More significant than Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s encounter with Cambridge, Ma. police and arrest for disorderly conduct – a.k.a. back-talking the police and acting uppity – is what the resulting outcry says about our collective ignorance of history and largely – I hope! – subconscious grading of the importance of police abuse based on the class of those being abused.
It’s another manifestation of the creepy upper class over-wroughtnitude that emerges when one of “our kind of people” receives the same treatment most people of color get 24-7, 365 days a year. Ditto comparisons of what happened to Gates to the violence of the civil rights movement. Have we forgotten what happened to John Lewis, Emmett Till, Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, Viola Luizzo, et al.
This overwrought, class–based hand wringing suggests we’ve fallen for the post-racial okey-doke to the extent that we think our class status will protect us from racial profiling and abuse. Sorry folks, and, with thanks to Public Enemy, welcome to the terrordome.
Sure, what Gates went through was inappropriate and wrong, but frankly the endless conversation and indignation in response to Gates’ experience with the police is all out of proportion to what occurred. In 1997 the outrage over the anal rape of Abner Louima by police officers in Brooklyn, NY dwarfed the response to decades of police murders and made it clear that for too many an assault on ones “manhood,” though survived, was worse than being straight up killed by the police. So it seems from the response to the Gates case that police abuse of an upper class black person is more heinous than the humiliations, beatings, and executions that law enforcement officers inflict daily on people of color.
Our response also reveals our national ignorance of our history in America, where there has never been a time when Black homes and the people in them – from slave cabins to Eleanor Bumpurs or Amadou Diallo’s Bronx apartment buildings to a home a few blocks from Harvard University – have been protected from invasion, removal, abuse, and sometimes execution by officers of the state.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is alive, well, and invited to tell his tale on mass media. He now says he’s going to make a documentary about racial profiling, using his recent episode as the film’s centerpiece. Might I suggest that the thousands of cases of racial profiling and police abuse whose conclusion is a beaten head at best and a dead body at worst would make for more compelling journalism than an indignant Harvard professor selling wolf tickets. No doubt these stories can be found in Dorchester, Roxbury or Mattapan, a few short miles from Harvard yard.
Apparently his brief and relatively mild encounter with the Cambridge, Ma. police was Professor Gates’ wake up call to the indignities and abuse that Black people, particularly those who are poor and working class, suffer daily, and that is all to the good. Still, one has to wonder where he’s been over nearly six decades on the planet. Ditto those other middle and upper class folks who act as if they’ve just become aware that the police abuse citizens. There’s no news in the fact that Black life has little or no value in the eyes of too many police officers, regardless of class. What’s so disturbing about Black response to the Gates’ incident is what it says about how devalued black life apparently is to us as well, unless those lives are those of the privileged class.
Jill Nelson 7/24/09 – The blog with the musical notes!
I, like most Americans of African descent, was not shocked by the way that situation went down. The surprise, though only a small amount, was that his neighbor saw him as just another negro trying to break into someone’s house. Usually they know exactly who we are if we live in the neighborhood with them. I guess he found a way to blend in.
I agree with you that Professor Gates experience pales by example to the Louima, Bumpers, Dialo, Stewart, and King cases etc. Professor gates has not created the media furor over the incident, sensationalist members of the press have. Is he taking advantage of the moment? Perhaps. But neither his job title, positioning nor status negates the unfairness of the action of the Cambridge police in this instance, and I consider us all fortunate that he was not harmed in the way that the previously mentioned citizens were. We are also fortunate that the victim in this incident was such a well connected one because in America, most of us don’t realize that there are true injustices being perpetrated on fellow citizens on the regular, unless they are being reported on tv. I think that we are all fortunate that people who are less informed than you are now having the opportunity to find out what you and I have for known for years.
insideplaya
First and foremost you write eloquently and very uniquely beautifully. Its apleasure to read your writing. I agree with the majority of your points but feel as though you fail to see a big picture that is on vivid display. Gates has been on the forefront as far as standing up for working class and poor blacks but from a very distinguished and educated platform. He joined forces with two live crew, constantly stands up for rap music as well as hip hop culture and is a known champion of his people’s causes. I think while you are correct, the haughtiness with which its being approached does imply a comfort or a subtle pleasure derived from social standing which is odd for anyone of color in our nation given our past, present and future struggles. Yet and still this has brought the manner to a larger audience and he has the sort of backing that is required to move ahead in a country with a history as loaded as ours. Change here is slow, this is a step in the right direction. Keep writing, its a pleasure to read.
We really should not overdo the “acting uppity” part of the professor. Gates grew up in rural West Virginia, i.e., he grew up quite modestly and in an intolerant locale (active lynching kkk etc). I suppose he thought that that stuff was over when he got to Harvard, but make no mistake: this man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Interesting Piece
Miss Bourgie ( SMILE )
What happen with Prof. Gates should not had happen, he was in his own home, with proper ID saying I reside here, the situation was not handle professionally, when ID was given that should had been the end of it. The Policeman should had said sorry for the misunderstanding and left.
Thank you, Jill. Keep it real.
You are so on point with this. With all the injustices that our people experience daily, the “outrage” of Professor Gates and President Obama’s comments ridiculous. Given that the home had been burglarized early and that the professor did force his way in, he should be thankful the police response. Maybe he’d prefer to live in the hood where response is delayed if at all. Cooler heads should have prevailed on both sides and both men acted stupidly. Gates and the police officer are old enough and experienced enough to have handled the situation more peaceably.
I completely agree with Jill Nelson’s well written and very blunt article. I could care less about Louis Gates Jr. He is a Uncle Tom fool grossly ashamed of his blackness. He really thought he was accepted by white people – because he protrays himself as white. The cops should have stuck a broom stick up his a$$ and asked questions later. Or beat the crap out of him, violated his civil rights, type up fake, trump charges, etc. ect. – just like they do each and everyday to our black men all over America.
And, by the way, where were all his white family members he so proudly spoke of on Good Morning America?
Gates is a joke. Somewhat he knows the president, a harvard professor and 50% white. He is still a joke and I’m glad he has had a wake-up call to OUR reality.
I completely disagree with the tone of this article.
It is overreaching and unfortunately assumes awareness of a culture of perople as one particular idea. The villianizing of the middle and upper middle class Blacks in this country is without merit. To make an assumption that people of these classes think only a certain way is unfounded, and obviously based on very little information.
While I resect that this article was written because of Mrs. Nelson’s passion for our people, it is an opinion that in my opinion generalizes and is sadly vey narrow in its scope. The hostility in this article is misdirected. The bottomlines that are asserted aren’t neccessitated by the assertions that preceed them. There other conclusions that can be drawn more effectively. Blacks aren’t as a whole so selfish or clueless. Black outrage over the Gates case has very little to do with our protection of him only because of class and an abandonment and apathy towards the occurence of this in Black homes elsewhere. I think that is a bitter, narrow and toxic point of view
I see the merrits of this article and understand the point trying to be made, nevertheless, we still have to stand up to injustice. Even if it is against those who have forgotten who they are, well, at least until white folks remind them.