, for example, that originated from inside my house? Does this cloud my clear title to the property: do I now own my house as a co-tenant with the town or city?

Folks: you are majoring in the minors and been duped. This "teaching moment" reflects just how unprepared our teachers truly are.

[GenealogyKR]

This teachable moment taught me that President Obama should apologize for his comment....I mean actually say I'm sorry for not knowing the whole picture before commenting on this situation. We finally have a decent President and I want him to be re-elected for another four years. Stay focused President Obama....we need YOU!

[ConstanceReader]

He knew what we all knew, and all that needed to be known to conclude that the police acted stupidily: a man had been arrested in his own home for a wholly legal action. "Uppity while minority" and "contempt of cop" are NOT illegal.