The Real Truth Behind Gates-gate
Email This Post
- 
Print This Post
- I don’t know how we missed this one, because it’s blindingly obvious. What’s really important about the Great Cambridge Confrontation got buried in a firestorm of passionate speculation. When passions run high, the truth lays low.
Was the Gates/Crowley episode an ugly case of racial profiling? Maybe, but I can’t prove it. Was it an example of police arrogance clashing with black touchiness? Could be, both those attitudes are not unknown in their respective communities. Or, as some have suggested, is this just a case of two men, all pumped up on testosterone, getting in each other’s faces? That sounds about right, all the above sounds about right to me, but they all miss the point.
What do we know for sure about Gates-gate? Only this: the charges were dropped like Sarkozy on a jog, like a hot steaming bag of anthrax, as fast as a meth freak tap dancing on the lake of fire.
This story isn’t about race or cops or man-rage, it’s about celebrity.
Skip Gates walked. I’m cool with that, he should have, nobody should get busted for breaking into his own home. But let’s say it wasn’t Henry Gates, famous Harvard prof, friend of the prez, world-renowned author who took that unjust pinch.
Let’s say that it wasn’t Henry Gates of Cambridge Mass, but Hank Blackman of Gary Indiana, waking home from the Circle K toting a 40 in a paper bag, who left the keys on the cable box that night and got mouthy with the police when the cruiser rolled up. I mean, just for the sake of argument—though you can bet your hiney something like that did occur that night, more than once—what do you think would happen?
I’ll tell you what would happen. Mr. Blackman would be cuffed, maced and buried so deep in county it would be three days before his public defender could get him out on bail, with the charges most assuredly not dropped. And if Mr. Blackman happened to have a small bag of weed in his crib or maybe a few counts of shoplifting on his sheet we’d be looking at one screwed Person of Color.
In short, Mr. Blackman would have won the Grand Prize, because he committed two sins, the first venial, the second mortal. He was a nobody, and he was a black nobody.
The rich, famous and well-connected are fine everywhere. They don’t need equal protection, rights and justice. They buy it and it’s everywhere for sale.
But how do we treat the nobodies? That’s the true measure of a nation, a society, of justice.
It’s the stories we never hear, or have a hard time hearing, that aren’t widely told, that tell the truth about us.
We don’t need to get into Sgt. James Crowley’s motives, his attitude or his heart to engage that issue. Is there anyone alive who doesn’t know that it’s hard out there for a black man, that being a cop is a tough, frustrating job, and that nobodies take it up the wazoo when the man gets them in his sights?
It’s wrong, it’s wrong for every nobody and it’s worse for black nobodies. Equal protection under the law isn’t supposed to depend upon fame and power.
Fame is gold in America, fame shines through the blindfold of justice like a laser and weighs on the scales like a semi. And that’s called corruption.
The Henry Gates case is about the power of celebrity, period. Using a dude that our freaking president calls “My friend Skip” as a poster boy for the evils of racism, racial profiling or racial anything is as misguided as a North Korean rocket.
Skip skipped, fair is fair, he should have. But soon the perp, the prez and the policeman will be draining brews in the oval office while the photogs hang out in the driveway, waiting for the shot. That’s special treatment. It has as much to do with the lingering problems of race in America as the infield fly rule.
The Gates episode was a cause célèbre, because it was caused by a celebrity. The rest of us are on our own.
It’s often said it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Don’t believe it. It’s who knows you that counts. I know President Obama. He doesn’t know me. I am aware of this fact, and I’m being very careful not to misplace my keys until that situation rectifies itself.
Comment by murray on 29 July 2009:
Hopefully there will be lawsuits and a jury can decide who were wrong in ObamaGates.
Pingback by It’s a Frank World | Hypocrisy Reigns Here on 29 July 2009:
[...] Barack and I have not had a beer yet, for I ain’t got celebrity, but I still feel like it is OK to call him by his first name. After all, I attended his nomination [...]
Comment by Nicole Jordan on 29 July 2009:
“The Gates episode was a cause célèbre, because it was caused by a celebrity.” Niiice!
Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 29 July 2009:
Snark’s smart bomb precise coordinate lockin and hit on the double gate celebrity target nestled in the political weeds resonated so well with me, I almost missed a note of cognitive dissonance on a “white” paper in my idealism folder titled “Police treat everyone fairly and equally”.
After a fortuitous data recovery, occasioned by a random reboot, I immediately began deep troat type research (i.e. at least one search in today’s internet age Bernstein and Woodward never dreamed of) for a post potentially titled “police target hoodies” also my cleverly chosen key search words.
The results were instantly surprising (because I am a quick read) and disappointing (because I had a schedule and an agenda) all the while it surprisingly gave me cool links for another article about hoodie management overseas and also more than I needed to become an expert on hoodie clothing in the US. Where are the fashion police when you need them?
Does that mean Snark is way off course and there really is no unfairness in US, poor, ethic neighborhoods? Don’t vote yet. Wait for my blue ribbon report. Not a blue dog report mind you, more like an enlightened white paper, if that is possible. I believe it is. Sgt Friday also does. I have declined the endorsement of retired LA Police Chief Gates, not related to current events in Boston as evidenced by old black and white TV reports.
Therefore, I recognize and truly accept the need to do more than my usual bachelors degree level of research on the topic Snark pointedly made on the continuing presence of prejudicial and unfair cocaine vs crack sentence type of injustices. Interestingly, that topic briefly made a political blip in the news cycle recently when Jeff Sessions referred to reviewing the crack vs cocaine issue outside of the hearings, while speaking directly to Judge Sotomayor in her recent confirmation hearings.
Stay tuned, I’m checking the donation box daily to see if I can afford the graduate level researchers I need for the arduous work necessary on such a charged and complex topic. No s**t Sherlock. Make a difference.
Comment by proletarian on 2 August 2009:
Mr. Snark, good piece, however, I can’t quite get behind the idea that only blacks are abused at the hands of over zealous law enforcement. I believe you were closer to the issue when you intimated it was a matter of social status, whether black or white. Use your same senario with a 40 and insert a white man, you come out with the same result. I can cite you numerous examples from which I speak.
I visited a friend who lived in an apartment in an urban, metropolitan area once. As I walked in he told me he had called the police because there was a black man in the parking lot, knocking over trash cans, damaging cars and apparently drunk or drugged up.
We stood by the upstairs window and watched as the police searched the parking lot and the adjacent buildings. The perpetrator was no where to be found. My friend said he was going to go down to help them, give them a better discription and see what he could find out. For obvious reasons, I told he he was crazy.
Twenty minutes later I stood by the window alone, watching my friend spread-eagle on the pavement below. Another twenty minutes passed and he finally returned to explain it was a mistake for him to intervene.
Similar to Mr. Gate’s situation, he tried to explain. He told them he was the one who called the complaint in and he only came down to see if he could assist them. He told them where he lived, pointing to the window where I was standing, but he hadn’t taken any ID with him. It was all to no avail.
They searched his pockets and accused him of being a drug dealer, one they had seen in the complex before. While laying on the ground they made him roll up his sleeves to see if he had any identifying marks. He was humiliated in front of his neighbors and abused for being a good citizen. They treated him like a criminal because he had a two day stubble on his face, wore a holey pair of bluejeans and a tee-shirt with the “Grateful Dead” on it.
Why did this happen? He wasn’t black, he was white. It’s the social stature Mr. Snark. Race is ancillary to social sturcture and wealth. You touched on it but slid back to the race card. Plutocrats control society and if you aren’t in the car you get kicked to the curb. If you noticed, although black, Mr. Gates got a pass, he’s in the car. He has a card to play, it’s called Obama.
Comment by Snark Twain on 6 August 2009:
Jeez, Prole, I never said it was ONLY blacks. I thought the point was power, inequality, celebrity and the hypocrisy of blind justice. Oh well, I just write the things. Feel free to interpret all you want, my old friend, as long as you keep on reading!
But if you really think race plays NO part in this stuff, just imagine it was some 50ish white guy, standing all of five foot eight, who got approached by the cops in his home that night. Not only would the cop feel less threatened, and thus probably more polite, but the white dude wouldn’t have a lifetime of attitude ready to go off at the slightest spark. We would never have heard anything about it because nothing would have happened.