enemy at the Gates

My goal here isn't to paint any party involved as the bad guy, but to take the facts and
come to a resonable conclusion as to what happend on June 16th 2009.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., a promonient African-American scholar, encountered what seemed to be
a regular occurance for minoritis living in America, racial profiling. These stories
usually start out the same, African-American (primarily male) is just sitting around minding
their business when Law Enforcement or some security authority questions their intent and
detaines the individual. These events share many similarities. There's usually some
information missing and this information is usually what's needed to make a final judgement
in any case that may arise. Another similarity is that the cops usually have a legit reason
for being on the scene.

In the case of Mr. Gates the police were called in for a possible break in. Here is the
story as most people know it. Gates returns from a trip to find front his front door stuck
and with this help of his driver and some brute force they sucessfully gain entry into Mr.
Gate's home. A woman observing suspects the two men were breaking into the home for two
reasons. There's been a series of break-ins in the area and the two men weren't using keys
to get in, but were opening the door by brute force. Two very legit reasons for calling the
police. Sgt. Crowley arrives on the scene to find nothing out of the ordinary and Mr. Gates
in his home. He then then proceeds to determine if Mr. Gates is the true ower of the home
and if indeed there was a break-in, and succeeds at his task, however things get fuzzy at
this point.

We know Mr. Gates was asked for ID, which he did hand over, and we also know the police
confirmed that Gates was who he said he was and it was indeed his home. So what happend?
Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct. Gates claims he did nothing wrong siting racial
discrimination, and Crowley states he acted within standard protocol. So who's wrong/right?
We may never know, but going back to what I said earlier about how these cases have usually
have "missing information," Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct which means he did
something to provoke the officer.

The 911 call and the dispatcher tapes were released today and they shed some more light on
the case. On the tape you hear the Sgt. reporting that Gates was "uncooroperative". What
does that mean? Does it mean he didn't give up the ID like he was requested? Mind you, Sgt.
Crowley stated in an earlier interview he had "no doubt Mr. Gates was the owner of that
home." If Gates wasn't cooperating then he must have refused to fulfill the request of the
officer.

Gates cried racial discrimination, and I agree, however not in the way you may expect. You
could call this reverse racisim, which is no different than normal racisism other than the
fact that in this case it would be an african-american discriminating against a caucasian. If what Crowley said is true then Gates would be at fault for stereotyping Crowley as a racist white cop, thus escalating the situation to the point where he had to be detained.

At this stage things have gotten out of control and would've been avoided only if people kept their cool. In the end faults could be sited on both sides and we may never know what actually happened. This is because there are two major problems brought to light by this event and that is we as a society have a bad habit of not taking responsibility for our actions and not admitting fault when we take the wrong action, which can lead to serious problems.

Comments

[Vuthy]

"Gates would be at fault for stereotyping Crowley as a racist white cop"

This is also what I thought after reading about the incident and hearing the 911 tape. I think Gates probably assumed Crowley was a racist white cop from the get-go, felt indignant and threatened and acted hostile when he didn't have any reason to be.

One can argue that maybe Gates only felt that way because TRUE racial profiling against minorities does happen over and over and his reaction was in part understandable, but from all accounts this cop was a good guy and Gates shouldn't have lowered himself to the level of those he's against by automatically assuming the cop had bad intentions.

[Pickalicous]

I agree I think he had the whole "here we go again" theme running through his head from the get-go. However I will say this, if that is the case then their both in the wrong. Gates should not immediately have that thought, and Crowley probably should not have arrested him for something so stupid. Cooler heads will prevail! Right?

Make sure you go to http://www.shamrocknews.com ... Sorry Dwayne had to do it.