Henry Louis Gates Jr, has been arrested in Cambridge, MA. How do I know? Because he's a world famous academic, and because he's black, and because people have been pinging me about it.
After waxing poetic on the matter of Permission Granted, I'm now in the mood of keeping it short and to the point, especially considering the 200 comments over at Ta-Nehisi Coates. Jeez.
The simple facts are just simple facts, and everybody who is blowing smoke at length is forgetting one particular salient. Gates is the guy with the power here, which is to say more power than OJ. So my sentiment is to say that if Gates steamrolls over these cops, he's only playing to a vicious crowd. He ought to have more class than to put those two guys out of work in order to prove a point to the peasantry. I give him the benefit of the doubt, but I wouldn't put it past Gates to milk this ridiculous matter in the court of public opinion.
Gates can sue, because he can afford to get the kind of lawyering pro-bono that makes all the 'significance' of the racial aspect of his arrest garner headlines. But everybody knows the resolution to Gates vs Whomever has jack to do with the problems of the average black American. I'm interested to see how Randall Kennedy weighs in on the matter as well as BLSA and the redoubtable Charles Ogletree. Derrick Bell and Cornel West are likely to weigh in, but is it really worth their while? Is this really what they have been reduced to? A short time will tell.
I'm inclined to spit in Gates direction if, for the sake of racial symbolism, he caves into the temptation to ruin these cops on principle. It's difficult for me to see how he could possibly be found guilty of B&E in to his own flat, so he's clearly in Cynthia McKinney territory with the 'do you have any idea who I am' style of outrage. That means he can press his case, take shortcuts and invoke privileges not available to you and me, bust a black power move and paint himself in the loud but false colors of a moral crusader against the lingering legacy of slavery. But it doesn't matter who the F he is. Like the rest of us, he is bound to the social contract of not being above the law. That means not having any right or privilege to be an intransigent asshole when under the aegis of lawful police action. It all comes down to a day in court and all the rest is BS.
So how does Gates play it? Like King or like X? My opinion of him hangs on this.
ADDENDA:
1. Police arrest innocent people all the time. Your guilt or innocence is not proven in the streets, but in a court of law. The distinguished professor is not so distinguished if he's trying to keep it real out in the streets.
2. Posted at The Root:
I used to wonder how it is that so many people get put in jail in America for stealing, say 100 measly bucks from a 7-11. Then I thought about the places where they don't, places where you could break into somebody's house and steal everything and nobody does nothing - where 911 is a joke. And then I realized I was talking about the ghetto, you know, that place where black life is cheap because of drugs, and gangs, and unemployment - where nobody with any backbone stands up and stops the bad guys, and puts things in order. Then I thought about why white racists would want to keep blacks out of the police department. At some point, black Americans are going to have to determine that they are and have something of value and that the law of the land is there for their own benefit. I suspect that on that day, they will recognize the job that police actually do every day, rather than flood the internet when certain rich and famous individuals are inconvenienced. Doubtless, professor Gates feels entitled to put himself up as the model for all black men in America, a tragic victim of racist circumstance. And evidently a million suckers are buying that bodewash. I don't buy it, and I think he's being a petulant ass. I think some jail time for disturbing the peace would do him some good. He's obviously pretty good at it, considering all of the phony outrage he's generating. Let people really think about the fact that this man cussed out a cop and thought he was too big and important to be arrested. Let him go to jail. Let him write a letter from a Cambridge jail. Let's see what kind of symbol he really is.
Recent Comments