« Congress and Sports | Main | Review of Hamburger's Law and Judicial Duty »
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
On "You Have No Idea Who You're Messing With"
On the basis of the police report, news accounts, and Henry Louis Gates's own account, I think the police were clearly wrong to arrest him, particularly once they confirmed that he was who he said he was and was where he was supposed to be. Whether it was a result of simple racism, or of taking unwarranted punitive action because the police found Gates difficult and arrogant, or abuse of authority, or some combination of all of these, I can't say. But Gates's conduct in no way justifies the arrest.
Posted by Paul Horwitz on July 21, 2009 at 10:17 AM in Paul Horwitz | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c6a7953ef0115721f1647970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference On "You Have No Idea Who You're Messing With":
Comments
TheRoot.com, an online magazine of which Prof. Gates is the editor in chief, has a detailed recounting of Prof. Gates' version of the event, which materially differs from the police report.
Posted by: alkali | Jul 22, 2009 11:01:15 AM
I guess I'll let readers make up their own minds as to whether my post can be read as suggesting that Professor Gates should have "kowtowed to a white police officer" or that men of color ought to bow down to anyone. But I don't think my post suggests that. If there could have been any reasonable confusion about that, I trust it is now cleared up.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Jul 21, 2009 10:05:38 PM
I concur with Anon's post at 6:16 pm.
As I read Paul Horwitz's commentary, I thought to myself, "Paul Horwitz thinks he's speaking for every American when he posits that Professor Gates should have kowtowed to a white police officer who, clearly, acted out of turn." I'm not surprised at all--the day white men stop insisting that men of color bow down to them is the day I walk the golden streets of the new Jerusalem!
Recalling the stories of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell is within reason. Several months ago, in the middle of the night, I was stopped--for no reason--by 2 white cops. I was worried because (1) I had not violated any traffic laws, (2) there were no witnesses in sight, and (3) I am a well-built black male. After asking a bunch of inane questions (they discovered I was alcohol/drug free and just on my way home), they consigned me to the back seat of the cop car while they searched my trunk without my permission and against my protests. I was worried they might plant a weapon or a controlled substance in my trunk. I also feared for my life since there were no witnesses around. Fortunately, nothing terrible happened. They let me go, apologizing for conducting an illegal search. I expressed my annoyance and threatened to file a complaint. I only relented because Harvard Law admitted me the next day. Nothing was going to ruin my journey to Cambridge. Not even a bunch of racist white cops.
Posted by: KeepItReal | Jul 21, 2009 7:28:00 PM
Fair enough, Prof. Horowitz. I read Gates's statement (after posting my first comment) as an implicit denial, but I do think it's ambiguous. Another blog I read also just posted an interesting interpretation of the "Do you know who I am?" line. In relevant part:
“Do you know who I am?” is always an asshole statement, but A) if anyone’s earned the right to say it, surely it’s Professor Gates; B) as I said earlier, being an asshole is legal; and C) go back to that scenario featuring my dad in the role of the falsely accused. When we look at fiftysomething white guys in very nice houses and very nice clothes, surrounded by very nice things, we see power — or at least, potential power. We see the likelihood of friends in high places, of golfing buddies who are cutthroat lawyers, of his kid going to private school with a senator’s kid. We see entitlement. Which means we see a guy who could fuck us up — legally and financially, not physically — if we gave him reason. Gates, as it turns out, is pretty much that kind of guy — the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to arrest without a reeeeally good reason. But because he’s black, this cop didn’t think, “Hmm, I wonder if he’ll have a disproportionately good lawyer, and this will end up all over the papers, and it’ll all be a total clusterfuck that’s so not worth the satisfaction of cuffing him to show who’s boss right this second.” However dickishly, Gates was pretty much warning him of just that outcome — an outcome anyone with half a brain could have envisioned if he did, in fact, know who the professor was. Or if the professor had been white.
I buy that; it might still be jerky, but he's right and anyway, being jerky isn't a crime. And if the officer had stopped to pay attention to who he was, I bet he'd be a lot happier right now.
Posted by: anon | Jul 21, 2009 6:16:56 PM
In response to Matt and "anon," two points. I think my post would have been better served if I had more explicitly acknowledged that the statement I blogged about came from the police report and had not been confirmed. I do want to note that before posting, I looked at Gates's own statement about the incident, which neither confirmed nor denied the statement.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Jul 21, 2009 2:56:53 PM
Wow. There's so much wrong with that last comment, I'm not really sure to begin.
Comparing two situations involving violent death with a situation that, at worst, involves embarassment is pretty extreme. Assuming that everyone in a neighborhood should know everyone else is pretty naive. But I think the kicker is at the end. The level of elitism and snobbery in the penultimate sentence is truly impressive. Assuming that the police did act based on race--it would be ok if the victim wasn't as successful? If he was a mechanic, it wouldn't be as bad, because his level of achievement hadn't put him above such concerns? Or, alternately, if the police acted appropriately, and Gates was disorderly and belligerent, that's acceptable because he's above certain concerns?
Posted by: D | Jul 21, 2009 2:04:57 PM
In regard to this incident "Amadou Diallo" and "Sean Bell" come to mind. My mind at least. Those incidents resonate with and are a distinct possibility for every person of color even in so called, post-racial America.
I know all of my immediate neighbors on sight and they know me even if we don't socialize or visit back and forth. My concern is that the person reporting the break-in didn't appear to be familiar with the occupants of Professor Gates' residence on any level. Aren't residents of an academic community such as Cambridge normally acquainted on some level? I imagine that most academics being treated as common criminals would be similarly incensed. Many of us would like to believe that a certain level of achievement puts us above certain concerns. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case.
Posted by: Tonya Johnson | Jul 21, 2009 1:49:20 PM
Agreed, Matt. Given that we haven't heard Gates' side of the story, I think it's premature to take everything in the police report as a given. We don't even have to attribute malevolence to the police officer for that; it's hard to remember things accurately in the heat of the moment and he's likely to interpret what was said according to his own mental scripts of how such encounters generally go down. (So is Gates, of course, but again, we don't yet have his version to compare it to.)
Posted by: anon | Jul 21, 2009 12:32:27 PM
I'm not 100% sure that Gates actually said this. (Perhaps he said something that could be read that way, but doesn't have the same rhetorical bad feeling, like, "Look, I'm a tenured professor at Harvard. This is my house. Why are you bothering me?" The police report also claimed that Gates said he'd talk to "yo mamma" outside, a claim I find pretty hard to take seriously, and one that leads me to think the police report is perhaps not completely accurate as to what was said. Gates's own statement, which of course might also not be 100% accurate, does not have him making this claim. Now, maybe he did say this, and maybe he was being a jerk in this way. But I think the evidence for it is pretty slim so far.
Posted by: Matt | Jul 21, 2009 12:10:34 PM
I think that the arrest of Gates was probably unwise, but not clearly wrong.
There's no evidence at all for your suggestion that Gates suffered "abusive treatment" at the hands of the police. They were called by a woman present at the scene, who had, according to Prof. Ogletree, Gates's lawyer, seen Gates and another man (Gates's cabdriver) 'force the door open'. We want--emphatically I say this--people to call the police when they see two men force a front door open, if it's not clear that the men have a right to be there, and we want the police to answer that call promptly and ascertain the facts. There is no indignity suffered in that.
Posted by: Thomas | Jul 21, 2009 11:11:54 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.