Opening the Flood-"Gates" to Increased Animosity

As expected, we are weighing in with our analysis of the arrest of Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. in his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts THIS WEEK. If you have been monitoring the RaceProject Facebook page, you will be up to speed on all the happenings. If so, jump past the next paragraph; if not, read on.

In short, Professor Gates was having trouble getting into his home upon his return from an overseas trip. He and his driver managed to get into the home, but as they were doing so, a neighbor called the police. While Gates was on the phone making arrangements for the door to be fixed, the police arrived. At this point, there is some disagreement about what happened, but we do know that the police asked to see Gates's identification (Gates says he produced it, the police say he did not do so immediately), Gates verbally berated the police (including making comments regarding to the way Black men are treated by police in America) and demanded the officer's badge number and name, and ultimately, Gates was arrested. The charges have been dropped, but the incident sparked a debate within and between several communities (the press, academics, activists, etc.). Dr. Gates is really upset, and President Obama weighed in during the last question of his health care press conference by saying that he believed that the police "acted stupidly," even though he admitted to not knowing all the facts. He has since talked to both the arresting officer and Professor Gates and is planning to have them to the White House for beers.

There has been no shortage of thoughtful commentary throughout the week. And, perhaps as we might expect, there has been no shortage of thoughtless commentary, as well.

On the thoughtful side, we encourage folks to read the excellent posts by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Dawn Turner Trice (here and here), Katherine T. Wallace, Liza Sabater, George Mitrovich, Harry Allen, Stanley Fish, Charles Blow and Sam Somers.

On the less-than-thoughtful side, (surprise) Rush Limbaugh played explicitly on the "angry Black man" stereotype (video here; for more on this, check out this MSNBC panel where Limbaugh's comments are discussed), and the angry White guys at The Free Republic were typically repulsive.

As is the trend in contemporary racial politics, there are basically three populations about which we are concerned. The first is the group who has been honest about how this incident is illustrative of the relationship between police and Black men in America. The second group is comprised of those (like Limbaugh) who are explicitly opposed to any attempt to bring about racial equality, either because they are overt bigots who believe Whites are a superior people or because they believe that America is a meritocracy where those who have succeeded are those who have worked the hardest -- and who just so happen to be disproportionately White and male. The third group is comprised of (mostly White) folks who are not particularly sensitive to the ways that systemic racism function; these folks sincerely want to have racial equality, understand that by most indicators, it is not here yet, but have a difficult time viewing the world through the lens of "others."

The last group was out in full force THIS WEEK, trying to make sense of the situation by analyzing the events through what they believe to be a race-neutral lens. These are the folks who were moved by the notion that the arresting officer, Sgt. Crowley, gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the late Celtics basketball player Reggie Lewis (our favorite tweet on this came from @mattbastard (Matthew Elliot): "There's a new one 'I'm not racist--I french-kissed a negro [not that there's anything wrong with that].'") and then found "confirmation" that the officer was not "to blame" because he cannot possibly be "racist" when they learned that he was hand-picked by a Black superior officer to teach diversity classes that include information about how to avoid racial profiling and that a Black officer on the scene the night of the Gates arrest publicly claimed that Crowley acted appropriately.

Here's why these interpretations fall short of the type of sophistication we encourage in this space.

Whether the arresting officer is a bigot or not is completely beside the point. He tried to save the life of a Black man and he has been recognized about being thoughtful about racial profiling. That is impressive and certainly suggests that he is not a bigot, but it does not get him off the hook of systemic racism. He is a White man in America -- and a police officer at that -- and thus has a distinct way to view the world that he (like all of us) is unable to escape. He can be thoughtful about that bias that he carries, but as was so nicely demonstrated in Paul Haggis's film Crash, under stressful conditions, it is harder to activate those filters. In short, this is a familiar refrain: "I can't be racist; I have Black friends"; it is a casualty of the continual conflation of racism with bigotry.

Further, under what circumstances would a fellow officer -- of any race or ethnicity -- publicly state that his colleague (particularly one who is facing public scrutiny) acted inappropriately? Seriously: how would that go? "Yeah, he was way out of line. That is not what he should have done at all. I'm embarrassed to be on the same force with this guy." Please. Who can blame a fellow officer for 1) seeing the situation more closely to the way his colleague saw it, and 2) supporting him publicly under these circumstances.

But this is shaping up to be similar to the OJ Simpson verdict with respect to the way Whites and Blacks see the situation. Most Whites see themselves (or wish to see themselves) in Sgt. Crowley (no visible prejudices, history of friendship with Blacks) and worry that they, too, might be accused of racism if they ever do something to a Black person that the person does not like. Since Whites as a group do not have a history of animosity with police, they view the situation outside of that larger context and simply focus on "the facts." But those events took place in a broader context, and that must be considered.

And it is within this context that President Obama spoke. While many (most?) Black folk cheered when he publicly called the officer's actions "stupid" (but see Bill Cosby's response), they recoiled a bit when he backpedaled on the language later in the week (see Melissa Harris-Lacewell's commentary on that issue on The Rachel Maddow Show).

To elaborate on that point, we reprint what Charlton wrote to a friend on his Facebook page about the issue:

My guess is that Obama's first comments were the most honest. I think that his reaction that the Cambridge cop acted stupidly probably came from the visceral feeling of knowing what it feels like not only to be profiled, but to be someone who has done everything society says you have to do to be great, and succeed, etc. and then still get treated like a common criminal -- in your own home no less. Malcolm X use to say: What do you call a Black man with a Ph.D? "N*****." I think that kind of feeling is what Gates had when the incident happened and what Obama was reacting to when he was first asked about his response. His latest response and apologies, etc. are of course politically motivated, though probably the right thing to do to try to help mend fences and use turn it into a "teachable moment."

Even without all the details, I do believe that Gates reacted exactly as the officer said. I believe he said the things he did and in the tone the officer said he did. But I think that to say that Gates "overreacted" is very subjective. As a person who has been harassed by cops for absolutely nothing other than the color of my skin (like the Shawnee [OK] cops who would routinely pull me over when driving in some of the nice neighborhoods, but never give me a reason why they stopped me, and including on two occasions having the cops called because I was "breaking in" to my own apartment, then doing searches of my apartment for no reason), I think Gates's reaction was somewhat mild -- hardly an overreaction. Was it a reasonable reaction? Probably not, but we're not talking about the realm of reason here. It's the emotional feeling one gets at this kind of personal injustice.

Here's the issue with the officer: it's all about the handcuffs. Gates is a short, scrawny, Ivy league nerd who raised his voice at a cop who had a gun, handcuffs and the power and authorization to use force if necessary to exercise his will. The officer had broad discretion. You don't immediately bust out the cuffs because someone gives you a little lip, especially when you know those words are not at all threatening. Putting Gates in cuffs for "disturbing the peace" is a symbolic act, one that says, "get and stay in your place, boy." But few people have been saying that the cop overreacted. And maybe he didn't. Like Gates acted out of his experience and the experience of other Blacks being profiled, the cop acted out of his experience and feeling of having an uppity Black professor talk to him the way he did: not just as a cop, but as a White person. To him, that was Gates's real offense.

Politically speaking, Obama shouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole. But I respect the fact that he he allowed himself to react as a human being who is Black, who has experienced the good and bad of living Black in America and was there to get someone's back who he saw as someone who was a slight victim of injustice (there are plenty of people of color who are profiled and victimized much more harshly).

This is a perspective that Stephen, for instance, would not have had. No matter how sensitive White folks are to systemic racism, no matter how long they study it and try to understand its implications, there is no substitute for experience, particularly with respect to the mixture of cognitive and emotional responses that come into play in a stressful situation such as this. Witness, for instance, MSNBC's Mika Brezezinsky's struggle to understand this element of the situation here (or below) in a discussion with Eugene Robinson and Carlos Watson.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Finally, here's a bit of bitter humor to bring this full circle: Dave Chappelle "predicted" these events a number of years ago in one of his routines.

Before we let you go, though, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the other big racial story THIS WEEK. The "birthers" (those who believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and, thus, is not legitimately the president) gained a strange sort of momentum as national conservative spokespersons such as Lou Dobbs and some Republican members of Congress continued to attempt to legitimize the claims. CNN's Rick Sanchez tore into these folks, and Jon Stewart made them look like complete nut jobs in his comic send up of their activities. Roland Martin did a nice job in a discussion with Dobbs (see here or below), and the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a formal letter to CNN asking for Dobbs to be removed due to his irresponsible journalistic activity with respect to this matter.



Make no mistake: this issue has everything to do with race. It is a perpetuation of the "otherness" frame that characterized Obama's opponents in the primaries and general election, and it is very much a function of White folks who remain horrified that the nation is being led by a Black man. At the town hall meeting that got so much attention THIS WEEK, a woman screamed "I want my country back!" This language is reflective of a group of people (it's impossible to tell how large of a group) who cannot stomach the fact that a Black man is in charge. Obama, they implicitly argue, is not really American. He's not "one of us." He's quintessentially "other," and he has stolen the country.

When he sided with the "lippy," "uppity" African American studies professor, it was simply additional evidence for the fact that "his kind" stick together; they will protect one another, but they hate Whites. He is a "reverse racist" (as Rush Limbaugh has called him), and he has disdain for (at least parts of) America.

We see some very scary trends emerging THIS WEEK. The White supremacists will always be stoking racial animosity and attacking Obama on racial grounds, but when otherwise thoughtful Whites (whom we put in "group three" above) start to be attentive to and perpetuate these notions, there is a real danger for the racial divide to widen. The backlash we (and many others) predicted at inauguration time is in full effect. What remains to be seen is how deep and how widespread it will become.