---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gyanendra Kumar <[email protected]> Date: 2009/7/24 Subject: Harvard professor's arrest spotlights racial profiling in the US To: our-media <[email protected]>, [email protected]
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Arvind Marathe <[email protected]> wrote: > > The pitfalls of racial profiling in Cambridge > Ed Pilkington > > Being a highly respected scholar was not enough to stop Henry Louis > Gates Jr. from being arrested for entering his own home. > > Note to all police officers in Cambridge, Massachusetts: if you > absolutely do have to arrest an African-American man on suspicion of > breaking into a house that turns out to be his own home then please, > please make sure it is not Henry Louis Gates Jr. > > To say the Cambridge force had egg on its face on Tuesday does a > massive injustice to the scale of its embarrassment. One of its > sergeants had arrested, handcuffed and locked in a cell for four > hours, arguably the most highly respected scholar of African-American > history in America. > > Prolific writer, TV presenter, director of Harvard’s WEB Du Bois > Institute for African and African American Research, friend of Oprah > Winfrey — the list of Mr. Gates’s connections and achievements goes > on. > > But when Mr. Gates returned last Thursday to his leafy Harvard home > from a trip to China filming his latest TV documentary, he was, well, > just another African-American man seemingly engaged in nefarious > activities. > > It was the early afternoon when Mr. Gates (58) reached his house in a > taxi . The front door had been damaged and he could not get in, so he > entered through the back door, disabled the alarm and then again tried > to push open the front door with the help of the (North African) > driver. > > A (white) woman walking by saw an African-American man trying to force > the door and leapt to the kind of assumptions that Mr. Gates has > chronicled over many years. She called 911, and then hapless Sgt. > James Crowley turned up. By then Mr. Gates, settling back home, was > calling Harvard’s property section to report the faulty door. Sgt. > Crowley asked him to step outside as he was investigating a report of > a break-in. “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” Mr. Gates > asked, according to Sgt. Crowley’s police report, refusing to leave > his front room. > > Asked to prove it was his own home, Mr. Gates showed his Harvard ID > and local driving licence. In return, Mr. Gates asked Sgt. Crowley for > his name and badge number. > > In his report, Sgt. Crowley said Mr. Gates accused him of being a > racist police officer and told him he had no idea who he was messing > with. The officer wrote that when asked Gates to step outside again, > he was told: “Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside.” > > “I was quite surprised and confused with the behaviour,” the sergeant > said. He called officers from Cambridge and Harvard’s own police. Mr. > Gates was arrested for “loud and tumultuous behaviour”. > > Later, Mr. Gates said he was “appalled that any American could be > treated as capriciously by an individual police officer”. “There are > one million black men in jail in this country and last Thursday I was > one of them,” he told the Washington Post. “This is outrageous and > that this is how poor black men across the country are treated > everyday in the criminal justice system. It’s one thing to write about > it, but altogether another to experience it.” > > As news spread of the arrest, friends and colleagues rallied to Mr. > Gates’s side. He was offered the legal help of Charles Ogletree, a > Harvard law professor and friend of Barack Obama. > > Lawrence Bobo, a Harvard sociologist, rushed to the station and drove > him home after Mr. Gates was allowed out on $40 bail. > > Within hours of news breaking of the arrest, the Cambridge police had > dropped all charges. The force said the “regrettable and unfortunate” > incident should not be seen as demeaning the character and reputation > of Mr. Gates or the character of the police. Mr. Gates is fond, > though, of quoting an observation from Bert Williams, an early 20th > century African-American entertainer: “It’s no disgrace to be > coloured. But it is awfully inconvenient.” — © Guardian Newspapers > Limited, 2009 > > -- Ranjit --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
