Outrage aside, this is the juiciest story to happen in a long time. It’s spawned two very beautiful quotes I thought I’d share. The first is from Henry Louis Gates Jr. himself, taken from the closing words of his first post-arrest interview.
There haven’t been fundamental structural changes in America. There’s been a very important symbolic change and that is the election of Barack Obama. But the only black people who truly live in a post-racial world in America all live in a very nice house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
And the second is from blogger Danielle Belton that sums up how it all went down perfectly:
So they arrested him because he got loud about being harassed for being in his own house? How many things are WRONG with this sentence? The man had trouble getting in his house, got in his house then was harassed for being in his house then was arrested for being upset about being harassed for being in his house.
Man, somebody crank that N.W.A.,
Rio
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Playing devil’s advocate here, but I think this was a good article trying it’s best to assess the situation without blindly supporting the police OR blindly calling racism.
http://www.thegrio.com/2009/07/i-am-not-al-sharpton.php
I think this had less to do with racism than with a clash of egos, as Watkins offers as a possibility. Gates was rightfully annoyed at being hassled trying to get into his own home. But he jumped into assumptions himself by crying racism right off the bat. And let’s face it: most cops are dicks, and they don’t like being hassled themselves.
The cops didn’t cruise by and see him standing outside and start searching him. They received a call from a neighbor about a burglary. That’s what they expected to find.
I still bump “Fuck the Police” like no other, but now a bit older, I realize there’s going to be tricky incidents like this one. I think this is more likely the typical cop on a power trip, than outright police brutality based on racism.