Police side missing in rehash of Gates' 2009 arrest

Aug 1, 2010 — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tony Norman

Aug. 1, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- This month is the first anniversary of l'affaire Gates, the most racially polarizing event of the Obama presidency so far. The encounter between a celebrated African-American Harvard University professor and an obscure but respected white Cambridge, Mass., police officer had the kind of symbolic value usually played out in the early "Rocky" movies.

During an investigation of what he initially believed to be a break-in at Henry Louis Gates' home in Cambridge on July 16, 2009, Sgt. James Crowley had an angry exchange with the professor. As the rhetoric heated up, both men made fateful decisions that escalated their conflict beyond the point of what was sensible.

Despite being in his own home, Mr. Gates was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct. His angry and generally boorish tone toward the cop was criminalized and he was treated like any other perp despite his high status in the community.

Sgt. Crowley arrested a law-abiding citizen on dubious charges because he wanted to save face. Mr. Gates didn't represent a danger to the community, but he was nonetheless photographed, fingerprinted and treated to a front seat in the criminal justice system.

While it is true that both men acted like chest-thumping idiots, it is not illegal to scream at a cop. The charges against Mr. Gates were quickly dismissed, but the controversy wasn't going to go away so easily.

In the days that followed, the constituency for both men weighed in with passionate arguments for why the other camp was guilty of outrageous presumption.

When President Barack Obama himself weighed in with an off-the-cuff remark that the Cambridge cops had acted "stupidly," it was like dousing a fire with accelerant. Suddenly a president who had scrupulously avoided racial controversy was seen as "partial" to black people -- a politically untenable situation.

By identifying with Mr. Gates, his friend from his days at Harvard, instead of the white working-class cop, Mr. Obama reminded America that he was "black," not a colorless cipher.

For those who believed that the 2008 presidential election indemnified white Americans against charges of racism forever, the team of Henry "Skip" Gates and Mr. Obama came as a shock.

Lost in the shuffle of tribal hurts and recriminations was an even more problematic issue than race -- the question of class in America. The "beer summit" at the White House cooled passions considerably, but a year later, the hysteria of the Gates affair continues to haunt the Obama administration.

Charles Ogletree, Mr. Gates' colleague at Harvard Law School, comes to the defense of his friend in this new book.

In an anecdote-rich tome that won't do much to persuade Sgt. Crowley's supporters that the Gates bust was anything but kosher, Mr. Ogletree makes a mostly persuasive case that police discretion and citizens' rights are at odds, especially when minorities and the law collide.

As Mr. Gates' lawyer, Mr. Ogletree is upfront about his advocacy of his client's position. As an African-American, Mr. Ogletree also sees the arrest through a prism of shared racial experience, but he argues that the law is also on the professor's side.

Any fair reading of the event would bear this out, but a fair reading of what happened at Mr. Gates' residence is nearly impossible. The encounter in Cambridge has been thoroughly "racialized" by lazy and sensationalist media reports.

More than half of "The Presumption of Guilt" is testimony from other black professionals, academics and artists recalling their own humiliating encounters with the police.

The sheer weight of their testimony is sobering, but not necessarily convincing if you're inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt. If tolerating racial profiling is the cost of maintaining the illusion that all is well with the criminal justice system, then the country has made its choice:

Mr. Gates, a citizen guilty of nothing more than forcing the door open in his own home, deserved to be arrested for mouthing off at a cop while black.

Mr. Ogletree doesn't break any new ground or offer any profound insights. It is an earnest, somewhat didactic take on a fascinating event. Those seeking nuance or a studied treatment of the cops' perspective will have to look elsewhere.

Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0159-47502046