Being at Home While Black

Even if the professor was acting belligerent, loud or even shouted down the officer, once he showed the proper identification that should have been the end of the story.  And did Professor Gates meet the definition of being arrested, which is: “The set of circumstances that will lead a reasonable and prudent person to believe that a crime has or is about to be committed and that the person in question is involved in a significant manner.” According to the definition, he did not.

Even the arresting officer admitted that he knew that if he arrested Professor Gates that this would be a controversial incident. Then why do it? He did it because he had to show this black who walks with a cane, this black man who weighs about 170lbs, this black man who is in his mid fifties, this black man who actually lives in the home, that in the eyes of the police you are a criminal and we the police have the power to do whatever we want with your life we see fit to do.

When President Obama was asked about this issue in his new conference this week, the President said that the police acted stupidly, based on the information he knew, and should have just left the scene after determining that the true owner of the home was who he said he was. I agree.

With the long history of racial profiling of black and Latino citizens by police departments across the nation, it is no wonder that this case has gotten the national attention that it has, courtesy of the police officers of the Cambridge Police Department. What this case illustrates that no matter how much money you make, where you work, or what type of car you drive, police officers will always assume that if you are a person of color you are guilty of something before they even find out the facts beforehand.

Whites do not understand why persons of color have a different view of police then they do, and that is because whites do not have a historical reference to relate to. For decades in the south, it was the white sheriffs who looked the other way or were even involved in the lynching of black people. It was white law enforcement that harassed and arrested Latinos just for being in the wrong neighborhoods at the wrong times. The majority of white Americans have never felt the anguish of visiting a son in the hospital after he was severely beaten by the police after a “routine” traffic stop for driving a car in a neighborhood for which the police said he should not be in.

This incident is can be used as a “Teachable Moment” where the country can begin a serious dialogue on racial profiling, how it harms our citizens and what we can do to stop it.