Professor Gates and the ‘teachable moment’

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“[I]t is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves of the distance from the classroom to the streets.”

— Henry Louis Gates Jr., 1989 CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—This city, home of Harvard Uni­ versity and M.I.T., is widely known as the “People’s Re­ public of Cambridge”—even a local bar bears that name. Yet, the undeniably progressive nature of this majority white city with a Black mayor is not the entire story. Less understood is the fact that Cambridge is segregat­ ed. It is and has been a city of ethnic and racial enclaves, a place where a post-World War II Italian neighborhood eventually gives way to a West Indian one.

Of course, segregation by race is not legal, yet segrega­ tion by wealth and income serve the same purpose. A bird’s eye view of the area would give the appearance that the city was still governed by Jim Crow laws.

This is the city that has drawn national attention after one of its more prominent citizens was handcuffed in his front yard. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was ar­ rested because he flagrantly violated the spirit of Jim Crow, which dictates that, above all, Black people must know their place. As a Black man in a well-off white neighborhood, his very presence was suspect.

When Gates vigorously criticized a police officer, he committed no crime—except the unwritten one that de­ mands deference to white authority.

On July 16, after a trip abroad, Gates returned to his home in the exclusive area around Harvard Square. He was confronted by a problem: His front door was stuck and would not open, requiring the use of a crowbar. Fi­ nally, he was able to gain entry into his house. But the door was not the only problem Gates would encounter that day.

According to the Associated Press account (July 21): “When the officers arrived, Gates was already inside and on the phone with the real estate company that manag­ es the property. He had come in through the back door and shut off the alarm, he said.

“Police said Gates was arrested after he yelled at an officer, accused him of racial bias and refused to calm down after the officer demanded that Gates show him identification to prove he lived in the home.

“Gates’s lawyer, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogle­ tree, said his client showed his driver’s license and Har­ vard ID—both with photos—and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He followed the officer onto the front porch as he left his house and was arrested there.”

The police account, by Sgt. James Crowley, the arrest­ ing officer, differs on some key points. Crowley contends that Gates initially refused to provide any identification, but then showed a Harvard ID, which has no street ad­ dress. In the police account, when Gates finally did hand over his driver’s license, he demanded Crowley’s name and badge number. Police claim Gates was belligerent and confrontational.

Further, Crowley wrote that he told Gates to step out of the house, and Gates shouted, “Yeah, I’ll speak with your mama outside.” Gates supposedly continued shouting at 4 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2009 Frank Franklin II / AP Crowley, calling him a racist who treated Gates unjustly because he is a Black man. In a subsequent interview, Gates denied making these statements and said the po­ lice report was “full of this man’s broad imagination.” Nonetheless, Gates was arrested on charges of disor­ derly conduct.

Tapes of the 911 call do, in fact, contradict the police report and the initial news articles based on that report. The caller did not refer to Black men entering the prop­ erty, as the police claim. Nor did the caller refer specifi­ cally to a breaking and entering taking place.

There are, though, no tapes of the verbal clash between Gates and Crowley. It is not possible to know exactly who said what—but the exact words are not important.

For the sake of argument, leave aside Gates’s account and accept the police report. On that basis alone, it is clear that a satisfactory solution could readily have been achieved. The police needed to do no more than exercise proper professional judgment. They could simply have walked away.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, it should have been clear at the time that no arrest was necessary. In fact, by Massachusetts law, “disorderly conduct” means someone is disturbing the normal functioning of the public or someone is trying to stir up the public to un­ lawful behavior. Gates did none of these things. His real offense was that he embarrassed a cop in front of a small crowd of on-lookers who had gathered at the scene. That is precisely what the police could not tolerate.

Local news outlets broadcast an interview with Sgt. Crowley in which he said that Gates acted “very pecu­ liar—even more so now that I know how educated he is.” Crowley’s tone of voice in the interview suggests that he sincerely was confused by Gates’ behavior.

Decades ago, Malcolm X noted that this confusion was in itself part of the problem. What Malcolm said of whites in general applies especially well to this one white cop: “The white man—give him his due—has an extraordinary intelligence, an extraordinary cleverness. … But in the arena of dealing with human beings, the white man’s working intelligence is hobbled. His intel­ port: “The Two Nations of Black America” and the PBS series, “African American Lives.” The famous Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage in Harvard Square has even named a hamburger after him. Professor and political activist Adolph Reed has in the past commented critically of Gates, writing that “he makes no pretense of being a conduit to some sort of grassroots black au­ thenticity … he is more actively concerned with articulating the voice of … [a] self-consciously petit-bourgeois centrism” (“What Are the Drums Saying, Booker?” in “Class Notes,” pp. 85-86).

Why, then, would Gates behave so uncharacteristically and react so vehemently? The police admit they could not understand, but there is no riddle involved with this question. The answer is that Gates was subjected to a frontal assault on his dignity and self respect. He responded emotionally. He boiled over in a rage fueled by the personal insults and injuries of a lifetime. As he remarked in the introduction to one of his many books, “I’m not good at concealing my feelings” (“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man”).

Gates truly learned what he certainly knew well from both intellectual and personal experience. Despite ad­ vanced degrees and an elite social position, Gates was still vulnerable because he was still Black. The police could shake him down and put him in handcuffs any time they wanted.

Once again, Malcolm X explained these dynamics de­ cades ago. Writing of a debate with an unnamed Black associate professor, Malcolm recalled demanding of him: “‘Do you know what white racists call black Ph.D’s?’ He said something like, ‘I believe that I happen not to be aware of that’—you know, one of these ultra-propertalking Negroes. And I laid the word down on him, loud: ‘Nigger!’” (“The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” p. 310).

Sgt. Crowley did not use that word when he marched Professor Gates off to jail, but, then, he did not need to. The arrest spoke for itself. Throughout his ordeal, Gates knew just how he was being treated. In fact, he was treated the way local police routinely deal with Black males. Liberal Cambridge is no exception to the real­ ity of racial profiling. In this city, as in much of America, Blacks are watched, stopped, harassed, and arrested more frequently than whites.

Police hostility does not align to class as it does to race. Police treat working-class whites with more respect, as full citizens, unlike their Black counterparts. A Black man, of whatever class, is more like a suspect who has not yet been apprehended.

A New York Times/CBS News poll from July 2008 re­ vealed that 66 percent of Black men answered “yes” to the question: “Have you ever felt you were stopped by the po­ lice just because of your race or ethnic background?”

This is the reality that Gates encountered, a reality that, de­ spite his expansive knowledge, still caught him unawares: “There are 1 million black men in the prison system, and on [July 16] I became one of them. I would sooner have believed the sky was going to fall from the heavens than I would have believed this could happen to me. It shouldn’t have happened to me, and it shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

Of course, the police and Sgt. Crowley claim that “race played no factor” in the arrest. But who is to say that a mid­ dle-aged white man challenging the cops would not have been treated with more understanding and lenience?

Race certainly did play a role for Gates. He strongly pro­ tested against becoming one more statistic, one more vic­ tim, one more Black face with no identity, or with an iden­ tity that the police imposed on him. Gates’ entire career and his numerous accomplishments were, at the moment of the (continued on page 5)

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Obama’s more specific criticisms are directed to the Black arrest, of no consequence. His social stature and person­ community, stressing the need for more responsibility, bet­ al sense of self, forged throughout a lifetime, were wiped ter self-conduct, and more persistent personal initiative. To away on a policeman’s whim. To the cops, he was just an appear even-handed and thus soften the blow, these exhor­ obnoxious, uppity Black man. For Gates the entire conflict tations are coupled with vague references to vestiges of in­ rested, President Obama addressed the NAACP in a speech lows whites considerable leeway in their attitudes and be­ that stressed his by now familiar themes of uplift and oppor­ havior. General and indefinite criticisms allow for specific tunity. Speaking especially to the young, Obama said, “No rationalizations. Those whites who favor racial profiling, one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your for instance, can take comfort in the thought that bigotry hands… No excuses. No excuses. You get that education. may exist, but surely it could not include them. Instead, rac­ All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able ism is somewhere “out there,” in “our troubled past,” or in “society”—where no one is really at fault and where the As the president spoke these words, he did not know that despite being educated at and teaching in the finest Ivy So, to be consistent, Obama had to replace his perceptive League institutions, Professor Gates was languishing in the remarks with platitudinous ones. He was trying to dispel used the right adjective [stupid] but directed it to the wrong the suspicions of white Americans who know that John Mc­ Before long, news of the arrest reached the president. Cain and Sarah Palin would have stood tall in defense of the Obama publicly addressed the issue in response to a re­ Obama quickly backtracked and claimed the regrettable police. When the president of the United States is forced to porter’s question at a press conference. Obama’s first com­ incident was caused by “two good people,” “two decent backtrack from saying what he knows to be true, that verbal ments on the case were words of understanding and empa­ people,” who both overreacted. He hoped the outcome retreat is no small part of the “teachable moment” on race. thy for his “friend” Henry Gates and the realities of Black would be “a teachable moment” that would result in greater The election of a Black president, for all its importance, did life in America: “… there is a long history in this country not usher in a transformed America that put racism in the of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law en­ forcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.” The presi­ date Obama will seek the endorsement of police unions, so Professor Henry Gates and Sgt. Crowley may enjoy a cold dent also placed blame on the police for “acting stupidly in he would want to erase what could become an embarrassing beer with the president at a picnic table outside of the Oval arresting somebody when there was already proof that they moment in a Republican attack ad. Caution is considered Office. Such an event would not take place unless a positive smart politics, so it was the president’s first response that public-relations outcome was scripted in advance. Larger Statements this clear, simple, and honest could not stand. outcomes—such as the future of Black people in Ameri­ Shortly after Obama criticized the Cambridge cops, state Obama, in his initial comments, unintentionally broke and local police unions held their own news conference and the bond he has labored to establish with white America. The attention drawn to Gates does highlight some essential returned fire. They demanded an apology from Obama and Obama’s unspoken contract, based on his speeches and ac­ points: despite the victories of the civil rights movement, faulted Gates, as well as the state’s African-American gov­ tions as candidate and now as president, is to speak about victories that helped to create the Black elite who Prof. ernor, who had suggested there could be a racial element race in terms that will soothe whites. Characteristically, he Gates represents, Blacks continue to suffer for racial rea­ to Gates’ arrest. News stations throughout the country car­ will use a phrase like “our troubled past” instead of “a lega­ sons, for being Black. Now, as before, the struggle against ried footage of the remarks made by the head of the po­ cy of slavery” or “a history of white racism.” The difference racial discrimination continues as a necessary component of lice union: “The facts of this case suggest that the president the struggle against capitalism in America. n (continued from page 1: “Israel becoming a pariah as atrocities come to light”) cal terms, this meant taking a house that is not implicated in any way, that its single sin is the fact that it is situated on top of a hill in the Gaza Strip,’ said one soldier. Of course, the more dwellings destroyed, the harder it is for Palestin­ ians to continue to live in Gaza. And the Israeli long-term goal is to force the Pal­ estinians to emigrate.

“‘In a personal talk with my battalion commander he mentioned this and said in a sort of sad half-smile, I think, that this is something that will eventually be added to “my war crimes”’ he added.” The officer in question obviously knew what he was doing and he anticipated the consequences.

The soldiers’ testimony was collected in a thick document accompanied by video clips. But the Israeli officials still tried to dismiss it. In the British Guard­ ian of July 17, the organization that compiled the soldiers’ testimony, an Is­ raeli human rights organization called Breaking the Silence, responded that “it is somewhat difficult to provide the ac­ cusations that Breaking the Silence has conducted a biased investigation with a dignified reply, when the only official investigation of the events of Operation Cast Lead has been conducted by an organisation whose involvement in the operation is anything but minor—the IDF [Israeli Defense Force].”

The Israeli government has refused the request of the UN Human Rights Council to allow an investigation of the Gaza campaign.

The spokesman for Breaking the Si­ lence, Oded Na’aman, commented in the Guardian on the attitude of the Israeli authorities: “Only the guilty turn their eyes away from their actions while fill­ ing the air with cries of their innocence.”

On July 22, a petition signed by promi­ nent intellectuals in Israel, including Amos Oz, one of the best known Israeli writers, demanded that the government accept an independent inquiry in the Gaza war atrocities: “We, citizens of the State of Israel, whose army is the IDF, demand to know the truth regarding the fighting carried out in our names, our money and at the price of danger to the lives of our loved ones,” said the text of the petition., according to the liberal Zionist paper Haaretz of July 22.

The genocidal brutality of the Israeli (continued from page 4)

was rooted in the history of race. How could it not be? Coincidentally, on the day that Professor Gates was ar­ to compete. Yes, we can.”

Cambridge city jail. were in their own home.” military forced even the government of Britain—the imperialist power that originally sponsored the establishment of a Zionist settlement in Palestine and the closest ally of the U.S., which is Is­ rael’s main supporter—to withdraw licenses for exporting military equip­ ment to the Zionist state.

The current British regime is not a ma­ jor military supplier of the Zionist state. But the symbolic value is considerable. It is an implicit rebuke to the U.S, which supplied the white phosphorous, and a barometer of Israel’s growing interna­ tional pariah status.

The root of the Zionist authorities’ ruth­ lessness is that they generally consider all of Palestine as their land, which the Palestinian people have to be cleared from. The most concrete expression of this is their policy of supporting the ex­ tension of Zionist settlements through­ out Palestine.

The settlement policy is becoming an acute embarrassment to the U.S. gov­ ernment, which is hoping to be able to sponsor some sort of deal with the Pal­ estinians that would mitigate the oppro­ brium it suffers in the Muslim and third world in general because of its backing of the colonialist Zionist state.

The current White House, seeking to refurbish its image, has warned the Is­ raelis to limit the settlements. Haaretz Malcolm X: Whites hobbled by “superiority complex.”

party.”

understanding and unity.

was the most surprising. is more significant than a simple “calibration of words.” of July 26 reported: “The U.S. adminis­ tration has issued a stiff warning to Is­ rael not to build in the area known as E-1, which lies between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. Any change in the status quo in E-1 would be ‘extremely damaging,’ even ‘corrosive,’ the message said.”

The Zionist rulers have wanted to car­ ry out this extension for a long time but U.S. warnings have held them back. “The United States has always vehemently opposed this plan,” Haaretz noted, “fear­ ing it would deprive a future Palestinian state of territorial contiguity, cut the West Bank in two and sever East Jeru­ salem from the rest of the West Bank— all of which would thwart any hope of signing a final-status agreement and establishing a Palestinian state.” Even the Bush administration opposed the project.

The new right-wing Israeli govern­ ment pledged to finally do it. “Prime Min­ ister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed in the past to finally build the controversial E-1 housing project—as have several premiers before him, though none has done so due to American pressure. He opened his recent election campaign with a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim, in which he declared: ‘I will link Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim via the Mevasseret Adumim neighborhood, E-1. I want to Of course, it is reasonable to suppose that in 2012 candi­ past tense.

Hazem Bader / AFP / Getty Images (Above) Palestinian women argue with Israeli soldier after having been denied access to their lands, near Hebron, July 19.

see one continuous string of built-up Jewish neighborhoods.’”

Of course, the U.S. has the power to force Netanyahu to comply. Israel is en­ tirely dependent on U.S. aid. But the U.S. is in a bind. It needs Israel as its fortress in the Middle East, yet it also wants to limit the costs it has to pay in the Mus­ lim world for supporting the Zionist state. This creates an eternal tug of war. The Palestinians have never in the past gained substantially from the U.S. pres­ sure on Israel. However, this tug of war is likely to become tenser as Israel be­ comes more isolated politically and the costs the U.S. has to pay for supporting it increase. This gives increasing leverage to democratic and progressive protests in the United States itself against U.S. complicity in the Zionist genocide. It is a new indication that eventually the Zion­ ist project will prove inviable.

The only prospect for peace and pros­ perity for both the Jewish settler com­ munity and the Palestinians is the end­ ing of the idea that a state can be main­ tained only for Jews. Jews and Palestin­ ians have to be able to live in equality on the entire land of Palestine. n equality in America at large.

By referring to racism in such nebulous terms, Obama al­ police are always “just doing their job.” ca—are still to be determined.

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Gregory Bull / AP

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