Obligatory Gates Incident thoughts

First, this is an incident. More and more people have lost their perspective totally, especially the media. The last is important for reasons I'm coming to in a bit. This is Henry Louis Gates they arrested, not Kim Jong-Il.

After piecing together the "he said he said" stories, what we have is a situation that neither party will admit to. The police--eventually--got identification from Gates. It's his bad that he didn't provide it up front, because the police have every right to ask for it. That should have been the cue for both parties to chill a little, and I do think neither of them did. It seems that Gates really went off after that. The officer responded to the diatribe with handcuffs, instead of identifying himself and turning his back on a justifiably angry man on his own premises.

Now comes the why. In her comments to this blog post, Andrea hits the nail on the head by pointing out the power of class, rather than race, in fueling this incident. I've always remembered what a criminal justice professor pointed out once to a debating team I was on. Police in general are working class people trying to move up. You have to remember that, and all the sensitivities that go with it, in everything you say and do with them. Does race colour an officer's perception of an incident? Yes. In fact, any perceived difference on the part of a suspect may (not will) influence their response. I'm happy to hear that this officer taught racial profiling prevention, but that may not mean that he forgot his own teachings in an explosive situation.

And I can't think of a situation more explosive than this. An officer who believes himself sensitive to race matters investigates an alleged burglary that turns out to be a mistake. He finds himself being reamed for racism by a black Harvard professor in his own home. The professor is known for being very opinionated, and he doesn't appear to have let up even when the incident should have been closed. Ultimately, the officer who arrested Gates may have been motivated by class resentment that he himself doesn't recognise, and arrested Gates because he could. You can get into some nifty debates in criminal law about the elasticity of a disorderly conduct charge. Police everywhere feel empowered to use the charge against anyone who is pissing them off.

What Cambridge and Harvard ought to do is, first, yank this incident out of the public sphere. Both Gates and the police union will gnaw at it as long as they think they have an audience. Mayor Simmons should silence the police; Dr. Faust should silence Gates. Then sit both parties down. Let them vent, maybe, with the understanding that the venting will be private. Then, when they settle down to mediation, the focus ought to go beyond the obvious. Harvard should consider a bit of consciousness-raising among its faculty and students, to tone down the arrogance that can trigger out of control responses. Cambridge needs to grapple not only with race but with class hostility among its public servants. Now, during a very levelling period economically, would be an excellent time to start.

It would take a broader forum to examine the vagueness of disorderly conduct statutes. This should be less attractive to police as a tool for solving problems. This incident shows clearly that disorderly conduct arrests can create more problems than they solve.