The whole Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest fiasco instantly reminded me of the best line in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" (2006), spoken by Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to a fellow police trainee: "Look at it this way, you're a black guy in Boston. You don't need any help from me to be completely f**ked." But it proved to be more complicated than that.
The 911 caller who saw two men trying to get into Gates' house wasn't making the racial assumptions many assumed had been. The transcript of the call reveals that she couldn't identify their races even when prodded for information by the operator (she thought one of them "looked kind of Hispanic, but I'm not really sure"), and was only calling on behalf of an elderly woman who was walking by and thought she saw something suspicious.
True, the arresting officer should have left as soon as he was presented with the photo ID that proved Gates was who he said he was, and that he lived in that house. Finally home after a long flight, Gates was understandably angry that a policeman demanded to know what right he had to be in his own home, but cops are trained how to handle verbal abuse from irate citizens. That's their job. They know they don't have the legal power to arrest somebody for "disorderly conduct" just for cursing at them, or calling them names, or claiming their conduct is inappropriate. Especially when that person is in his own home and has already demonstrated he has done nothing illegal.
Did the policeman display the weakness of succumbing to his own temper? Was race a factor? We can spectulate, but racism was sure as heck demonstrated later, by a Boston police officer and National Guardsman named Justin "I am not a racist" Barrett, 36, who sent an e-mail to Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham in which he compared Gates' behavior to that of a "banana-eating jungle monkey" once, and made three additional "jungle monkey" references in a 704-word message. Still, this is Boston, which may or may not deserve its reputation as the most racist city in the country, but you kind of expect this sort of thing, unacceptable as it may be. That was perhaps not the most disturbing aspect of the e-mail, which Abraham herself deleted before she finished reading it. (Barrett proudly forwarded it to National Guard colleagues, which is how it got out.) The worst part was probably this (italics mine):
Your defense [4th paragraph] of Gates while he is on the phone while being confronted [INDEED] with a police officer is assuming he has rights when considered a suspect. He is a suspect and will always be a suspect. His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.
Barrett has been suspended, and may be dismissed. As a policeman, he can't be excused for believing we live in a police state and that "suspects" have no rights -- particularly when the only suspicion is that the man on the phone does not live in his own home. People like this cannot be allowed to carrty badges and guns when they disregard their own training and don't understand the terms under which they are being entrusted with maintaining public safety.
Even more bizarre has been Barrett's one-man "I am not a racist" publicity campaign, which he took to various media outlets, including Larry King Live. "I did not intend any racial bigotry, harm or prejudice in my words," he told a Boston TV station. "I sincerely apologize that these words have been received as such. I truly apologize to all."
Oh, OK. It may take some effort, but perhaps someone could construe this as something other than a racist insult:
Go ahead, ax me what I think? Gates is a goddamned fool and you the article writer simply a poor follower and maybe worse, a poor writer. Your article title should read CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY - BACK TO ONE'S ROOTS.
(Read the full text of Barrett's e-mail here.)
I bring this up as another glaring example of the failure of argument and critical thinking I've been discussing in recent posts (including "I criticize you back -- again!", You're taking this very personal...", numerous Sarah Palin entries), rife with misrepresentations, ad hominem attacks and Straw Man arguments. So, what appears to be a disagreement about the role of race in Gates' arrest, is more pertinently about Barrett's racial vocabulary and his understanding of police work.
Barrett's self-defense? This: "Asked what led him to choose to use such language, [Barrett] said, 'I don't know. I couldn't tell you. I have no idea.'" There you have it. Is that the kind of person taxpayers want to hire and arm to patrol their streets?
Globe columnist Abraham, in her early, flawed account of the incident (some details of which have since been clarified) correctly describes Gates as "a 58-year-old African-American man with a gray beard and glasses and cane," with a "striped polo shirt tucked neatly into [his] khakis," and noted that when the officer arrived Gates was chatting on the cordless phone and made "no attempt to run, as a robber might."
Barret's response was to blow this out of proportion in an attempt to make Abraham sound stupid and naive:
You do not understand roles, tactics and dangers police officers face, as apparently you think no one wearing a polo might possess a firearm or knife on his/her person. Might you fathom a woman could be a criminal? Or are criminals all hairy, dirty, stinky, mean looking ugly men? You are a hot little bird with minimal experiences in a harsh field. You are a fool. An infidel. You have no business writing for a US newspaper nevermind detailing and analyzing half truths. You should serve me coffee and donuts on Sunday morning.
I wonder how much time Barrett spends flame-commenting on the World Wide Internets, because his tone and reasoning are of that pissing-match caliber. He's angry, and will do and say anything to tear down Abraham ("That was, by far, the worst article I've ever read. I am a former English teacher, writer, current police officer. father, husband and military veteran. You need to be corrected and I certainly hope others have attempted, for your written messages and material is so 4th grade level").
It's hard for me to accept that a police officer and National Guardsman would write something like that to a newspaper reporter, and choose to share it with pals and colleagues. Read the whole thing. Talk about bad judgment (not to mention bad writing). I shouldn't be shocked that professionals are capable of such maliciousness and sloppiness, but I'm amazed that a person with Barrett's temperament and "communication skills" could be hired by a police department. No wonder Abraham deleted his incoherent message after reading only a few sentences, dismissing it as just another rant from a racist crackpot:
I try to read and respond to every e-mail I get. The reasoned ones often help me see points of view I may not have fully considered. Some of the thoughtful e-mails about Gates, along with developments in the story that came after my column appeared, made me wish I'd cut Sergeant James Crowley more slack.
But when somebody begins with insults, racial epithets, or both, I hit the delete button. [...]
Like so many of these kinds of e-mails, it was an anonymous rant. I can't recall the exact part that made me hit delete.
I hope I would do the same thing if somebody had submitted something similar to the comments section on this blog. He's not adding anything useful to a rational discussion -- only exposing his own personal and professional shortcomings. Those aren't going to be remedied over a beer, even at the White House.
These are the sort of people chanting "down with health care!" at town halls
Although I hear conflicting details about this incident just from the sheer ubiquity of the coverage surrounding it, It appears many have distorted the actual significance of such a minor occurrence. It certainly does not deserve international coverage the likes of which we've been seeing.
Barrett's email illustrates he is a racist. As such, because such a character flaw would render him unsuitable to be responsible for public safety, he should no longer be involved in police work. This should be where the matter ends. One such incident is not indicative of the norm and should therefore not garner media attention. The American public should focus their ire on those people who preventing America from finally stepping out of the dark ages and moving toward unviversal healthcare. Everyone has the right to life says the american constitution, and unviseral healthcare serves to make this claim a reality. Non issues like the arrest of gates (who did act indignantly to men who were only there out of an interest for the public safety) are reductive and draw attention away from matters of actual import.
JE: I'm with you. It's a shame the national conversation got temporarily because of a platitudinous question at a presidential news conference on healthcare.
I respectfully disagree with both of you. I think police reform is probably one of the most important reform this country could undertake right now, and the health care "debate" seems like the distraction. The incident at Professor Gates' home and the matter of Mr. Barrett highlight the increasing level of police misconduct in this country. It has less to do with racism, or the history of Boston (though those are certainly factors!) than with the increased militarization of the police force and the overall lack of civics knowledge among the public.
I was at a very nice hotel restaurant less than a week ago, and a pair of couples was at the booth behind mine. I overheard one of the men, who had a latino wife, say something like "I don't care if your a Harvard professor or a Harvard janitor-you DO NOT talk back to police officers! That's when all bets are off!" And the table murmured agreement. That's the state we are in. Why NOT talk back to cops, if they merit it?
Barrett appears to be suing on the basis his civil rights were violated, in some fashion. Of course, there is the question to be considered in the fact that his email was private, intended only for use by the recipient, and thus, he wouldn't be judged for any reason (unless of course, he hurled racial epithets regarding Gates). Apparently we relinquish our civil rights when we use politically-incorrect language, and since we must all (all of us) understand that "racism" is an intellectual construct and not a physical act. That understanding will always elude the general (and, admittedly, uneducated populace) who prefer to assign blame rather than, say, accept any responsibility for their actions. Then, the Government steps in and starts telling us which rights we possess, and for how long we will possess them.
Gates is a prisoner of his own irony. He decries the treatment of the "black man in America" while blissfully ignorant of the benefits and advantages his personal success as a "black man in American" had wrought. He is a full professor at Harvard. He also happens to be black. Crowley is a cop, born to thug life and authority, empowered by his gun. I (a white man) have been mistreated (sometimes violently) by Police on several occasions. I've had a gun drawn on me (by white cops), yet I've never been arrested, never been fingerprinted - never got an apology either. I fit a specific description of a young man who was making trouble in my neighborhood. I was thrown against a wall and had to get stitches - no apology, so I do know that local law enforcement abuses authority. That's what they do.
"These are the sort of people chanting "down with health care!" at town halls"
Bob, you are the sort of person who makes sterotypical comments about the motives and rationales of an entire group of people you do not
personally know. You know, like the cop who wrote that e-mail. You are exactly like him.
What really gets me, Jim, is that according to your account, the journalist Ms Abraham deleted the email. Yet it still saw the light of day because Mr. Barrett shared it with friends and colleagues.
Presumably one does this only with writing that one feels proud about. So Mr. Barrett felt so strongly and positively about his opinion that he had to share it?
This certainly makes his later apology seem somewhat hollow.
There is a bigger issue here about police, and it is relevant. . . while Officer Crowley's conduct at Gates house in now way compares to the absurd racist, authoritarian nonsense in that email, there is a continuum there. The underlying attitude here, that police have an adversarial role toward the public, that people are "suspects" until proven innocent, and that disrespecting a police officer is sufficient cause for arrest, certainly informed Officer Crowley's behavior. I'm fairly convinced that he's one of the good guys, but I'm also convinced that he arrested Gates as a face saving maneuver. Gates ticked him off, and so he found a reason to arrest him.
It's worth repeating the detail that Gates was arrested AFTER showing his I.D. inside of his house and THEN being asked to step onto the porch by Crowley. Only when he stepped outside could he be subject to being arrested for disorderly conduct. You have to be in public for that. Whatever happened before that point is irrelevant. Did Gates mishandle the situation? Undoubtedly. Was race a factor? Who knows. But it seems clear that Crowley followed standard police procedure for dealing with uppity citizenry by humiliating Gates through an arrest. If Henry Gates wasn't Henry Gates, he may well have had to go through a more difficult and costly ordeal to get rid of the charge.
This stuff is important. Again, I have no doubt that most cops have the best intentions, and I tend to side with police in cases like this. But the vindictive use of "disorderly conduct" or "obstruction" charges to discipline anyone who refuses to kiss a policeman's ass is not okay, and it is not unusual. Police have a tough job for which they rarely receive the kind of compensation and respect they deserve, but an abusive practice is an abusive practice, and the Bill or Rights is the Bill of Rights. As long as I'm not trying to incite violence, I can say, or NOT say (we have a fifth amendment as well as a first amendment) anything to a policeman I damn well please.
"they disregard their own training and don't understand the terms under which they are being entrusted with maintaining public safety"
"I bring this up as another glaring example of the failure of argument and critical thinking"
Do some critical thinking on this yourself, Jim. Cops are not entrusted with maintaining public safety. That's not what their job is. If that's what regular people think their job is, that's fine, but it doesn't make it so, and our thinking that's their job is the result of our being taught that, repeatedly throughout our lives, and rarely made to question it. But I assure you, that is not the raison d'etre of American police. They are property protectors, rich-people protectors, poor people-abusers - they're the muscle the rich and powerful use to keep the poor and the black and the left-wing (or the radical far right) in their place. That's all they've ever been.
If every cop and every soldier in this country quit tomorrow, and became just a regular person, and no one took their place, I think justice would be very, very swift. So that's what they exist for. The prevention of that.
Paul:
And I quote,
"Cops are not entrusted with maintaining public safety."
Now, I would request some sort of substantiation for this claim, but why shatter your delusion? And more importantly, why ruin the impending entertainment? Your comment, continued:
"That's not what their job is. If that's what regular people think their job is, that's fine, but it doesn't make it so, and our thinking that's their job is the result of our being taught that, repeatedly throughout our lives, and rarely made to question it."
Per your logic, opinions are not sufficient conditions for facts. Oh, irony! [Have you ever heard the story of the pot and the kettle, Paul?]
"But I assure you, that is not the raison d'etre of American police."
Not only have you offered your assurance [which, as any logistician will tell you, is the best form of substantiation for a claim], but you've used a French phrase!
"They are property protectors, rich-people protectors, poor people-abusers - they're the muscle the rich and powerful use to keep the poor and the black and the left-wing (or the radical far right) in their place. That's all they've ever been."
A wise, anonymous entity once said:
//Now, I would request some sort of substantiation for this claim, but why shatter your delusion? And more importantly, why ruin the impending entertainment? Your comment, continued://
Your comment, continued:
//If every cop and every soldier in this country quit tomorrow, and became just a regular person, and no one took their place, I think justice would be very, very swift. So that's what they exist for. The prevention of that.//
I digress from sarcasm, Paul:
They [the police] are constructs, created /by/ society to protect society /from/ society; there is no natural barrier between chaos and order: sans intervention, order will, in the end, effect chaos. You--you, with your idiocy and illogic--breed this chaos, Paul; /you/ are the quintessential palisade promoting the intellectual devolution of the species; the dregs of our development. I can hardly pity such dross.
"We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.'
Let's see how long it takes for Jim (or anybody here) to connect this situation to his hatred of Crash.
In 3...2...1....
Jim, you wrote "I hope I would do the same thing if somebody had submitted something similar to the comments section on this blog. He's not adding anything useful to a rational discussion -- only exposing his own personal and professional shortcomings."
What about the first comment?
JE: Perhaps I failed. I confess, I don't really understand that comment. But I figured if anyone is truly changing "down with health care" because they're against health -- that is, against treating people who are ill or injured, with the goal of relieving their suffering and getting them healthy again -- then they fit the bill.
I've been to jail a few times and the guards there are true sociopaths, and I think this reflects a large part of procedures police use on the streets, which is to arrest someone the second they become irate with you.
When I was in jail (for driving w/ a suspencded license) a guard was doing a roll call. And there was an inmate who was was giving the cop a kind of look, and a few minutes earlier I heard him say something regarding, "Cops create crime. They don't prevent crime"--because, basically, without it, they'd be out of business. So, he kind of had that thought in mind and he must have been giving the cop a look (just a look) and the cop said, "Do you have a problem" and the guy said, "I don't have a problem. Do You have a problem?" and just wanted to get on with it. Then the guard took him outside and I all I heard was shouting and there was obviously a scuffle. And another cop noticed it and immediately yelled out a battle cry and they must have went to town on this guy.
Basically, I think it's quite common that cops will arrest and possibly beat you for just giving them attitude.
I forgot to add to that story of the jail, that afterwards the cop came back in and yelled, "Who else wants some?!" He was a short cop too--about 5 foot 1. So, there may have been a short-man complex to go with his sociopathology.
I confess, I don't really understand that comment. But I figured if anyone is truly changing "down with health care" because they're against health...
I think that comment is referring to this: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-slam-town-hall-protests-as-phony-2009-08-06.html
JE: Ah, more astroturfing and teabagging. I understand. The Republicanists flew in the "protesters" in Florida in 2000, and the statue-topplers in Bagdad in 2003. This is the voodoo that they do so well...
You spend all of this time making the point that we should all have reasoned debate and have opinions that are not merely knee-jerk reactions but are actually backed up by logical analysis and facts and now you do this.
"But I figured if anyone is truly chanting 'down with health care'". Oh, come on. You know that people are not chanting against health care - they are arguing against nationalized health care. Yes believe it or not there are some people that believe that having the same people who bring us the tax code (and all its exceptions for well connected industries), the dmv and war are maybe not the best people to decide your health care decisions for you. I personally think we should have some kind of health care safety net. But maybe the best way to win the argument is not by equating people at town hall meetings (some of who are probably plants but most of which are probably not) with racists.
JE: It was a JOKE, fer chrissake! The point being: Mentioning some people chanting "down with healthcare" provides me with no information whatsoever. As I said, I didn't know what the commenter meant and I shouldn't have approved it, because it just causes more people to make off-the-wall comments about the DMV. This has gotten way too far off-topic, and I take all the blame. No more, please.
The real outrage is that a man's home is his castle. No one can violate a man's right to reign supreme in his house - unless a crime is being committed. The fact that Gates told the cop in no uncertain terms what he really thought of the officer and who knows what else, should not have given the officer the right to arrest Gates. On the street, yes, but in the man's house - no, it's only common decency to take a step back and leave the premises. What angers so many blacks is the fact that it's almost par for the course for police to bow out when dealing with irate white citizens. Gates probably forgot that even though is an accomplished individual, he is still black.
This situation was not racial profiling. The officer was responding to a call that 2 men were seen breaking into a house. Remember, this house had been broken into previously. The officer needed to question Mr. Gates to get a handle on the situation. Perhaps Mr. Gates was having trouble with his door because the lock had been jimmied and the criminals were still hiding on the premises.
Mr. Gates had ID indicating that he lived at the address -- so what? There are many men who have restraining orders against them for domestic battery but can still provide ID stating that they live in the house. The cop would need to see if Mr. Gates had an order against him. This is a perfectly reasonalbe course of action considering that the Mr. Gates was having trouble with the lock.
All Mr. Gates needed to do was cooperate with a police officer who was just doing his job. Instead he had a chip on his shoulder and behaved belligerently and disrespectfully. Should Gates have been arrested? – probably not, and he wouldn’t have been had he treated the officer with decency.
JE: There's a good piece here by Lani Guinier in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the danger of trying to shoehorn a complex incident into the familiar, stereotyped scenarios: "racist cop" versus "uppity black man," and so on:
http://chronicle.com/article/RaceReality-in-a/47509/
Here's another account of a white man's encounter with the Cambridge police 20 years ago. He's wondering how much has changed:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/07/cambridge_police_a_matter_of_b.php
Henry:
The officer received a call from the 911 dispatcher reporting there was a possible break-in. Let me put it this way: if someone were breaking into your house and a dispatcher sent a car to your house, would you want the cop to simply go away should the burglar claim he lost his keys or couldn't get the door open because he truly lived in your house? Or, perhaps, would you want the officer to ask for ID, perhaps question the suspect?
JE: Just to add some more information: Six minutes reportedly elapsed between the time the 911 call came in and Gates' arrest -- after he had provided ID as proof that he lived there. The issue is whether Gates did anything that gave the officer cause to arrest him. (This will not be legally investigated because charges were dropped and, after the "beer summit," Gates is unlikely to press charges for false arrest.) Bob Herbert explains the situation this way:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/opinion/01herbert.html
This has probably already been mentioned, so forgive me bringing this up again...but how do you write the term "banana-eating jungle monkey" and not construe that as a racist comment? It doesn't matter how many times one might protest they are not a racist, saying something like that instantly disproves that argument. I would have to assume that not all Boston cops are racist, but that one almost certainly is...or he is, at the very least, an idiot not worthy of the badge.
Sorry, but it's true.
(I mean, he's not a racist for calling a black man a "banana-eating jungle monkey"? Be serious.)
JE: Just for clarification: the Cambridge cop who arrested Gates is not the Boston cop who wrote the "jungle monkey" e-mail to the Boston Globe reporter. I know nothing about either officer's history or personality, but the e-mail certainly speaks for itself. You don't use that language unless you intend a racial insult.
boston is a very old city. a long history for a very small place. there is a lot of racism. but it's not just white people that don't like black people. it's whites that hate blacks, blacks that hate whites, whites that hispanics, hispanics that hate blacks, blacks that hate hispanics, hispanics that hate whites and on and on and on with every combination, like one of those probability equations from math class in middle school. but you look at any place in the country that is as old as boston, and you have the same situations. i don't think people think "boston" when you ask, what is the most racist city in america. for some reason, people just don't like boston. i don't know why, but i don't think it's the racism, i think it's because boston was supposed to mean something important to this country all those years ago, and now it doesn't and people are bitter about it. but no place in this country means what we want it to anymore. not washington dc, not san francisco, not new york, not philidelphia. no where. all our noble efforts are defeated by basic human cruelty and misunderstanding. nothing means anything anymore. not even our words. go figure.
JE: Good points. Some of Boston's reputation undoubtedly has to do with violent reactions against school desegregation in the 1970s. There was a lot of resistance to busing nationwide, for many reasons, but Boston's got particularly ugly and inflammatory: http://budurl.com/mv72 .
I think it is obvious that idealism clouds the issue. Yes, in the most technical sense of the law, you can yell at a cop, but in everyday practice, I wouldn't recommend it. It is not wise. Cop have guns and the authority to arrest you. We had a poor guy (in my neck of the woods) who was shot over 50 times when he tried to produce a wallet by a group of cops. That this is unfair is not the issue. Police brutality is a harsh reality, and, I fear, there is nothing we can do about it.