Professor Henry Louis Gates & Cambridge Police

Professor Henry Louis Gates & Cambridge Police

As I understand what happened, Professor Gates had some problems with his front door being jammed upon a return from an international trip. He couldn't get the front door open, so he went around to the back door. Neighbors reported a person who seemed to be trying to force entry, and called police.

The police arrive, and ask Gates for ID, to verify that Gates is the owner, and not a burglar. I'm not sure that Gates would have been treated any differently if he was white. Gates shows them ID, and gets loud and screechy about racism. The police arrest Gates.

My concealed weapons instructor in California was a deputy sheriff, and he made a humorous point once to the effect that there are really only two crimes to a cop: bad attitude misdemeanor and bad attitude felony. If you get argumentative with a police officer, there is a very real chance that you are going to end up getting arrested. If you get argumentative with a judge, there is a very real chance of getting a contempt of court fine as well.

People with authority figure problems seem to especially have problems with this concept. My father-in-law was one of those people. On one occasion, he turned a $20 speeding ticket in court into a $100 contempt of court charge. On another occasion, he was double parked in front of my wife's apartment building on a fairly busy street at night, having a conversation with her, and a police officer asked him to move along--and he very nearly managed to escalate this to an arrest.

I really wish that police officers didn't sometimes abuse their authority when someone gets mouthy. But that's human nature. Getting confrontational with police officers is a mistake. Complain after the fact about their behavior, but getting argumentative with someone who, by law, has arrest powers and a bunch of other police available as backup, is really, really stupid.

Assuming that what happened to Gates was a sign of racism is simply not justified by the evidence presented. It is simplest to understand this as "police don't like civilians getting mouthy." Turning this into a racial conflict makes perfect sense for Gates (who has spent his academic career studying race). It makes sense for Obama to do the same, because Obama has used race to get himself elected to an office that he would never have achieved had he been white. (Think of John Edwards as the white equivalent.)