Handcuffing "post-racial possibility"

The charges against Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have finally been dropped. The Nation has a piece by Melissa Harris-Lacewell on how apolitical Gates actually is (rather than being the "radical" some reports have characterized hin as). In fact, I was astonished to read that

Gates said in an interview to TheRoot.com "I would sooner have believed the sky was going to fall from the heavens than I would have believed this could happen to me."

Here, by the way, is Harris-Lacewell's summary of the details of his arrest:

The Cambridge police and Professor Gates tell somewhat different versions of the story. But both sides agree that Gates came home to find his front door jammed. He used his key to enter by the back door. He and his driver then pushed at the front door until it opened. Witnessing this, someone called the police and indicated there may be a breaking-and-entering in progress. While Gates was on the phone with a property management company a police officer arrived. The officer requested identification. Gates produced it. Even after ascertaining that Gates had not illegally entered the property, the officer arrested him for disorderly conduct. The police report asserts Gates yelled and behaved aggressively. Gates denies this. The charges have been dropped. In short, Gates was arrested even though the police officer was fully aware that Gates lived in the home.

The heart of her piece is about how she had (before this) seen Gates as an embodiment of "post-racial possibility." Her conclusion is worth quoting:

It is hard to imagine many other African American men who would indicate such surprise. Even President Obama has spoken of the difficulty in hailing a cab and First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed her understanding of black men's vulnerability to random violence. But Gates seems genuinely surprised and deeply hurt. His sense of violation and humiliation evokes great empathy, but also some incredulity about his astonishment with racial bias in the criminal justice system.

I like and respect Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Although we have had intellectual and political disagreements he has always welcomed dissent and encouraged individuality. Our personal connection is not why I was so devastated to see his mug shot or images of him handcuffed on his front porch. I was not even distressed because of class implications that reasoned, "If this can happen to a Harvard professor then no one is safe."

My distress is squarely rooted in feeling that I watched the police handcuff American possibility.

A classic example

The Seattle Times is carrying a New York Times story by Abby Goodnough:Was arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. an act of racism? His Harvard colleagues think so. Gates lives only a few blocks from Harvard Square. According to Gates's lawyer (also a professor at Harvard), he arrived home from a trip to China and found his front door jammed.

He forced the door open with the help of his cabdriver, Ogletree said, and had been inside for a few minutes when Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department appeared at his door and asked him to step outside.

Gates, 58, refused to do so, Ogletree said. From that point, the account of the professor and the police began to differ.

According to his lawyer, Gates told the sergeant that he lived there and showed his Massachusetts driver's license and his Harvard identification card, but Crowley still did not seem to believe that Gates lived in the home, a few blocks from Harvard Square. At that point, his lawyer said, Gates grew frustrated and asked for the officer's name and badge number.

According to the police report, Gates initially refused to show identification.

In the report, Crowley said a white female caller had notified the police around 12:45 p.m. of seeing two black men on the porch of the home, at 17 Ware St. The caller was suspicious after seeing one of the men "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry," according to the report.

A spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department did not return a call seeking comment. But in the report, Crowley said that as he told Gates he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates exclaimed, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" and accused the sergeant of racism.

"While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence," Crowley wrote in the report, "I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me."

Gates ultimately followed him outside, the report said, and kept yelling at him despite the sergeant's warning "that he was becoming disorderly." Crowley then arrested and handcuffed him.

Gates was held at police headquarters for several hours before being released on his own recognizance.

"He is cooperating now with the city to resolve this matter as soon as possible," Ogletree said, adding that Gates wanted the charges against him dismissed.

Police officers are notorious for reconstructing events in their reports to justify their behavior after the fact. But even if I were inclined to take the cop's version over Gates's (which I'm not), there's no getting around the officer's arresting Gates-- in his own home-- even though he says he believed that "Gates was lawfully in the residence." One would expect the officer to have been apologetic on learning his mistake. Instead, he apparently expected apologetic, deferential behavior from the person he has falsely accused.

Ogletree said that Gates had "never touched" Crowley, but did "express his frustration at being subjected to the threat of arrest in his own home."

Well, duh. So it's illegal, now, to complain about being harassed in your own home? It's easy to imagine the scene: just arriving home after a long trip, from the other side of the world, exhausted and jetlagged. Wanting a bath or shower. And probably just to crash. Do you think that officer would have treated a white male executive as he treated Gates? "Disorderly conduct," out on the street, usually means not leaving the scene when the police tell you to, or asking questions they don't want voiced in their hearing. It's one of those flexible charges that can be arbitrarily flung at anyone who's being an inconvenience to the police. But what does "Disorderly Conduct" actually mean when you're inside your own home, whichh been invaded by police on a spurious charge?

Second, I wonder why Gates's neighbor didn't recognize him. And why, at noon, with a taxi driver helping him and presumably his luggage sitting nearby, the obvious explanation didn't occur to her.

And third: even if this doesn't offer one of those classic examples of racial profiling, the vile racist comments on the Seattle Times site make it impossible not to see this in terms of racism.

For the record? I once had to break into my house, when I got locked out. It never once crossed my mind that a neighbor might report me to the police for doing that. (Though of course it sounds as if Gates didn't actually "break into" his house: having unlocked the door, it jammed. Wooden doors do that sometimes.)