I have no doubt that there is racial profiling, even rampant racial profiling, taking place every day in America. At first I thought this may have happened with Henry Louis Gates’ arrest last week.
But this photo tells a different story.
If anyone racially profiled, it was the Harvard professor’s neighbor, who apparently called police and reported two black men breaking into Gates’ house. This is another lesson in why it’s important to get to know your neighbors!
The neighbor may have not called in the cops if Gates and his driver were white, but she/he may very well have still done so. Let’s imagine a different scenario: a robbery had taken place at Gates’ house, and the neighbor comes forward to say she saw it occurring but had figured the person breaking in was the owner locked out; I can imagine how she would have been ridiculed for thinking such a thing.
So it’s no surprise that if the neighbor didn’t know Gates lived there, she might have thought the men breaking down the front door were breaking into the house. This is true whether they were white or black.
So just the neighbor calling the police wasn’t inherently racist. I have relatives who always forget their keys, yet they’ve never had to break the door down to get in; they call someone who has a key or they find a hidden one. I’ve never seen a person breaking their own door down, have you?
Now we have the police. Depending on whose story you believe, the police officer was rude to Gates in his own house OR Gates refused to show identification to prove that he owned the house while accusing the officer (loudly) of being a racist. According to a third party, Barack Obama, the police officer “acted stupidly.” And yes, that was more of a detailed answer than he’s ever given on health reform.
But an aspect of this that hasn’t been reported in the media is that one of the officers that arrested Gates was black. You can see in this picture that as Henry Louis Gates is being led from his home in handcuffs, one of the officers standing in front of him is black (Gates is biracial himself, just as Obama is).
Gates hasn’t mentioned this at all, the media hasn’t mentioned it beyond publishing this picture. Isn’t that an important fact to get the whole picture of this story?
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