Does anyone think the police would have investigated if two white men were trying to get in a stuck door of a house in an upscale neighborhood. Where one of them lived. Which the cop knew.
If Henry Gates wasn’t a high profile, well-known African-American scholar and Harvard professor, I doubt that charges would have been dropped.
Race and class.
Here’s the part I don’t get. What charges? In order to be arrested for breaking and entering, the home owner has to be willing to press charges. In this case, the home owner was the one arrested. Who’s pressing charges?
This isn’t just racism. It’s a cop that either is ignorant of the law, or is so baltantly racist that he’s willing to break the law because of race. That cop should minimally be susspended until he goes through training, or fired if the later is proven.
We have three observations about the Harvard professor incident:
1. We find it interesting that the fact that this was the professor’s home was evidently not established early on way before the dispute escalated;
2. We find it fascinating that the versions of two members of society, who most would ordinarily view as responsible and honest citizens (this obviously does not include politicians), would vary so dramatically from a factual point of view.
3. Finally, considering that the reading and viewing public were not present at the scene (and thus have no first hand knowledge), and that there is no video tape to our knowledge of the sequence of events and what was said, how so many have formed conclusions, and made assumptions, about who did what and who was wrong.
There are some things which Professor Gates might have considered upon the arrival of the police, no matter how incensed he may have been.