The Washington Post, which has business ties with the well-known chairman of the Harvard Afro-American Studies Department, Henry Louis Gates, has a long article about Prof. Gates' embarrassing arrest by the Cambridge Police Department last week after he had to break in to the house Harvard University provides him in Harvard Square, then launched into a tirade of accusations of racism against the white policeman sent to investigate the break-in.
Clearly, though, Gates also had his own narrative in his head.
The Cambridge cops' reports were briefly up on the Boston Globe before being shoved down the memory hole. Larry Auster, however, has preserved them here. They make interesting reading.
When Officer Crowley told him he was "investigating a report of a break in [in] progress," Gates "exclaimed, 'Why because I'm a black man in America?'" Gates then proceeded to loudly make an ass of himself.
The cop reported, "I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist police officer."
My guess would be that by this point the cop thought it unlikely that this well-dressed middle-aged man was a common burglar, but was, consciously or unconsciously, becoming worried about a different scenario:
Q. Why would an extremely angry man break into his own house?
A. Because his wife had locked him out?
Q. What did this enraged man do to his hypothetical wife after he broke in, or what would he do to her after the police left?
When somebody is as out of control emotionally toward a policeman as Gates was, they are often a danger to other civilians, such as their loved ones. I presume that Professor Gates doesn't watch Cops much, but screaming It's None Of Your Business, You Racist at a policeman who asks if there is anybody else in the house is traditionally seen by policemen as a warning sign that there might be somebody else, or her corpse, in the house.
Making an ass of yourself shouldn't get you arrested, but anybody over the age of three should know that you speak to policemen in quiet, deferential tones. (Nor do you threaten a policeman's career by charging him with racism on no grounds.)
Why? Because they have guns. You don't want to get shot, and, more often than not, they'd prefer not to shoot you (which requires them to go downtown and fill out a lot of paperwork). So, they like to keep things on a civil plane where nobody starts getting an itchy trigger finger.
In Gates's defense, he was arriving home from China, and nobody is quite in his right mind when that jet-lagged.
But Gates, a master of the media game, is already planning to milk the unfortunate incident:
Hey, I've come up with a name for the enforcement arm against racist thinking which Gates's logic demands: The Thought Police!
A commenter named Piper writes:
Here's Stephen Hunter's description of this phenomenon that I quoted in VDARE.com in 2006 when reviewing his book American Gunfight about the 1950 shootout between Puerto Rican nationalists and Harry Truman's bodyguards:
The commenter continues:
By the way, speaking of need for dominance, last week, I read Joseph Wambaugh's true crime book Fire Lover about John Orr, the veteran Glendale (California) Fire Department arson investigator. He became a legend in the arson investigation business for his uncanny ability to find the point of origin and the charred remains of the firestarting device.
The reason for his divining ability was that he was not just an arson investigator, but a mass-scale arsonist who started at least four score fires, and may well have started one thousand or more (the number of brush fires in Glendale the year after he was arrested dropped from something like 67 to 5).
The bastard set fire to quite a few stores where my mom shopped. He'd dropped a delayed-ignition device in the middle of the most flammable merchandise and stroll out, get in his Glendale Fire Department car, drive away, then, when the smoke was rising, ostensibly notice it, drive back and videotape the fire from across the street.
He was convicted in the arson murder of four people in a home improvement center in South Pasadena largely based on his novel/diary Point of Origins, he was writing about an arsonist (which was eventually made into an HBO movie with Ray Liotta).
The defining event of Orr's life had been that he had applied to be a Los Angeles Police Department officer when it was at the height of its reputation as the most professional department in the country in 1970, and been turned down as "psychologically unstable."
He then became a fireman because he needed a job, but the psychological rewards of being a fireman (as Wambaugh, who served in the LAPD from 1960-1974, says: "everybody loves a fireman") didn't fulfill him. He always told people he didn't want to be a cop, but he gravitated toward the most cop-like job in the fire business, arson investigator, and loved engaging in cop-like stunts like high speed chases and intimidating interrogations. (Presumably, cop turned novelist Wambaugh found Orr, the quasi-cop turned novelist/criminal, intriguing in a sort of evil twin way).
Eventually, Orr acted out his need for dominance by terrorizing people with fire.
The good news about people that screwed-up morally is that they are generally screwed-up in terms of being effectual as well. Orr reminds me a little of Hitler, in that he was a messed-up authoritarian personality with ambivalent feelings of resentment and admiration toward the most prestigious local authority hierarchy (the LAPD, the German Army officer corps), and highly effectual, although Orr was a lot more heterosexual than Hitler (when arrested, this pudgy non-descript guy was splitting his week between his fourth wife and his mistress), and his obsessions, fortunately, were more private than public.
And to get totally off the topic of Henry Louis Gates, I just noticed Inductivist's posting on JP Rushton's new work on a General Factor for personality, which seems relevant to Orr.
We are lucky that Category 2 smart-bad folks like Orr are relatively rare. Rushton's theory suggests why that may be.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Prominent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. casts his arrest at his home last week as part of a "racial narrative" playing out in a biased U.S. criminal justice system. ...
"This guy had this whole narrative in his head. Black guy breaking and entering."
Clearly, though, Gates also had his own narrative in his head.
The Cambridge cops' reports were briefly up on the Boston Globe before being shoved down the memory hole. Larry Auster, however, has preserved them here. They make interesting reading.
When Officer Crowley told him he was "investigating a report of a break in [in] progress," Gates "exclaimed, 'Why because I'm a black man in America?'" Gates then proceeded to loudly make an ass of himself.
The cop reported, "I then asked Gates if there was anyone else in the residence. While yelling, he told me that it was none of my business and accused me of being a racist police officer."
My guess would be that by this point the cop thought it unlikely that this well-dressed middle-aged man was a common burglar, but was, consciously or unconsciously, becoming worried about a different scenario:
Q. Why would an extremely angry man break into his own house?
A. Because his wife had locked him out?
Q. What did this enraged man do to his hypothetical wife after he broke in, or what would he do to her after the police left?
When somebody is as out of control emotionally toward a policeman as Gates was, they are often a danger to other civilians, such as their loved ones. I presume that Professor Gates doesn't watch Cops much, but screaming It's None Of Your Business, You Racist at a policeman who asks if there is anybody else in the house is traditionally seen by policemen as a warning sign that there might be somebody else, or her corpse, in the house.
Making an ass of yourself shouldn't get you arrested, but anybody over the age of three should know that you speak to policemen in quiet, deferential tones. (Nor do you threaten a policeman's career by charging him with racism on no grounds.)
Why? Because they have guns. You don't want to get shot, and, more often than not, they'd prefer not to shoot you (which requires them to go downtown and fill out a lot of paperwork). So, they like to keep things on a civil plane where nobody starts getting an itchy trigger finger.
In Gates's defense, he was arriving home from China, and nobody is quite in his right mind when that jet-lagged.
But Gates, a master of the media game, is already planning to milk the unfortunate incident:
Clearly, as Gates points out, we need to police the thoughts of the police.His next project on race, he said, will be rooted in his arrest. "I hope to make a documentary about racial profiling for PBS," he said. "[The idea] had never crossed my mind but it has now."
He said the documentary will ask: "How are people treated when they are arrested? How does the criminal justice system work? How many black and brown men and poor white men are the victims of police officers who are carrying racist thoughts?
Hey, I've come up with a name for the enforcement arm against racist thinking which Gates's logic demands: The Thought Police!
A commenter named Piper writes:
... I think it is interesting to compare Gates' story with the arresting officer's report.
Reading both suggests that the real problem was a contest over dominance or control, with Gates likely so adrenalized that he suffered “auditory exclusion.”
“Auditory exclusion” is a well-known phenomenon, a side-effect of the “fight or flight” adrenaline response, by which very excited people do not respond to nor remember hearing speech or even loud noises such as gunshots during periods of great stress.
Here's Stephen Hunter's description of this phenomenon that I quoted in VDARE.com in 2006 when reviewing his book American Gunfight about the 1950 shootout between Puerto Rican nationalists and Harry Truman's bodyguards:
"Physiologically, the fighters have entered a zone that cannot be duplicated by man. It has to be real for you to get there: you feel nothing, you see only a little bit of what's ahead of you, you hear nothing. "Auditory exclusion" it's called: your hearing closes down. Meanwhile your fingers inflate like sausages and your IQ drops stunningly."
The commenter continues:
Gates was obviously very excited and fearful as well as angry at the police officer and shouted* at the officer repeatedly. Gates claims the officer never answered, yet the officer claims that he did answer and Gates ignored him. The two stories are not inconsistent, because highly excited people commonly fail to hear things.
Furthermore, Gates was trying to dominate the police officer by shouting him down, repeatedly (per both stories) demanding the officer’s name and badge number (implictly threatening administrative punishment), and (according to the officer and other witnesses) calling the officer (with no evident basis) a racist.
The officer, like all police officers, has been extensively trained that he must establish and maintain control in every situation for safety reasons. Gates was trying to take control away from the officer; he wanted to officer to kowtow to him. According to the officer’s training, anyone who tries to take control away from the officer presents a threat, possibly a deadly one. Even if the officer might have realized, in quiet contemplation, that Gates had a 1st Amendment right to shout, at the moment of confrontation the officer was faced with a man who was trying to strip the officer of the authority he had been trained to maintain even at the price of violence.
Note that Gates’ and the officer’s stories agree that the officer decided to retreat from Gates’ premises, that Gates did follow the officer out, and that Gates did keep berating the officer until the officer finally arrested Gates.
As I pointed out above, it is perfectly plausible that Gates did not hear the officer’s replies to Gates (self-admitted) badgering “What’s your name? What’s your badge number?”
(If Gates thought the officer was a racist, then Gates had even more reason to be hyper-adrenalized, since Gates would feel that he was confronting an armed racist likely to commit violence on Gates.)
(There’s certainly no evidence in any of the stories that the officer displayed any racism whatsoever. Investigating a report of a possible burglary with the citizen complainant standing by, bolstering her credibility by her presence and willing cooperation with the police, is not a “racist” activity.)
Anyone who thinks police training with respect to “control of the situation” can or should be revised would do well to think very carefully about the limits of human behavior under stress. It may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors.
-----------------
*Gates now claims he didn’t shout, but look at the photo!
The cop to Gates’ left is clearly trying to calm Gates down.
By the way, speaking of need for dominance, last week, I read Joseph Wambaugh's true crime book Fire Lover about John Orr, the veteran Glendale (California) Fire Department arson investigator. He became a legend in the arson investigation business for his uncanny ability to find the point of origin and the charred remains of the firestarting device.
The reason for his divining ability was that he was not just an arson investigator, but a mass-scale arsonist who started at least four score fires, and may well have started one thousand or more (the number of brush fires in Glendale the year after he was arrested dropped from something like 67 to 5).
The bastard set fire to quite a few stores where my mom shopped. He'd dropped a delayed-ignition device in the middle of the most flammable merchandise and stroll out, get in his Glendale Fire Department car, drive away, then, when the smoke was rising, ostensibly notice it, drive back and videotape the fire from across the street.
He was convicted in the arson murder of four people in a home improvement center in South Pasadena largely based on his novel/diary Point of Origins, he was writing about an arsonist (which was eventually made into an HBO movie with Ray Liotta).
The defining event of Orr's life had been that he had applied to be a Los Angeles Police Department officer when it was at the height of its reputation as the most professional department in the country in 1970, and been turned down as "psychologically unstable."
He then became a fireman because he needed a job, but the psychological rewards of being a fireman (as Wambaugh, who served in the LAPD from 1960-1974, says: "everybody loves a fireman") didn't fulfill him. He always told people he didn't want to be a cop, but he gravitated toward the most cop-like job in the fire business, arson investigator, and loved engaging in cop-like stunts like high speed chases and intimidating interrogations. (Presumably, cop turned novelist Wambaugh found Orr, the quasi-cop turned novelist/criminal, intriguing in a sort of evil twin way).
Eventually, Orr acted out his need for dominance by terrorizing people with fire.
The good news about people that screwed-up morally is that they are generally screwed-up in terms of being effectual as well. Orr reminds me a little of Hitler, in that he was a messed-up authoritarian personality with ambivalent feelings of resentment and admiration toward the most prestigious local authority hierarchy (the LAPD, the German Army officer corps), and highly effectual, although Orr was a lot more heterosexual than Hitler (when arrested, this pudgy non-descript guy was splitting his week between his fourth wife and his mistress), and his obsessions, fortunately, were more private than public.
And to get totally off the topic of Henry Louis Gates, I just noticed Inductivist's posting on JP Rushton's new work on a General Factor for personality, which seems relevant to Orr.
To be really reductionist about it, people can be classifed into one of four categories: 1) smart-good; 2) smart-bad; 3) dumb-good; and 4) dumb-bad. And since intelligence and pro-social behavior are positively correlated, as Darwin suggested, there may be more people in categories 1 and 4 than in 2 or 3.
We are lucky that Category 2 smart-bad folks like Orr are relatively rare. Rushton's theory suggests why that may be.
Posts
160 comments:
If European countries had a "Law of Return", I wonder how many Whites would just up and leave ?
***His next project on race, he said, will be rooted in his arrest. "I hope to make a documentary about racial profiling for PBS," he said. "[The idea] had never crossed my mind but it has now."***
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.....
(pauses to catch breath)
....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
Somehow I doubt Heather MacDonald, a journalist who has extensively researched purported racial profiling and found nothing there, will be featured in Gates' doc.
The thing is, I'm more or less with Gates on this. Like you, I agree that it's always prudent to be yes-sir, no-sir when dealing with the police. But there's something particularly obnoxious about having to explain yourself to some quarter-educated flatfoot when you're in your own home minding your own business. I'd have a hard time being reasonable as well.
This man has nothing in common with average Black in a city like Detroit. It's funny that he would then whine like he was manhandled by the police during a drug arrest.
anonymous said...
If European countries had a "Law of Return", I wonder how many Whites would just up and leave?
And how many of the first Whites to leave would be our libtard "betters" who brought this problem about?
The thing is, I'm more or less with Gates on this. Like you, I agree that it's always prudent to be yes-sir, no-sir when dealing with the police. But there's something particularly obnoxious about having to explain yourself to some quarter-educated flatfoot when you're in your own home minding your own business. I'd have a hard time being reasonable as well.
He wasn't in his own home minding is own business. He was outside, trying to break in. Most normal people would have grasped the seriousness of the situation, and would have explained what they were doing to the police officer, and that would have been the end of it.
This is where the negro "chip on their shoulder" attitude where absolutely everything is about "racism" serves to get them into trouble needlessly. Instead of objectively evaluating their situation they immediately launch into a full frontal assault using that word "racism" knowing it always works to get them off the hook thanks to white guilt.
You make it sound like the police broke into his home and arrested him, which is completely and utterly contrary to the facts as we know them so far.
Lucia Whalen, the woman who called the police, also works at Harvard as a "fundraiser"?
Lemme see............Whalen, fellow Harvard employee, calls the police and tells them two BLACK men in backpacks are trying to break into Gate's house, but she apparently doesn't recognize Gates and his cane?
This stinks on some level to me. Gates got arrested OUT ON THE STREET after following the cop out of the house, yelling at him. The cop told Gates his name three different times. I think Gates wanted to get arrested.
Where are the two black men with backpacks Whalen claimed to see? Did they magically dissapear?
He is not in his own home, he is breaking into his own home. If no one investigated break ins because the suspect was someone who might take offense at police attention, we'd all be better off?
Also as someone who has booked criminal procedure at one of the top law schools in the nation, the rule for dealing with the police is simple - say nothing and do whatever they say. You may win before a judge, you are not going to win out there on the asphalt.
As I type Yahoo has a headline story about how tragic it is that Gates was hassled by police when breaking into his house- and how much further we have to go on the sad subject of race relations in America (cue sad music).
What nonsense. I know of a similar case- and the guy breaking into his own house damn well had to explain what was the hell was going on to the cop that responded to the breaking and entering 911 call.
Of course since they were both "white" no PBS docudrama will be forthcoming.
"How many black and brown men and !poor! white men are the victims of police officers who are carrying racist thoughts?"
Apples and oranges, anyone?
Wait..oh,no, OMG, a sexist pig as well!
Harvard and Cambridge Police, while separate organizations, often share personnel on a part time basis. They are consummate professionals, receive ample training in community policing, and deserve respectful treatment.
"Pofessa" Gate's behavior was disrespectful and racist. For the life of me I don't understand why the charge against him was dropped, but I hope both the Cambridge and Harvard Police ask the Harvard faculty senate to reprimand this douche.
Steve, I like your theory a lot.
Still, though it's not worth as much as your theory, I think it is interesting to compare Gates' story ( http://www.theroot.com/views/lawyers-statement-arrest-henry-louis-gates-jr ) with the arresting officer's report (
http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/07/ill-speak-with-your-mama-outside.html ).
Reading both suggests that the real problem was a contest over dominance or control, with Gates likely so adrenalized that he suffered “auditory exclusion.”
“Auditory exclusion” is a well-known phenomenon, a side-effect of the “fight or flight” adrenaline response, by which very excited people do not respond to nor remember hearing speech or even loud noises such as gunshots during periods of great stress.
Gates was obviously very excited and fearful as well as angry at the police officer and shouted* at the officer repeatedly. Gates claims the officer never answered, yet the officer claims that he did answer and Gates ignored him. The two stories are not inconsistent, because highly excited people commonly fail to hear things.
Furthermore, Gates was trying to dominate the police officer by shouting him down, repeatedly (per both stories) demanding the officer’s name and badge number (implictly threatening administrative punishment) and (according to the officer and other witnesses) calling the officer (with no evident basis) a racist.
The officer, like all police officers, has been extensively trained that he must establish and maintain control in every situation for safety reasons. Gates was trying to take control away from the officer; he wanted to officer to kowtow to him. According to the officer’s training, anyone who tries to take control away from the officer presents a threat, possibly a deadly one. Even if the officer might have realized, in quiet contemplation, that Gates had a 1st Amendment right to shout, at the moment of confrontation the officer was faced with a man who was trying to strip the officer of the authority he had been trained to maintain even at the price of violence.
Note that Gates’ and the officer’s stories agree that the officer decided to retreat from Gates’ premises, that Gates did follow the officer out, and that Gates did keep berating the officer until the officer finally arrested Gates.
As I pointed out above, it is perfectly plausible that Gates did not hear the officer’s replies to Gates (self-admitted) badgering “What’s your name? What’s your badge number?”
(If Gates thought the officer was a racist, then Gates had even more reason to be hyper-adrenalized, since Gates would feel that he was confronting an armed racist likely to commit violence on Gates.)
(There’s certainly no evidence in any of the stories that the officer displayed any racism whatsoever. Investigating a report of a possible burglary with the citizen complainant standing by, bolstering her credibility by her presence and willing cooperation with the police, is not a “racist” activity.)
Anyone who thinks police training with respect to “control of the situation” can or should be revised would do well to think very carefully about the limits of human behavior under stress. It may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors.
*Gates now claims he didn’t shout, but look at the photo!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html
The cop to Gates’ left is clearly trying to calm Gates down.
Darwin, here in the People's Republic of MA, the police unions got the legislature to swallow a law called the Quinn Bill back in 1970, which mandates inflated salaries for even more inflated degrees in criminal justice. Some of these "quarter educated flatfoots" have advanced degrees.
Brutus
If European countries had a "Law of Return", I wonder how many Whites would just up and leave?
You think you wouldn't find similar problems in Europe? PC running rampant, lots of non-whites, racial tensions? Sorry, Charlie.
The whole "narrative" thing is from postmodernism and has infected the larger culture from its university home.
It's the whole relativism, extreme subjectivity thing, where everyone has their own "truth" encapsulated in their own personal "narrative". Basically the word is an excuse for thought, and it's one of the most annoying elements of our decaying society/civilization.
If you see -- excuse me, if you think you see -- a black committing a crime you should ignore it -- because you could be wrong. And if you see someone who matches the description of the suspect you should pay it no attention -- because you could be wrong.
The thing is, I'm more or less with Gates on this. Like you, I agree that it's always prudent to be yes-sir, no-sir when dealing with the police. But there's something particularly obnoxious about having to explain yourself to some quarter-educated flatfoot when you're in your own home minding your own business. I'd have a hard time being reasonable as well.
Dude it takes, what, 30 seconds to explain? "No, I actually live here but I've been locked out and I'm just trying to get it in. Take a quick look around if you want." No cop's going to break your balls after that.
Kind of interesting how the whole "profiling" narrative creeps into the story, isn't it? Doesn't that mean questioning people who match the description of the suspect? When an eyewitness identifies the suspect on the spot, there wouldn't seem to be much time for profiling.
Being a hothead myself, I can imagine reacting like Gates after flying halfway around the world, having to break into my own house, and then having to explain myself to a nosy cop when all I want to do is take a shower and go to bed. The difference is that I'd feel like a fool and apologize afterwards.
Don't be too quick to dismiss valid complaints by bourgeois blacks about police mistreatment.
There are a lot of poor whites who resent wealthier blacks and enjoy the opportunity to hassle them.
Too bad it couldn't have been brother Cornell West. He's funny.
"The idea that white cops in Cambridge are secretly resentful of wealthy blacks and enjoy harassing them is utterly laughable."
From what little I've seen of the Boston Irish, it doesn't seem utterly laughable to me.
Police are systemically racist...absolutely. I worked at a CD store, back when CDs could be re-sold profitably, daily hit by shoplifters for years, so I was a pro at countering shoplifting. We got hit by some white gutterpunk heroin addict shoplifters, sure, but most were semi-professional and black. Their career was shoplifting, and a fine career it is, as our ability to stop them was feeble. The racism and profiling becomes really organic, to the point where you gotta wonder why "professional" shoplifters didn't dress in three-piece suits, as a no-brainer's no-brainer. Black clerks were notably "racist," too, because that was our job, and we fought crime daily, so to speak.
Most cops have that racism deeply instilled, and it shows. They also have the terrified-of-death cop training "nonsense," which is or isn't nonsense, depending on your POV.
But it's deeply unnatural to encounter a human who you haven't encountered maybe ever, demanding total subordinance. I'd get mouthy, too, maybe, then get tasered. But I'd concur, "black male breaking, entering" sets off klaxons in cop brains, pretty organically. If you deal with these situations professionally for years (I worked at the CD store for 2 years 10 years ago!), your subconscious will be racister than your forebrain, bank on it.
Quote
Don't be too quick to dismiss valid complaints by bourgeois blacks about police mistreatment.
/quote
Obviously, none of us knows what actually hapened. I would reserve the "valid".
Lets see, a person who could have easily proven that he had the right to be in the house (in that safe is my copy of the mortgage papers, here's the combination, in the top drawer here you will find my passport with my picture) esclated the encounter into something that got him arrested. It seems to me that a crafty Harvard professor duped a poor police officer (by enraging his emotions) into a demonstration of how America is racist. I wasn't there but.
I thank God we have Steve Sailer when stories like this happen. The media is being saturated with the "Look how far we have to go" articles written by self-loathing whites. The whole thing is beyond parody.
A Black Harvard professor would have been better off taking some simple advice from Chris Rock. There is such a thing as common sense, and then there is such a thing as being an angry black man who feels stupid enough to play dominance games with the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8&feature=related
That is not to say I am automatically on the side of the police, as the only interaction I have had with them has left me despising them. I was ticketed last week after having been pulled over for having a burned out left brake light. A problem that is self-evidently hard to detect for a driver. Apparently the Florida police (pigs) enjoying extorting citizens for money.
In the PBS series entitled "African American Lives" (2006) didn't Professor Gates announce that he was of over 50% European ancestry per a DNA test? If I recall that correctly maybe he's internally conflicted, pissed off at the white half of himself!
From what little I've seen of the Boston Irish, it doesn't seem utterly laughable to me.
Steve, there's a reason why it's called the People's Republic of Cambridge.
Also all the Boston Irish I have known who wanted to get into law enforcement had to take a god-awful heavy workload of criminal science classes designed and/or taught by the sort of Brahmin class types and their leftwing allies precisely to prevent the sort of thing you are referring to.
The days of Irish-Americans getting police jobs simply because they are Irish are long over. It's a middle class job chock full of careerism and credentialism, no different from journalism or other formerly free, but now highly controlled, professions.
If we didn't know that Gates was a professor at Harvard before we read the police report, what would we think of the statements of the man being questioned?
I have a brother interviewing to be a professor at much less prestigious institutions. I think that kind of ignorant insulting in any context would harm his chances of being hired.
Sorry Darwin, but the oft-repeated stereotype of the low-brow, slack-jawed cop may work for Hollywood, but it's not the current reality. I work in law enforcement in Washington, DC, and haven't met very many officers without advanced degrees in quite some time. Plenty of educated college grads and officer corps retirees join law enforcement's ranks. You simply CANNOT be an uneducated simpleton in today's day and age of litigiousness. Sure there are dumb cops, but they either get weeded out in the academy or relegated to harmless positions (think affirmative action hires - the very ones who would be the dangerous sort you decry) outside the public purview. No one can be a dumb cop and survive very long these days.
It might be time to revise your assumption.
And for the seminal work on "flight or fight" in combat, grab any one of Lt. Col Dave Grossman's highly-esteemed works, "On Killing" or "On Combat"; required reading for professionals in the field.
What are Rushton's theories?
---------
Somewhat OT: you've all noticed by now that the Obamacare bill requires quotas for medical school graduates, so many Black, Hispanic, White women, etc?
Affirmative Action doctors. Just what the body politic needed.
"Sorry Darwin, but the oft-repeated stereotype of the low-brow, slack-jawed cop may work for Hollywood, but it's not the current reality. I [...] haven't met very many officers without advanced degrees in quite some time. Plenty of educated college grads and officer corps retirees join law enforcement's ranks. You simply CANNOT be an uneducated simpleton in today's day and age of litigiousness."
Don't you come to this blog much, pal? There are plenty of ejumacated everything out there, all with "advanced degrees", who can't tell me where Russia is, what 1/3 of 9 is, or when WWI was fought. We proles still get to deal with the type of personalities who wanted to go into "law enforcement" in the first place, only now they've learned a little something about RACISM and HATE.
Kudos for using low-brow and slack-jawed though.
Anonymous wrote, "there is such a thing as being an angry black man who feels stupid enough to play dominance games with the police."
I think when Gates chose to play dominance games with the police officer, he knew it was a win-win game for him. Guaranteed a big settlement from the local PD, lots of face time on national TV, and a deal-clincher for the boring PBS series he wants to do!
I don't know if it was a conscious decision to totally fly off the handle, but I doubt he would have done it if he were in Selma in 1955.
This incident is too late to be featured on CNN's "Black in America II," but it gives us something exciting to look forward to in "Black in America III"!
I'm sure he's happy it wasn't a black cop that got him.
Then again, maybe not. He couldn't have lectured a black cop. Correction: I'm sure Gates is loving this.
Glenn Loury must be happy too.
From what I've read, Gates denies he said what the cop said he did. He didn't deny the cop had a reason do ask what was going on at a house he heard was being burgled.
So, The question is, what, specifically, did the cop do wrong?
If Dr. Gates does make a movie about his epic travails here, do you think he will make the connection between police hatred and poor security in black neighborhoods?
Point 1: Only in America would Gates be considered a 'scholar.'
Point 2: Many police are risk-averse bureaucrats incapable of flexible thinking.
IOW, the proper response should have been, okay pops, we'll help you break the door in and have a look around so we can make sure it really is your place and there's nothing creepy going on.
Once in the house and shown around, the cops would have doubtless realized the utter insignificance of the whole fact pattern. But I kinda doubt that's the outcome the W.E.B. Dubois Professor Of African And African-American Studies was angling for.
Gates looks like Paul Gottfried.
According to Peter Moskos' "Cop in the Hood", dealing with domestic disputes is one of the least favorite jobs of a cop. So they may want to provoke a domestic disturbance arrest to defuse the situation for a bit.
I think it was foolish of Gates to mess with the cop, but at the same time I don't think it was grounds for arrest. Once it was established it was his own home, the officer can just leave and let Gates vent to his hearts content.
Back when I worked a menial job the summer before grad school and went to a party with some co-workers in a public park, my car got towed. I caught a ride with my co-worker to his place in the projects to use a phone to get directions to the salvage yard and have him drive me there to get my car out of hock.
Standing around in the projects, I had a cop come up to this very out-of-place white boy and ask what the eff I was doing there. Rather than point out that there was no probable cause for his inquiry and I was standing on a public sidewalk well within my rights as a citizen, I politely told him my story using plenty of yes-sirs and no-sirs and frantically waved over my co-worker to vouch for me. That's how I spent the night home in my own bed.
Maybe this arrogant 'uppity' jackass can be charged with a 'hate crime' himself!
Oops, how careless of me -- "hate' crimes" "laws" ONLY applies to White gentiles :-(.
Remind me never to call the cops when someone actually is breaking in my black neighbors house. Why risk it?
There are plenty of ejumacated everything out there, all with "advanced degrees", who can't tell me where Russia is, what 1/3 of 9 is, or when WWI was fought...
or how to spell common phrases like ad nauseam....
Anon from the CD shop, great comment. I too have experiences from various angles of the thing and, aside for agreeing with your various points, I want to add one.
Profiling is fine for attempting to solve a serious crime (because it's rational) but once it's clear that the serious crime hasn't taken place, apologies should be issued for the profiling and no arrests (or other punishments) should be made.
A black guy seen pushing in a door should be given immediate attention by the 5-0 but as soon as it becomes clear that it's his home he should be left alone, apologized to and made to feel like a human being again rather than like a hunted animal.
A "poor white man" driving a banged up shitty car through a nice part of town should perhaps have an officer trail him for a while until he has an excuse to stop him and check his ID but once he does, he shouldn't punish him for his poverty by giving him a ticket for some minor offense that every other passing car enggaged in just the same.
A socially akward sweating 25 year old Arab travelling alone in JFK should be "randomly selected" by the powers that be for a little friendly chat and maybe an extra screening but if they find a couple of non-prescription Adderall pills on him he shouldn't be led away in chains and dismissed from his doctoral program.
Profile the guys for the serious crime they're somewhat more likely to be in danger of engaging in but if they're innocent of that crime (as the vast majority naturally are) then make them whole again from having been pprofiled in so obtuse a matter and having been subjected to the unfair suspicions of dumb guys with guns. And CERTAINLY don't punish them for some random minor crime that everyone else is doing but which they were only caught at because of the necessary-but-unfair profiling relating to something wholly unrelated.
anon (it sucks sharing IP addresses)
(Nor do you threaten a policeman's career by charging him with racism on no grounds.)
Nor do you make a "yo mama" joke to an Irishman.
"From what little I've seen of the Boston Irish, it doesn't seem utterly laughable to me."
I guess it's not just some writers at VDare, but basically everyone who writes over at VDare that seems to hate the Irish.
What's the deal? Is it Peter Brimelow's influence or something?
"My guess would be that by this point the cop thought it unlikely that this well-dressed middle-aged man was a common burglar, but was, consciously or unconsciously, becoming worried about a different scenario:"
Your "guess" Steve, is actually a supposition colored, clouded and obscured by your job, and the 40 years of conditioning that led you to your career choice. Your "opinion" here, with all possible respect is about as reliable as a man trapped in a 12x12 room, eating beans 3x a day for 20 years with 6 other people being hired to judge perfume.
"t may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors."
Oh really, well, I hope you experience the opportunity to show your understanding some day.
"And if you see someone who matches the description of the suspect you should pay it no attention -- because you could be wrong."
"Pfffffttt- Calling all cars... calling all cars... be on the lookout... for a 60 year old, grey haired black burgular.... wearing tailored Italian slacks.... and a cardigan.... and walking with a cane and a titanium briefcase- Pffffft"
"The idea that white cops in Cambridge are secretly resentful of wealthy blacks and enjoy harassing them is utterly laughable."
Laughable; like a 4-alarm fire.
"Harvard and Cambridge Police, while separate organizations, often share personnel on a part time basis. They are consummate professionals, receive ample training in community policing, and deserve respectful treatment."
So did Darryl Gates men; and the guys in New York who enjoyed sodomizing people with broomsticks.
"It's a middle class job chock full of careerism and credentialism, no different from journalism or other formerly free, but now highly controlled, professions....You simply CANNOT be an uneducated simpleton in today's day and age of litigiousness.""
Yeah, for instance, This Guy got his Masters in Nuclear Engineering from CalTech, but became a cop to "give something back"to the community.
"It may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors."
Hmm, the police here in Britain have traditionally managed it ok. In my experience the good ones don't need overt dominance displays to control a situation, they're much more subtle than that.
I'm not one to easily defend this kind of behaviour, but in addition to the jet lag Gates was probably subjected to some pretty overt racism in China, where sensitivities towards blacks are not nearly as fine-tuned as they are in the States. Even being white can be a pain. He probably carried some pent up anger with him back from China. Only thing is, he'd do better to write about his experience in Asia than take it out on some poor police officer.
"Lemme see............Whalen, fellow Harvard employee, calls the police and tells them two BLACK men in backpacks are trying to break into Gate's house, but she apparently doesn't recognize Gates and his cane?
"This stinks on some level to me. Gates got arrested OUT ON THE STREET after following the cop out of the house, yelling at him. The cop told Gates his name three different times. I think Gates wanted to get arrested.
"Where are the two black men with backpacks Whalen claimed to see? Did they magically dissapear?"
Good point. Might have been a set up. Was Whalen a neighbor who should have recognized Gates? If not, did she hang around to watch after she called the police from a cell phone?
I think the spell correction on "ad nauseam" is a bit of a cheap shot. This is a comment thread on a blog post, not an edited, proofread, published document. Most people recognize the difference.
Pointing out somebody eles's typo or spelling error seems a little petty; if you want to argue, argue the substance of their assertions, not their keyboarding or spelling skills.
A white man behaving like Gates probably would've discovered what a restricted airway feels like.
Like I did, when I told a cop in a conversational tone that I'd like to be treated like a human being.
It felt like white privilege.
~Svigor
Yes, in real life there are not as many evil geniuses as in fiction. But the breaking apart of the Cold War order has made room for men with PhDs like Boris Berezovsky and Ahmad Chalabi to play at high level political/criminal games.
"Truth" has an annoying name and an annoying tone but he does occasionally offer some useful counterbalance. The police vid that he linked to is better seen here than in the news story he linked to where it's edited and thus makes you wonder whether the dumb-as-shit Nazi-cop has any excuse for his behavior. Watch the piece. He doesn't. There are countless similar vids out there of police harassing, whites, blacks and everyone in between.
Were they dealing with Gates based on racist assumptions? Probably. Understandable ones though, but probably (I'm the shared IP guy from before btw). The problem is though that once the "justice system" gets its tentacles into you, whether it's based on having been profiled for some reason or just plain dumb luck, you're f*cked.
Our justice system sucks from the moment that a cop opens his mouth to you, straight through the entirety of the "legal" system and on through the penal system and follow up.
We Americans live in a country where practically all of us are in danger of having our lucky number picked some day and awaking to find the full power of the mindless cross-eyed Legal&Penal Industrial Complex arrayed against us in all its force.
The fact that Gates is a useless douche of the lowest order who lives for sniffing racism wherever he can find it does not mean that the police were anything but wrong in this instance. What sucks though is that the lesson learned from this headlining case won't be that police need to learn their place as the servants of the citizenry but rather that they need "sensitivity training" when it comes to mulatto men with a racial chip on their shoulder who can command the attention of every journalist in America.
By painting this as a racial crime, the knee-jerk open-mouthed stunned media is cleansing the police from their real sin - that of hubris. They're doing this no less than they've cleansed the sins of gluttony, greed and evil scheming from all of Wall Street by directing the people's attention to that "monster" Madoff.
The powers that be are nothing if not masters of the art of distraction. From ancient Rome to today, the people can be easily led away from any interest in righting genuine grievances by a nice little show on the side.
The racial opera is getting old though and Eastasia is already destroyed. I hope something more entertaining is set to come down the pike soon. Reruns are boring.
still (unfortunately and likely for some time) generally anon on account of shared computers and IPs by colleagues and family, including some who read this blog - wouldn't it be great if people could have opinions AND jobs at the same time? That would be too cool.
Actually it's real simple what was going on.
The moment the police showed up, it was the greatest moment of his life. It was the culmination of 40 years of work or whatever.
In his own mind, he had to do whatever he could to antagonize the police so that maybe they'd beat him and he could be the next Rodney King.
Svigor said...
A white man behaving like Gates probably would've discovered what a restricted airway feels like.
Like I did, when I told a cop in a conversational tone that I'd like to be treated like a human being.
It felt like white privilege.
Details, please.
Black Sea said...
"I think the spell correction on "ad nauseam" is a bit of a cheap shot."
You must be new to this place. We're all ABOUT cheap shots here.
Right now, this is the top story on Google News, with about 2,000 links attached.
For every link that folks like truth may be able to find, there are probably 20 posted every single day on sites like LiveLeak showing more typical black on black or black on white crime.
Many commenters at sites like that have become profilers, often not because they were racists to start with.
The reality the security videos show overwhelms pc training.
Everyone here has missed the most important point. Gates did show the cop two forms of Photo ID, his driver's license and his Harvard ID. After being shown those documents, the Cop had no right to hang around when Gates so obviously wanted him gone. He did not have a warrant or a reasonable belief that a crime had been committed. Yet he did so. Whatever his motives his conduct was wrongful after being shown the IDs.
There's an unsettling classist angle to the reporting of this story: The implying that the word of a more successful person (Gates, college professor, TV star) should be believed over that of a lowly flatfoot.
Steve, you somehow seem to have deleted my suggestion that now is the ideal time for Truth to make his long-planned move to steal Gates' IPod. While Gates is at the poetry slam at the Cantab Lounge rapping about the Middle Passage, Truth can easily break down the door of Gates' empty house with his physical trainer body and no one will dare stop him.
"Lucia Whalen, the woman who called the police, also works at Harvard as a "fundraiser""
Heh. Not for much longer, she doesn't...
Only thing is, he'd do better to write about his experience in Asia than take it out on some poor police officer.
and admit that 'people of color' are 'racist' that blow the con.
"Only thing is, he'd do better to write about his experience in Asia than take it out on some poor police officer."
Define "do better." If you mean "telling the truth to educate people about reality," yeah, I agree.
But if you mean "do better" as a euphemism for "extracting monetary rewards" or "getting lots of sympathy and attention, for later political gain" then Henry DEFINITELY would "do better" by taking it out on some poor *American* police officer.
Lots of the commenters here are making mistakes about the facts.
Gates was already in his house when the policeman arrived, talking on the phone with the alarm company.
No matter how angry and loud Gates was, IF the policeman did not show his badge and give his name to Gates, this incident is the policeman's fault. A cop's fear of administrative punishment is not an excuse for anything. Gates did show his photo ID, which proved he lived at that house, to the cop and that should have been the end of it -- the cop should have laughed off any further abuse by Gates and said "sorry, but I have to respond to reports of a break-in no matter what color I am or you are".
The cop obviously has either
1) an unacceptably low amount of common sense for a cop (cannot imagine a legitimate reason for a homeowner to be upset in this situation)
or
2) the unacceptable attitude that he should use his power of arrest to punish people who make him feel bad by yelling insults at him even when they do not break the law
or
3) an unacceptably low IQ for a cop so that the following applies
"It may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors."
I *disagree* with the comment I just quoted because it IS possible to train police officers to manage violent punks without etc. etc., but only if your raw material has an IQ >= 95 or so. I also disagree because arresting someone is too cognitively complex a task to be justified as a "reflex".
I like how 'Henry Louis Gates Jr.' (Ph.D) is suddenly being referred to as 'Skip' Gates.
And John, from the police report -- admittedly no doubt shaded in the officer's favor -- Crowley radioed his findings in and was leaving when 'Skip' choose to continue the matter outside the premises.
I've had a few dealings with the po-po, and like Steve sez, rule number one is to STFU. Chris Rock even made a video about it.
One day I returned home from work to discover a homeless man sitting on my porch. He screamed that it was HIS house, and he threatened to kill me. I got inside, went upstairs, and called the police.
When the police arrived 50 minutes later, their first order of business was to demand that I dig through my mortgage papers and prove to them that I owned my home.
Their second order of business was to spend 45 minutes sweet-talking the psycho on my porch. During this conversation (which I listened to, horrified) the man screamed unrestrainedly at the officers, made several plain death threats against them, while they nodded and smiled. Surreal. Finally the officers had a success: the psycho agreed to leave my property. He was not arrested.
When I asked why they made no arrest, the officers explained to me that they would come back only if the man appeared on my property a second time. (Or, presumably, if he returned and murdered me or my wife.) It did not appear from their conversation that they knew the man before, that he was a "regular" in any way.
Thereafter, when returning from work, I always checked the bushes – from a distance. I believe this is called "living in fear." (We moved later.)
Put me down as a supporter of Gates on this one. Most cops - or the people who train them - are idiots.
What Gates really should do is go after the complainant. Who is snoopy enough to watch a house so closely as to observe a break-in, and cares enough about that house and is invested enough in the neighborhood to call the cops – but fails to know whom the house belongs to, especially when the owner is a nationally and locally famous person? It smacks of malice; something feels weird about it.
It seems there's a great deal of "emotional autism" in this story. Years ago, cops and neighbors seemed to be savvier and more knowledgeable.
(I agree that no one should ever argue with or yell at a cop, though this behavior seemed to have had no ill effect on my homeless intruder.)
This is a big problem with peoples obession with race and oppression.
People like Gates think people are treating them poorly because they are racists when in fact Gates was treated poorly because he was acting like an 17yr roided up ahole.
"By painting this as a racial crime, the knee-jerk open-mouthed stunned media is cleansing the police from their real sin - that of hubris."
This is a great point, and where the real problem, and ultimately challenge, lies...
If minority racists and their liberal handlers would stop ALWAYS harping on the PURPORTED racial angle of inappropriate police behavior [you know -- 'how dare that White cop show me (fill in the blank - black, mestizo, oriental) "disrespect"],
...and more on the actual behavior itself, this problem would have a lot more credibility before the public eyes, and the victims would get far more empathy as a consequence,
...and maybe something actually can be done to combat real police bullies, whose principal problem, as the commenter above so rightly points out, is HUBRIS.
So again, in dealing with police, lose the 'tude, and try just sticking to the facts. Save all the rightful complaints against possible wrong behavior on their part for your lawyer (LOL).
Anon. said
"the rule for dealing with the police is simple - say nothing and do whatever they say."
What if they tell you to bend over? Or to hand over your wife? The Framers put the Second Amendment in the Constitution for a reason.
"The police vid that he linked to is better seen here...Watch the piece. He doesn't..."
Actually Sport, I watched the long-form video over a year ago when it was first posted. The reality is that we live in a fast-food nation, and people prefer to read the Cliff Notes than "War and Peace."
"The fact that Gates is a useless douche of the lowest order who lives for sniffing racism wherever he can find it..."
Apparently, so are you as you wrote earlier in your own post...
"Were they dealing with Gates based on racist assumptions? Probably."
And do you not find it interesting that the only one of the three videos you commented on featured a white "suspect?"
"For every link that folks like truth may be able to find, there are probably 20 posted every single day on sites like LiveLeak showing more typical black on black or black on white crime."
Maybe, but those criminals don't collect a government paycheck.
"In his own mind, he had to do whatever he could to antagonize the police so that maybe they'd beat him and he could be the next Rodney King."
Gates- "In five minutes I'm going to have a broken leg, a fractured eye socket and permanent brain damage...OH BOY I CAN"T WAIT!!!!"
"There's an unsettling classist angle to the reporting of this story: The implying that the word of a more successful person (Gates, college professor, TV star) should be believed over that of a lowly flatfoot."
Yeah I mean who knows; maybe he made that Harvard ID and driver's license (showing the address the cop happened to be standing in) up on his laptop!
"Steve, you somehow seem to have deleted my suggestion that now is the ideal time for Truth to make his long-planned move to steal Gates' IPod."
Hey Sport, you think maybe, just maybe there's a reason he deleted it?
I do like the use of "somehow" though, there is a possibility that Steve meant to post it, but accidentally set his coffee cup on the "delete" button.
No mystery here: 0 to fury in 3 seconds is stereotypical black behavior (as anyone who has had to spend any time around them can attest).
Steve,
You are way to deferential to the cops. The folks you quote talk about "auditory exclusion" as the explanation for discrepancies between the officer and Gates' statements. However, another likely explanation is that the officer added or subtracted information from his report in order to make the suspect look worse and the officer look better.
Officers routinely have selective memory just like everyone else. Given the direction "crimethink" laws in this country are headed we all ought to think twice about conservatism's near blind trust for certain organs of government like military and law enforcement.
Details, please.
I'd rather not. Unless you mean what moves they used on me, heh. Jujitsu. The restriction came from pressure against the ground, very alarming feeling let me tell you.
If European countries had a "Law of Return", I wonder how many Whites would just up and leave ?
Let me think - I can live next door to Mexicans, or I can live next door to Turks who set their own daughters on fire for dating Germans. You know what, I'll stay in the US thanks.
The gulf between the median attitude expressed on this thread ("intellectual on a racial-grievance hairtrigger") and that of the Skip Gates arrested thread at leftwing Crooked Timber ("racist cop ought to be sued") is predictable and depressing.
How excellent that our multicultural betters are adding so many more societal fractures atop the ever-present Paleocon/SWPL divide.
"I work in law enforcement in Washington, DC, and haven't met very many officers without advanced degrees in quite some time. Plenty of educated college grads and officer corps retirees join law enforcement's ranks. You simply CANNOT be an uneducated simpleton in today's day and age of litigiousness."
Maybe so, but read the officer's report. The number of spelling errors and awkward word choices suggests he's someone who'd get a C+/B- at a typical university. Good enough for a solid working-class professional, but not an upper-white collar dude.
intellectual pariah
"Orr reminds me a little of Hitler..."
Whew, it's been a while since you proved to your detractors and enemies that you were a conservative - no threat folks, not here, no way, we all believe in the devil, it's just you're Catholics and we're Protestants, no real difference, heh heh, we're as decent folk as you.
Noriega, Khadaffi, Haider, Arafat, Chavez, Bush, Ahmedinijad, Hussein, Amin, Mugabe, Obama, a random cop named Orr, a mean kid on the playground, a demanding boss - all, amazingly, "like Hitler".
Snore.
What happened to Gates was a small-scale bummer. A few days ago, while on the subway, I had to listen to some "urban" youths screaming and laughing and generaly being obnoxious for about half an hour. That was another example of a small-scale race-related bummer. Needless to say, PBS won't be making a documentary about mine.
Media reports on this non-incident described Gates as a scholar. I think the words media personality and race man fit him far better. I mean, he doesn't spend his days poring over ancient manuscripts in libraries, does he? If being a race man can be thought of as a profession, then this is obviously a golden professional opportunity for Mr. Gates. Watching him milk it is almost as annoying as listening to those youths was.
"A socially akward sweating 25 year old Arab travelling alone in JFK should be "randomly selected" by the powers that be for a little friendly chat and maybe an extra screening but if they find a couple of non-prescription Adderall pills on him he shouldn't be led away in chains and dismissed from his doctoral program."
Good comment (the whole thing, not just my quote). That's how things would run in a better world. The trouble is, as far as I can tell, in our actual world, the police tend to throw the book at suspects in situations like this, in order to justify their previous profiling behaviour.
In a way, it's similar to the police practices that led to to the exclusionary rule. Before that, cops would make illegal searches routinely - but only on bad guys, of course. Provided the guy wasn't a solid citizen, the courts would turn a blind eye. They would also plant evidence sometimes - but only on bad guys who were certainly guilty of something, if not the crime they were charged with.
Problems arose on those occasions when the police illegally searched an innocent person, and then planted evidence so the judge wouldn't get pissed off at them violating the rights of a solid citizen.
When these sorts of practices get embedded in police culture, you do need to rein them in, even if the remedy is sometimes worse than the disease.
i.p.
Gates is going to do a documentary on the evils of "racial profiling"? I wonder if he'll be including a discussion of "affirmative action."
I'm not surprised Gates is psycho-jealous of his social status... "Do you know who I am?" he asks.
Sure, when Gates enters a room as a Harvard professor everyone turns to him with a smile, but as soon as they find out he's a professor of "Afro-American Studies" most drift off toward the drinks and snacks. Only untenured lecturers from the Center for LGBT Studies (some with shining eyes and slightly parted lips), or worse, 300-pound (103 IQ) female deputy assistant diversity coordinators from the Admissions Office stay to chat.
Gates is just a hustler in a fancy suit and he knows it. All the respectable people for whose approval Gates longs know it too.
Gates is like the emperor who had no clothes-- only one peal of laughter away from total loss of face.
His political connections force most people to be polite to him, but he must feel a constant frustration that he can't get more than a superficial greeting and a limp handshake from anyone who matters, except when they are hustling him:
"Ah, Professor Gates! I'd like you to come down to meet the National Association of Black Cosmetic Manufacturers. Did you know they're thinking of funding a Program in Black Self-Esteem Research in the Afro-American Studies Department? They would be eager to meet one of Harvard's most insightful professors!"
"Yes, Mr. Chairman. No problem. I'll be there."
Everyone here has missed the most important point. Gates did show the cop two forms of Photo ID, his driver's license and his Harvard ID. After being shown those documents, the Cop had no right to hang around when Gates so obviously wanted him gone.
It's amazing that you can misinterpret the facts so badly. Gates didn't want him gone. He wanted him to stay to answer questions and take Gates's verbal abuse. The cop WAS leaving anyway.
I find this quote from Gate's interview in The Root to be particularly interesting:
All of a sudden, there was a policeman on my porch. And I thought, ‘This is strange.’ So I went over to the front porch still holding the phone, and I said ‘Officer, can I help you?’ And he said, ‘Would you step outside onto the porch.’ And the way he said it, I knew he wasn’t canvassing for the police benevolent association. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger. And I said to him no, out of instinct. I said, ‘No, I will not.’
Wow! His instinctive reaction to a policeman on his porch is to feel that he is in danger. I think that says a lot!
BTW, I am a middle aged white male, and back when I was a child my mama drummed it into me that you speak respectfully to policeman always, and that if a policeman tells you to do something you do it without question, even if it means lying down in the mud in your best suit. Why? Because policemen have guns, and you don't want to get shot! Even if you think you know what is going on, maybe you don't. Maybe that policeman is looking for someone armed and dangerous who looks just like you! You just don't know, so you follow orders. But apparently Gate's mama taught him something different.
People, Gates was not arrested in his own home. He was arrested on the street after following the cop out in public and causing a scene by shouting "racist."
Gates got arrested for causing a public disturbance.
The perception of Gates:
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.
The image:Brilliant scholar.
The reality: Overrated, untalented, and a sloppy writer. His so-called breakthrough book, The Signifying Monkey, was pure bullshit--pop anthropology for morons. How stupid is Gates? He called another affirmative action dope, Cornel West, the most important black scholar in the country. Black studies departments are parasitical in nature, because the CONTENT of the material is unworthy of serious analysis. I mean...Why would anyone want to study the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, or the so-called cinema of Spike Lee? I think Caucasians should stop funding overblown parasites like Gates.
Just because Gates proved who he was and that he owned the home didn't mean it was the end of the story. The cop had to thoroughly investigate the scene. For all he knew this was a violent domestic situation and Gates' wife and children were all down in the basement dead. And it's difficult to do one's job when some pompous asshole is screaming "racist" in your ear.
Black Sea said...
"I think the spell correction on "ad nauseam" is a bit of a cheap shot."
You must be new to this place. We're all ABOUT cheap shots here.
IMO, it's not a cheap shot. The Latin 1st declension accusative is "am," not "um." Educated people should know this.
Police work is 90% boredom, 10% "excitment".
That "excitment" may just cost you your job, your reputation, your house, some teeth, even your life.
We don't get paid enough, and yes we deserve a pension at the end of a 20-30 year sh!t sandwich-eating "rainbow".....
Great blog Steve, keep it up. Thank you.
I was willing at first to concede this might be a case of a typical upper middle class person unused to dealing with police and their demands for subordination by over-reacting. I have no problem recognizing some cops are too rough too often in a way that makes tense situations worse. I still think that's an element, but after reading the arrest report, it's clear that Gates escalated the situation, acted unreasonably, and probably deserved (or at least should have expected) to be hauled in.
I think it's amazing, though, this case of a minor incident is now a front page story on CNN.
CNN, run from the black capital of Atlanta, is always pushing stories like this, the Jena Six, and other made-up accounts of racism, suffused with half-truths, to keep themselves angry and the rest of us cowed. It's bullshit.
My America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTW0y6kazWM&feature=player_embedded
John -
If you read the cop's report, he claims he checked the ID and left the house, ready to end the encounter, but that Gates followed him and kept demanding his name (apparently not hearing it when the cop told him.)
1.23% chance this was a set up
2.Gates is a miserable human being
3.96% of cops are well trained and do a great job- this cop deserves a medal for patience
4.Matt G had best comment next to the guy that said gates was a "dick"....so true
5. Gates was screaming at a cop outside with a crowd gathering- he got off easy
6. If Steve and Vdare hate the Irish- I want my 75 bucks back....don't think they do though
7. Truth again makes some good points
8. a Clever Plan- that was funny- how does the "middle passage rap" go?
@ mansizedtarget
What is amusing is to read the comments they're receiving, more than ten-to-one along the lines of 'this pompous ass brought this on himself.' Didn't publish the comment I made yesterday ... or today ... haven't posted any at all for over two hours. I guess they're not getting what they were hoping for. On the other hand, it's almost six PM in the east, maybe everyone at CNN has gone home for the day.
PR
Steve said: "We are lucky that Category 2 smart-bad folks like Orr are relatively rare."
Are they? What about all the financial wizards on Wall Street (like at Goldman Sachs for instance) -- surely they must count as "Smart-Bad"?!
"Are they? What about all the financial wizards on Wall Street (like at Goldman Sachs for instance) -- surely they must count as "Smart-Bad"?!"
No, not quite as bad as a fire department expert who walks into a crowded store, scouts around for the perfect place to kill people -- no sprinklers, the most flammable merchandise, and automatic metal doors that come down to contain off-hours fires but would trap customers -- then goes outside and videotapes the fire while four people burn to death.
And then does the exact same thing dozens of times again over the next six years.
And writes a novel about it and sells it to HBO.
That's bad.
Your nemesis Ms Bazelon and a colleague decry the Gates outrage on Bloggingheads.tv. They checked the facts at the door - no mention of how the arrest went down. It was assumed to be an appalling case of felony negritude. Tsk tsk. Poor Chip! (Yeah, that's how they referred to him. How out of it am I, not knowing that?) A weird and depressing spectacle, though even on Bloggingheads the comments were only about 50% who-whom.
Svigor said...
Details, please.
I'd rather not.
Cock tease. What, are you afraid your attackers will read it, figure out who snitched, and seek payback?
IMO, it's not a cheap shot. The Latin 1st declension accusative is "am," not "um." Educated people should know this.
Educated people do know this. But "ejumacated" people don't, and they will use Latin tags to try to impress others. Thus the comedy.
Next week's news headline:
"Al Sharpton roughed up by white cop"...
and the following week:
"Jesse Jackson arrested by white police officer"...
Or at least that's what they wish... LOL
Gates acted the way he did because he knew that he could get away with it. Even if the police didn't know he was a Harvard muckity muck they did know that when it comes to dealing with respectable blacks they have to walk on egg shells or suffer severe consequences up to and including termination. No matter how crazy Gates acted a part of him knew damn well that he could get away with crazy.
Steve, who's the fire department guy you're talking about?
IMO, it's not a cheap shot. The Latin 1st declension accusative is "am," not "um." Educated people should know this.
Here's a cheap shot - you're a pedant.
It's pitiful that this successful and prominent "celebrity-scholar," who is a millionaire several times over, still takes satisfaction in throwing the standard black man hissyfit, in order to score yet some more points over Whitey. Gates is cocky in his assured control over that white academic scene that he plays for all it's worth.
The fact that he still engages in such histrionics shows that this is one black man who is determined never to recover from whatever grievances, real or imagined, bruised his ego. And, since he has carte blanche at whatever university he sells himself, he can further cash in on a docudrama, a book about the incident, appearances on the Today Show and 60 Minutes and, no doubt, Oprah. How much is acting, and how much is real, we will never know.
... the rule for dealing with the police is simple - say nothing and do whatever they say.
To me, as a woman, this seems like such an easy and logical thing to do. Why even think of antagonizing a policeman? Just let him go through his procedures, and follow his lead. But there are cases having nothing to do with race, where both men are of the same race, but a man just can't tolerate another male's authority. It's like some kind of a man-to-man dominance thing, something like, "I'm as much man as you, and you can't boss me around!" To me, that blue uniform means that he CAN boss me around, at least until I can take things up to a higher authority.
Too bad it couldn't have been brother Cornell West. He's funny.
Good and humorous point. Cornell would have talked his weird, rambling, incomprehensible double-talk and driven the policeman balmy.
From what little I've seen of the Boston Irish, it doesn't seem utterly laughable to me.
You sound like you're living in another era, long before whites learned about all the trouble awaiting them if they dared hassle someone like Gates, just for the kick of it.
While Gates is at the poetry slam at the Cantab Lounge rapping about the Middle Passage ...
That's a great line! I love it.
"I mean, he doesn't spend his days poring over ancient manuscripts in libraries, does he?"
You obviously haven't seen his 'Wonders of the African World'. After searching for quite a long time he finds books written by blacks in a shack in Timbuktu -- and is overjoyed that blacks DID write some books, once, somewhere! It's actually an enjoyable documentary but that particular scene is ridiculous, an example of very very low expectations being met.
President Obama just said that this was an unfortunate incident and the police acted stupidly.
He then went on to pat himself on the back by highlighting the anti-racial profiling laws he helped pass in the Illinois state senate.
Hey Mr. President, blacks commit crime at a much higher rate than whites, or any other American minority for that matter. You tied the hands of police officers by not allowing them to use this valuable tool in assessing potential criminals. Who acted stupidly?
IMO, it's not a cheap shot. The Latin 1st declension accusative is "am," not "um." Educated people should know this.
The fact that we use the nominative (nausea) as an ordinary English word should make it easy to get the accusative right.
Prof. Gates was in the wrong here. The police had probable cause to invesigate and he should have been more cooperative and less hostile.
"You sound like you're living in another era, long before whites learned about all the trouble awaiting them if they dared hassle someone like Gates, just for the kick of it."
Actually, Steve probably mouthed off, (like I used to) to some hulking, non genius mick who hauled off and smacked him. Steve has resented it ever since.
I don't resent it on ethnic grounds because I shared those troglodytes ethnicity. Small and mouthy, I would insult them and then do some fancy footwork. Sometimes it didn't work.
I moved away as did most of us 2nd and 3rd generation paddies who were a bit further to the right on the Celtic Bell Curve. The really dumb ones got a job with the big employer in the area that left maybe 20 years ago. The somewhat sharper ones joined the fire or police department.
Their life ain't pretty. Get over it Steve.
Oh, and the Cambridge cops know the score Even dumb Culchies. This guy didn't brutalize Gates. Gates just took it too a new level. non-obsequiousness is the new lynching.
Educated people do know this. But "ejumacated" people don't, and they will use Latin tags to try to impress others. Thus the comedy.
You're projecting. I use Latin when it's more concise or accurate. You only use Latin to impress others, that much is plain. That does not translate to me.
I remember once, I screamed "sui generis" at a guy on Stormfront once, about ten times, when I actually meant "ceteris paribus." You should go dig up the thread, you could probably rub one out to that.
Educated people should know this.
I love the assumption that I'm "educated," whatever that means (educated means "knows Latin" now?). Almost as funny as Truth's assumption that I'm a Swipple working at the historical society.
I guess I should be flattered, in a weird kind of way...
~Svigor
--Almost as funny as Truth's assumption that I'm a Swipple working at the historical society.--
I always had you pegged as working in a lab for some crazy scientist who stitches bodies together. Or working for the KGB.
"One day I returned home from work to discover a homeless man sitting on my porch. He screamed that it was HIS house, and he threatened to kill me. I got inside, went upstairs, and called the police."
You should have told that bum to get lost and quick. Then go inside and grab the shotgun.
Steve said: "No, not quite as bad as a fire department expert who walks into a crowded store, scouts around for the perfect place to kill people ... while four people burn to death."
Gotta disagree with ya.
That's terrible, of course, for the four (or dozens) of people that Orr killed -- but the shenanigans of our financial wizards/Goldman Sachs-types of late are affecting the whole world.
How many retired folks (or almost-retired folks) have had a heart-attack and died after losing their entire pensions to these guys (like my neighbor)? How many people who've lost their homes lately have met a similar fate? How many people living marginally in this country and in other countries will simply starve to death when the economy completely tanks and there's no longer enough to go around?
Orr was smart-bad. These Wall Street people are evil-geniuses.
"BTW, I am a middle aged white male, and back when I was a child my mama drummed it into me that you speak respectfully to policeman always, and that if a policeman tells you to do something you do it without question, even if it means lying down in the mud in your best suit. Why? Because policemen have guns, and you don't want to get shot! Even if you think you know what is going on, maybe you don't. Maybe that policeman is looking for someone armed and dangerous who looks just like you! You just don't know, so you follow orders."
That is a sentiment I would expect from a servile people - not for a free people. I am respectful with policemen, and try to be helpful. However I don't expect them to expect me to be retiring and obsequious. And I certainly don't expect them to "dominate" me. Nor would I follow ANY order they saw fit to give.
And there's a corollary to your statement: "Even if you think you know what is going on, maybe you don't." which is: even if the cop thinks he knows what's going on, maybe he doesn't. Hundreds of people died in the World Trade Center because they followed police and security instructions to return to their offices - i.e. because they listened to the confident, self-assured voice of authority......which in an extreme situation is no more likely to be right than are you.
Obviously, some cops in this country shouldn't be cops because they use the position to feed their own desire to control people (witness the many instances of harmless people being tasered).
That being said, Gates behaved like an ass.
Anonymous said...
"You're projecting. I use Latin when it's more concise or accurate. You only use Latin to impress others, that much is plain."
Hi, Svigor!
Actually, aside from the handy abbreviations "etc.", "i.e.", and "e.g." I don't use any Latin. But at least I'd know how to spell it if I did feel the need to use it.
The fact that we use the nominative (nausea) as an ordinary English word should make it easy to get the accusative right.
Of course it should. But "ejumacated" people think it's related to museum, because they always feel ill whenever they have to go to one.
"Hey Sport, you think maybe, just maybe there's a reason he deleted it?"
I don't know, you tell me...since you just read it.
Cognition is hell.
"I do like the use of 'somehow' though there is a possibility that Steve meant to post it, but accidentally set his coffee cup on the 'delete' button."
To grudgingly paraphrase a wise man: Sarcasm would still be pre-high school vocabulary wouldn't it? Or have the schools been dumbed down that much?
"His political connections force most people to be polite to him, but he must feel a constant frustration that he can't get more than a superficial greeting and a limp handshake from anyone who matters, except when they are hustling him:"
Gates graduated Summa Cum Laude in History from Yale, is a McArthur fellow is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is on the boards of the New York Public Library, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Aspen Institute, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and he's written 12 books.
"We don't get paid enough, and yes we deserve a pension at the end of a 20-30 year sh!t sandwich-eating "rainbow"....."
Who the hell forced you to join?
It he gets that level of disrespect, I'd hate to live in the shoes of a truly pathetic, player-hating nobody like you.
"--Almost as funny as Truth's assumption that I'm a Swipple working at the historical society.--"
Alright, you got me, you work on the board that makes sure that those black ladies sewing slave baskets down at the market all have verifiable Gullah slave ancestors don't you?
"that if a policeman tells you to do something you do it without question, even if it means lying down in the mud in your best suit."
Did she tell you to spit twice and smile before you shined Mr. Charlie's shoes also?
And yes, Gates was probably guilty of behaving like a condescending buffoon, but that, as far as I know, is not a crime.
BTW, thanks Danindc; and the whole flame war about who spells better in Latin, sheeesh, it's no wonder you guys are not breeding.
"After searching for quite a long time he finds books written by blacks in a shack in Timbuktu -- and is overjoyed that blacks DID write some books, once, somewhere!"
If it weren't for Timbuktu, all this business about the misspelling of ad nauseam wouldn't be happening here.
One day I returned home from work to discover a homeless man sitting on my porch. He screamed that it was HIS house, and he threatened to kill me. I got inside, went upstairs, and called the police.
Yeah, er, sorry about that. I was having a bad day, the dog ate my socks, lost my medication.
Much discussion has been in terms of Prof Gates' situation as an Afro-American.
I suggest another reason. He's lost his capacity for rational thought because of his "studies".
To quote from Wikipedia, "... Gates [uses] literary techniques of deconstruction ... he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to textual analysis and matters of identity politics".
Hi, Svigor!
Actually, aside from the handy abbreviations "etc.", "i.e.", and "e.g." I don't use any Latin. But at least I'd know how to spell it if I did feel the need to use it.
...solely to impress, as you've tacitly admitted.
Alright, you got me, you work on the board that makes sure that those black ladies sewing slave baskets down at the market all have verifiable Gullah slave ancestors don't you?
Lol, I don't think we're getting through to one another here...
And yes, Gates was probably guilty of behaving like a condescending buffoon, but that, as far as I know, is not a crime.
His behavior probably constituted disturbing the peace. Of course, pretty much any cop's say-so constitutes same...
But I think his blackness is probably a large part of why he's never experienced breathing with 1/4 of his airway.
"Sure, when Gates enters a room as a Harvard professor everyone turns to him with a smile, but as soon as they find out he's a professor of "Afro-American Studies" most drift off toward the drinks and snacks. Only untenured lecturers from the Center for LGBT Studies (some with shining eyes and slightly parted lips), or worse, 300-pound (103 IQ) female deputy assistant diversity coordinators from the Admissions Office stay to chat."
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha ha!
OMG, this is too precious, my Gallic chieftain friend Vercingétorix!!!
Nearly fell off my chair reading the rest of your post.
Svigor said
...solely to impress, as you've tacitly admitted.
I've admitted no such thing, not even tacitly, unless of course you assume that it's "elitist" to know which words to use and how to spell them and that it's "authentic" to pepper your prose with malapropisms. That would be an idiotic assumption, though.
Truth said...
the whole flame war about who spells better in Latin, sheeesh, it's no wonder you guys are not breeding.
Truth's on a roll today.
Piper, great photograph you linked to.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html
Lucky for all involved I wasn't his neighbor or I would have tossed him a fish.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27416128@N07/3341253912
"it's no wonder you guys are not breeding."
Just out of curiosity, Troof, how well have you done your genetic duty? Will you be leaving any heirs to carry on your noble work of snarking in an amusing manner on Steve's grandkids' blogs?
I guess for people who have never experienced racism on a daily basis since the time you were a child it's easy to think like this. But when you are a minority and the same crap has been happening to you time after time, you know exactly why that cop is coming knocking on your door, and yes you are going to be angry. I want to know how many people, of any race, would be calm - racism makes your heart start to race, your blood start to boil, and tears start to form in your eyes.
I really really really wish certain people in this country could experience some of the crazy stuff minorities deal with on a daily basis, then there wouldn't be so many frivolous comments about this type of thing. It's not these one or two events that gets to people - its a lifetime of seeing it happen to you and your wife, children, brothers, sisters.
"*Gates now claims he didn’t shout, but look at the photo!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html
The cop to Gates’ left is clearly trying to calm Gates down. "
Are you kidding? A million things could have been happening in that photo - and someone clearly isn't knowledgeable about the man they are writing about because he always has these types of expressions when talking/lecturing.
Just because that officers arm is up like that doesn't mean anything. He could have been motioning to the other guy where to put him. I feel like this is a badly written statement and article- if you want to be a respectable writer you should know pictures are not always what they seem.
[REVISED AND EXPANDED COMMENT]
Let me respond to the various commentators who disagreed the most important point is that the Cop failed to leave after Gates showed him his Ids.
1. To Stari-Mosmak. My point was not that Crowley never left, but rather that he didn’t leave PROMPTLY after being shown the IDs. Go read his report on Auster’s website. His own report shows that he made two radio calls after getting the IDs. This shows that - at best - Crowley was taking his own sweet time about leaving. More realistically he was engaged in a domination contest with a man whom he knew had not committed a crime. He had no legal right to do that in Gates’ home.
2. Ben Tilman. You stated that “Gates didn’t want him gone. He wanted [the Cop] to stay . . .” Tilman if you believe that, you will believe anything. As for providing his ID, please see the attached. http://www.slate.com/id/2223379/
3. Anonymous[1]. I did read the cop’s report before I posted originally. I have since re-read and stand by my original interpretation and refer you to Point 1 above.
Anon. said:
"Just because Gates proved who he was and that he owned the home didn't mean it was the end of the story. The cop had to thoroughly investigate the scene. For all he knew this was a violent domestic situation and Gates' wife and children were all down in the basement dead."
Unbelievable arrogance and presumption. If I see you peering in your own windows and I'm a cop, that gives me the right to perform a search of your house? Perhaps it gives me the right to give you a drug test, or presumptively arrest you for terrorism. One can never be too careful, y'know.
Let's all lie down and let cops do whatever they feel they need to do. Constitution? Bill of Rights? What are those?
Alleged "conservatives" such as you have never heard of the Fourth Amendment, the history of the American Revolution, the experience of living under the Soviet police state, or anything. Your entire experience is from watching "Cops" (on TV and/or in real life), and your whole thinking on this issue is: guilty until proved innocent. Git de bad guys! And if we hang the wrong man, well, we're Great American Heroes anyway for standing firm against Crime.
The otherwise uniquely intelligent and industrious Steve evidently agrees with you. Which makes me believe that someone has slipped crazy flakes into his breakfast bowl of late. Has Fox News turned EVERYONE into a raving fascist, unaware of the true dangers of big government?
That fact that Gates is black should be disregarded after he provided proper ID in his own home. Of course, since Gates is a publicity hound, he chased the cop out in the street, which is a different matter.
"You should have told that bum to get lost and quick. Then go inside and grab the shotgun."
I was trying to do the right thing and let the proper authorities handle it legally.
Can you imagine how quickly the cops would have shown up, and what they would have done to me, had I grabbed my shotgun?
Anon. said:
"Wow! His instinctive reaction to a policeman on his porch is to feel that he is in danger. I think that says a lot!"
About Gates? Or the police?
How much experience do you have being on the receiving end of police treatment? Any? (Don't respond, "I never do anything wrong, therefore the police never come after me." It would be conclusive proof of uttermost naivety and idiocy.)
Cops are NOT always your friend. I know some of us were raised to think so. I know the 16mm film in middle school told you so. But times have changed in the past 30 or 40 years. Today's kwap is trained to regard the public as an enemy, and to deal with this enemy by military methods. Many American cops, believe it or not, get Israeli military training.
It's not the country you grew up in. Looking back on it, I realize the way the cops handled my porch situation was the best outcome one could expect: yes they believed the dirty screaming death-threatening homeless man on my porch in preference to the word of a mild professional in his upstairs office with mortgage papers and proper ID ("papers please!"), and yes, they sweet-talked the bum and made no arrest, leaving him free to terrorize the neighborhood some more - but at least the cops didn't beat the hell out of me or keep me in the legal system for years, costing me thousands of dollars. (It was I who instigated the incident by phoning them and making them do something, after all. Their dirty looks at me told me that.) Again, mine was probably the optimal outcome.
"I want to know how many people, of any race, would be calm - racism makes your heart start to race, your blood start to boil, and tears start to form in your eyes."
Why is "racism" any better or worse factor or cause for supposed 'police harassment' -- or HARASSMENT OF ANY KIND?
Your statement should more accurately read -
" ... [narcissism] makes your heart start to race, your blood start to boil, and tears start to form in your eyes."
Let's face it guys, way too many Blacks and Mestizo's are disproportionately committing and participating in crimes and other illegal activities; to say or maintain otherwise is simply, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
As other commenter's on this board pointed out, such as El Caudillo and Victoria, the police simply cannot just walk away from a call if some arrogant, pompous jackass throws a hissyfit -- whether he is the homeowner or not. The call must be fully investigated, since, like another commenter pointed out, domestic violence could be at play.
"---So again, in dealing with police, lose the 'tude, and try just sticking to the facts. Save all the rightful complaints against possible wrong behavior on their part for your lawyer (LOL).---"
Truer words El Caudillo, truer words!
IF there is genuine police misconduct involved, just man up, control your narcissistic, childish tempers, and let your lawyer handle it all.
Believe me, in this day and age, there are throngs of Pee Cee counselors who will go after even the faintest possibility of 'racially motivated' 'bias' on the part of the police,
...and will often do it all pro bono for NAM's (you know, if for nothing else than to prove their Marxist/left bonifides, and to get a leg up in the "White Status Game".
http://vdare.com/sailer/whiteness.htm
John,
The cop doesn't have to leave when you show him your id. He leaves when he is sure that your girlfriend, wife, sex slave you keep in your basement has not locked you out of your house or that you do not have her stuffed in a basket in the basement.
The cop was told somebody was forcing his way into a home. The person he contacts screams and obstructs him at every turn trying to distract him from finding the girlfriend in the fridge.
Distraction is a very common tactic in domestic disturbances. They never want you to look in the bathroom/bedroom whatever because there are some terrified/beaten victims in there.
Don't just read the report go on a ride-along with a local cop. See a couple of domestic disturbances from up close.
... racism makes your heart start to race, your blood start to boil, and tears start to form in your eyes.
Yes, especially when "racism" is defined as all sorts of things, in order to remove rights from other people -- especially the right of association. Racism is now taught to blacks as a white woman's rejection of a black man's advances. That kind of "racism" also makes the blood start to boil, doesn't it? It's the distortion of what racism is or isn't that is really disturbing. Whites, of course, fall for this melodramatic "tears to the eyes" stuff, without delving more deeply into the real grievance.
... its a lifetime of seeing it happen to you and your wife, children, brothers, sisters.
As a black, whenever I hear these generalizations, I ask what was the "racist" episode that took place in your life today, or yesterday, or last week? If anything at all is offered (other than stammering), it never turns out to be something that prevented him from going about his business, or living his daily life as he chooses, or was life-threatening in any way. It's usually about some social slight that hurt his feelings. This is what "racism" has come to, as was predicted years ago.
Gates graduated Summa Cum Laude in History from Yale, is a McArthur fellow is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is on the boards of the New York Public Library, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Aspen Institute, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and he's written 12 books.
*yawn*
Everyone in the hard sciences snickers at these sort of "accomplishments," which are mostly just a list of Davos-esque appointments and accolades handed out by globalist SWPLs. "MacArthur fellow"..."Member of the CFR"...what a hoot.
I'm wondering: why do you spent so much time attempting to explain away the racial element? Can we not just admit it? What contortions do we have to go through to avoid the more obvious answer?
Defending the police here really serves to suggest that there is always another, "higher," more rational explanation. It serves mostly to protect ourselves from the fear that we'd do exactly the same thing, and for reasons we're hardly ready to admit. But we should.
It's not these one or two events that gets to people - its a lifetime of seeing it happen to you and your wife, children, brothers, sisters.
But whites have no stories to tell from the other side of the fence, of course.
Ever notice how "nobody knows what it's like to be black" seems eternally wed to the unspoken assertion that blacks know precisely what it's like to be white?
Who? Whom?
~Svigor
Today's kwap is trained to regard the public as an enemy, and to deal with this enemy by military methods. Many American cops, believe it or not, get Israeli military training.
This is another story altogether, and it is an important and critical one. But these particular policemen in Cambridge weren't doing the jackbooted-raid routine. If anything, they were more closely behaving like old-fashioned policemen. I'm amazed at how my theory about irrational male-to-male indignation is confirmed. One guy with an experience of a bum on his porch, who was not dealt with properly, and another one whining over receiving a ticket. And these are examples of the big, bad police?
It seems that there are just two types of police-haters: those who harbor resentment over some minor altercation with a man in blue, and those who are rotgut libertarians, and are angry over the very existence of a police force.
Alleged "conservatives" such as you have never heard of the Fourth Amendment, the history of the American Revolution, the experience of living under the Soviet police state ...
I suspect that many people in this forum are even better informed than you on the dissolution of this country's constitutional principles. You sound like you're just getting around to learning them. And many more people were there when those mandated militarization "seminars" in police stations got underway back in the mid-90s. However, some people are capable of seeing a policeman just as a policeman, without engaging in useless melodrama.
"For all he knew this was a violent domestic situation and Gates' wife and children were all down in the basement dead."
"the police simply cannot just walk away from a call if some arrogant, pompous jackass throws a hissyfit -- whether he is the homeowner or not. The call must be fully investigated, since, like another commenter pointed out, domestic violence could be at play.
"The cop doesn't have to leave when you show him your id. He leaves when he is sure that your girlfriend, wife, sex slave you keep in your basement has not locked you out of your house or that you do not have her stuffed in a basket in the basement."
Are you guys truly this dumb or are you just pretending. Let's try this again:
The policeman was not responding to a "domestic violence" call, he was responding to "breaking and entering." Once Gates established that he lived in the house, the business of the policeman was done. That is, if this is still America. Otherwise, he was well within his right to search for drugs, illegal weapons, do a full body cavity search and call in the K-9 unit.
Cops are not authorized to arrest agitated buffoons because "their widu fee-wings are hurt." Or because "he didn't shut up when I told him to."
"MacArthur fellow"..."Member of the CFR"...what a hoot."
Feel free to post your own resume anytime my friend, so that we can look at all your sparkling accomplishments and compare...you can even take out your name and address...that is of course unless "duh man been holdin' you back yo' hole lyf."
Period.
"---It seems that there are just two types of police-haters: those who harbor resentment over some minor altercation with a man in blue, and those who are rotgut libertarians, and are angry over the very existence of a police force.---"
~
"---Ever notice how "nobody knows what it's like to be black" seems eternally wed to the unspoken assertion that blacks know precisely what it's like to be white?---"
"Who? Whom?"
~Svigor
___
Victoria and Svigor, you are both EXCELLENT observers of human nature!
Sigh. It looks as though we're never going to get the juicy details of fearless Svigor's imaginary battle with the cops.
Gates is probably a jerk (I once knew a black Ph.D. student who couldn't stand him and especially mocked his nickname of "Skip"), but general search warrants - i.e., we came for one thing but can stay and investigate whatever far-fetched thing we want - are not part of the American tradition, and general searches WITHOUT warrants even less so.
"The cop doesn't have to leave when you show him your id. He leaves when he is sure that your girlfriend, wife, sex slave you keep in your basement has not locked you out of your house or that you do not have her stuffed in a basket in the basement."
I don't think is a statement with which the Founders would have agreed - and again, we don't know if this scenario crossed Crowley's mind, just Steve's.
Sigh. It looks as though we're never going to get the juicy details of fearless Svigor's imaginary battle with the cops.
Fella, who pissed in your corn flakes? Why not come clean with whatever issues you have with me?
There's no fearless, or imaginary here. I got "yoked up," as we say around here (the incident was not in SC, btw), for saying something the cop didn't like. End of story already. Get your vicarious thrills elsewhere, you creepy little man.
~Svigor
Just as I thought: Svigor gets testy and evasive when pressed for details. The overall sketchiness of your story and your peevish unwillingness to elaborate strongly suggests that the "incident" is a figment of your imagination.
Some black does something and "Truth" is all over the thread. If you want that character on your thread, just use the word "black" or "Obama" in your heading.
To Anonymous[1]
1. To enter OR remain on the premises, Sgt. Crowley, at a minimum, needed a reasonable belief that someone had committed, was committing, or was about to commit a crime there. After Gates presented his IDs, Sgt. Crowley knew that no one had committed the crime of breaking and entering. Furthermore, a false report of breaking and entering even when combined with unreasonable accusations of racism does NOT translate into a reasonable belief that Gates had put his “girlfriend in the fridge”, or that any other crime had been committed there. Therefore without a reasonable belief that a crime had been committed, or Gates’ permission to remain, Sgt. Crowley had to leave promptly.
2. Not only is this the law, James Kabala and Truth have already explained the consequences of relying exclusively on the good sense of the police.
3. These rules may be commonly ignored by the Police, but they proceed at their peril. And that peril is very real if someone has the clout of Gates.
"---Just as I thought: Svigor gets testy and evasive when pressed for details. The overall sketchiness of your story and your peevish unwillingness to elaborate strongly suggests that the "incident" is a figment of your imagination.---"
___
Totally unfair! Look amigo, this is just Svigor's personal business -- how is it any of yours???
Show and respect personal boundaries.
"3. These rules may be commonly ignored by the Police, but they proceed at their peril. And that peril is very real if someone has the clout of Gates."
Yawn.
To Anonymous
I accept your admission of defeat.
Truth: "Gates graduated Summa Cum Laude in History from Yale, is a McArthur fellow [& etc.]"
If your point is that Gates' list of connections and honors increase his credibility, I can't agree. Maybe I would have agreed a few years ago.
Bernie Madoff was chairman of NASDAQ and "a pillar of charity;" Eliot Spitzer graduated Horace Mann, Princeton, and Harvard Law; Cardinal Law graduated Harvard, marched in Mississippi civil rights protests, and led one of America's largest dioceses; blah blah blah. Can't the headlines of the last decade be summarized, "trusted figure found untrustworthy" ?
It pains me to admit it -- since I'm a stuck-up member of the fairly-elite myself -- but credentials have no bearing on one's character or judgment.
If your point, re Vercingetorix, is that Gates' list of connections and honors make it harder for peers to shun him and puncture his aura, I can't agree there either. As Jim Watson proves*, you can be the center of the universe one day and the next, no one will talk to you. The relation between disgrace and loyalty has shifted even in our lifetimes. Of course Blacks will still love Gates, as they still love Marion Barry, but will Whites still flock to Gates?
So one of the questions in this affair is whether Gates goes the Watson/Summers path or Clinton/Barry.**
-OldNorth
* And to a lesser extent, Larry Summers. Summers has been partially rehabbed, but only partially, and his sins will likely prevent him from ever rising the last rung.
** I welcome suggestions of better examples of rehabbed/unrehabbed sinners. This is clearly not my specialty.
this is just Svigor's personal business -- how is it any of yours???
Hey, he's the self-dramatizer who put it out there. Don't air your dirty laundry if you don't want people to ask what the hell caused those weird stains.
"If your point is that Gates' list of connections and honors increase his credibility, I can't agree. Maybe I would have agreed a few years ago."
If connections and honors don't increase one's credibility, what does? Driving a nice car?
"To Anonymous
I accept your admission of defeat."
YAWN.
"Some black does something and "Truth" is all over the thread. If you want that character on your thread, just use the word "black" or "Obama" in your heading."
Is "Truth" 'African American'?
Dad from Africa
Mother from Harlem
Truth, I thought your father was from the Caribbean.
Feel free to post your own resume anytime my friend, so that we can look at all your sparkling accomplishments and compare...you can even take out your name and address...that is of course unless "duh man been holdin' you back yo' hole lyf."
LOL. There is no "duh man" for white people.
Maybe we could see who can piss further up a rope?
Fellowships, charity board seats, and CFR memberships are usually given out to people who command respect/influence in a certain demographic. For example, Rick Warren is a member of the CFR and a sits on the board of a bunch of other wizbang (read:meaningless) charities and organizations. No one reads "The Purpose Driven Life" and says to themselves, "Wow, that was a really profound and deeply complicated text," do they? No. The guy, unfortunately, simply has a lot of influence over a certain demographic, so it's good to flatter his vanity by giving him accolades and fellowships in order to get him on your side.
"Fellowships, charity board seats, and CFR memberships are usually given out to people who command respect/influence in a certain demographic."
Great; but tell me, what demographic do people who are not offered, do not earn and have not accomplished anything, but a high score on a test in the 11th grade command?
Great; but tell me, what demographic do people who are not offered, do not earn and have not accomplished anything, but a high score on a test in the 11th grade command?
First of all, I'm pretty sure you're creating a false dichotomy here. I know of no one who scored well on the SATs that wasn't very accomplished in a lot of areas. Every person from my high school who scored high on their SATs and with whom I've kept in contact has plenty of accomplishments. Those who scored low, on the other hand, tend not to have much to show for themselves.
Isn't the definition of "accomplishment" itself is really in the eyes of the beholder? Talk to the members of Rick Warren's church and you'll see what I mean. While commanding influence in a certain demographic is definitely an "accomplishment" in itself, it can be pretty easy to do depending on the demographic in which one chooses to establish influence.
A "Teachable Moment", but for whom?
I was thinking...If we see someone seemingly breaking into a home. We are assuming a crime. Why would we not convey the appearance of the possible culprits as clearly as possible. I think we should rethink the using a discription like this and not consider it anything but giving the police information.
I saw a short, very heavy, black, woman appearing to break into a home.
What the person is describing as best as possible is an unnormal human being. That is...Most people are not short, most people are not very heavy, 80% of the population are white, and it is either a woman or a man.
You wouldn't say I saw a white man breaking into the home because a white man is the default color since 80% of people are white. You say black or hispanic, not because of racism but you are explaining a not normal person.
If the person was average height, average weight, white, and male you would just say a person is breaking into the home. There is such a thing as implied. Since average height, average weight, white, and male is in fact the most common person to break into the home, you assume the 911 operator understands what you Implied. You give other details when the person is "different" from the implied person.
Plus, the next day when the police come to your neighbor's home and ask if they saw something, then it is OK to say I saw a short, very heavy, black, woman. Why in the world is it not OK to say the same thing during the 911 call? Am I missing something?
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