These lessons are not a comprehensive list and they are not rules, but the kind of awareness they exemplify might have defused the tense Gates encounter.

While it is easy to come to the defense of a black man who happens to be a world class scholar, how many less fortunate blacks get arrested on even more flimsy grounds with no public outcry?

One commentator said, " I am tired of the race card being played every time a black person is arrested/questioned or anything else that happens with the police."

Gates was charged with "disorderly conduct." Blacks easily recognize this offense as the failure of a black to show proper deference to a white police officer.

BOSTON — Police responding to a call about "two black males" breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives t...