The Skip Gates Arrested Tour 2009
Posted on July 23rd, 2009 in Uncategorized | 79 Comments »
Anyone else starting to think that getting arrested was about the best thing that could have happened to Skip Gates?
I know that sounds—what was it someone said of me—”tone-deaf and insulting”?—but bear with me.
As the Times reports, President Obama made clear last night the extent of Gates’ power and influence. The president responded vigorously to a press conference question about Gates’ arrest.
“Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that’s just a fact.” He added later that the incident was “a sign of how race remains a factor in this society.”
He also used biting humor, grinning broadly as he imagined being in Mr. Gates’s seemingly preposterous circumstance of being arrested after trying to get into his own home.
“Here, I’d get shot,” Mr. Obama said, referring to his new address of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Meanwhile, Gates appeared on CNN last night, partaking in an interview with more softballs than a game of fast pitch. The interview was conducted by fellow Harvardian Soledad O’Brien—who did not disclose her affiliation—and warmly sympathized with Gates. As she asked him about DNA testing and why black Americans care so much about family, she also failed to add this should-have-been-obligatory caveat: “Professor Gates, we should mention that you have a financial interest in promoting DNA testing.”
Instead, CNN gave Gates’ DNA business a massive plug.
Terrible journalism.
(About the only media outlet Gates has not spoken with, by the way, is the Crimson, which tells you something about his calculation of media priorities and where Harvard students rank: You make time for the reporters you think are important.)
Gates added that he was thinking of suing the Cambridge police department, and reiterated that if Sgt. Crowley were to apologize, Gates would “forgive” him. [Emphasis added.]
“He should look into his heart and know that he is not telling the truth and he should beg my forgiveness,” Gates said.
But Crowley said in a different TV interview that he had no intention of apologizing.
The officer, Sgt. James Crowley, told CNN affiliate WCVB earlier Wednesday that he will not apologize.
“There are not many certainties in life, but it is for certain that Sgt. Crowley will not be apologizing,” he said.
I’m glad—not because I believe everything Crowley says, but because if he takes a stand we’ll probably learn more about what happened than if he caved to Gates’ demand and the pressure of having the president of the United States call you stupid.
The BostonChannel.com adds some reporting that lends some credence to Crowley’s story and casts some doubt on Gates’ claim that he couldn’t have been yelling due to a bronchial condition.
Bill Carter, the man who snapped a photograph of Gates being led away in handcuffs, said police officers were calm and that Gates was “slightly out of control” and “agitated” when he was arrested.
“The officers around kind of calmed him down,” Carter said. “I heard him yelling — Mr. Gates yelling. I didn’t hear anything that he was saying so I couldn’t say that he was belligerent.”
The Herald also reports that Crowley once gave mouth-to-mouth to Celtics star Reggie Lewis (who was black) in an attempt to save Lewis’ life.
“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 2024.
….he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.
“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.
The Globe also has a piece on Crowley.
…people who know Crowley were skeptical or outright dismissive of allegations of racism. A prominent defense lawyer, a neighbor of Crowley’s, his union, and fellow officers described him yesterday as a respected, and respectful, officer who performs his job well and has led his colleagues in diversity training.
This is interesting: Crowley’s determination to stand up for himself and his effort to save Lewis will complicate the efforts of Gates, Lawrence Bobo and others to engage in cop-profiling—which is to say, attributing specific characteristics to one policeman based on stereotypes and preconceived beliefs about the generalized behavior of a group. (Some police officers shot Amadou Diallo; therefore….)
Fascinating: Gates’ attempts to caricature Crowley—a “rogue cop,” Gates called him—by playing on widespread anti-police prejudices, are actually bumping against the humanity of an individual.
This still doesn’t mean that we know what happened that day on Ware Street, but it may suggest that Gates’ own preconceived notions about a group of people led him to think that he could say whatever he wanted about Crowley, and because it was self-evidently true (right?) that police are like this, the general public would automatically believe the charge.
Meanwhile, Drew Faust continues to stand firmly with her star professor.
“I feel privileged to consider Skip not just an esteemed colleague, but a friend. I have been in regular communication with him since Thursday and I was profoundly saddened to hear him describe what he experienced. I continue to be deeply troubled by the incident,” Faust said.
That’s funny—I’m getting more troubled by the aftermath of this incident than by the actual incident, which was bad enough.
(Posters will comment that Faust is walking a fine line there, supporting Gates without actually commenting on what she thinks happened. That’s true, but I suspect most people will miss the legalistic nuances.)
Skip Gates is surfing this unfortunate episode to greater social prominence, celebrity, power and wealth. Even if one believes every word of his stories, is what he’s doing—”beg me for forgiveness”—promoting healing and progress? Or is it promoting Skip Gates?
On CNN, Gates said that although the ordeal had upset him, “I would do the same thing exactly again.”
I expect that’s true.
James Crowley (Boston Herald Photo by Christopher Evans)
Skip Gates, Tavis Joyner and Soledad O'Brien on CNN (iPhone photo by RB)
79 Responses
7/23/2009 6:51 am
“getting arrested was about the best thing that could have happened to Skip Gates”
That doesn’t SOUND tone-deaf and insulting, it IS tone-deaf and insulting. Your point is just that he’s milking it for all kinds of advantage, which is true without being tone-deaf, and was true from the second he said “Get the chief.”
The emergence of the Reggie Lewis story is a good thing. Everyone needs to practice spreading compassion around to all the participants in this fiasco (except, perhaps, to Soledad O’Brien, who, as I’ve written before, is a hack).
Getting arrested is not a good thing to happen to anybody, except perhaps Rod Blagojevich, who has faded so fast to obscurity that being able to get arrested in Chicago again will be a step up.
Standing Eagle
promising not to get on a rant today
7/23/2009 6:58 am
I think I’m going to stick with this one, SE, and I’ll have to live with the “tone-deaf and insensitive” part.
7/23/2009 7:29 am
There is a picture floating around of Skip Gates getting arrested. In the foreground there is a very annoyed-looking but calm-looking black officer and then behind him is Mr Gates, handcuffed and yelling.
Can it be racial profiling if you are a black man and a black officer arrests you for being disorderly?
7/23/2009 7:37 am
Who knew that one of the most balanced and intelligent op-eds on this whole mess would come from the Boston Herald:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1186605
7/23/2009 7:41 am
Also, I saw that picture on ESPN. I don’t think it has hit the ‘net yet.
7/23/2009 8:14 am
I don’t know why Skip Gates is refusing to speak to the Crimson. The Crimson reporter seems to me to have done a good job. I *was* troubled, however, by some of the comments posted by readers after the first article on the incident. Several readers said that the Cambridge police should have used a stun gun on Gates, and one even said that the officer should have fired the stun gun three times: at both of Gates’s legs and at his behind. I’m surprised that such clearly inapprorpiate posts weren’t erased by whoever monitors the Crimson’s comments threads.
7/23/2009 8:20 am
I’d guess they feel that it’s best to show what’s out there, Judith, ugly as it sometimes is.
7/23/2009 8:29 am
Skip Gates and his friends who are taking this to extremes really need to stand down now: declare victory and let it rest. The President of the United States diverted from a top national priority to defend Gates and highlight the broader questions, and that should be enough. The only evidence we have here — and are ever likely to have, even if there is a drawn-out lawsuit or brouhaha — is that both sides brought mistaken preconceptions to the episode and BOTH the cops and Gates behaved “stupidly” to use Obama’s word. This may have been understandable in the heat of the incident for Gates — but as the days pass, it is not credible for him, or Larry Bobo, or others I consider friends, to try to turn this cop into a poster-guy for racist intents. It just does not wash, and more and more people are going to speak up to say the cop is not that kind of person.
The Cambridge police expressed official “regret” at the arrest and dropped charges. They apologized, in short. Gates, on his side, has gone on a money-making, publicity tour. He is escalating the rhetoric and making sweeping, incredible accusations. For the sake of Cambridge and all of us, Gates needs to declare victory and chill out. Does he have the wisdom to do that?
7/23/2009 8:31 am
In 1991, a black man, far less educated that Professor Gates who suffered true policy brutality, turned a horrid episode in the history of race relations in America into a true teaching moment when we asked ‘Why can’t we all get along?’
Has someone asked Professor Gates what he hopes to accomplish with the way in which he is responding to this episode? and perhaps, in what ways he hopes to be able to do more for the history of race relations than Rodney King did…
7/23/2009 8:35 am
President Obama has been urgent Congress not to squander this opportunity for Health Care Reform.
It would be helpful too if his Harvard friends listened to this advice as well and helped him deliver on the many promises and hopes of his campaign, so he doesn’t follow the route of another beloved Harvard Graduate, Governor Deval Patrick.
7/23/2009 8:41 am
I’d love to know your view on the Crimson comments, Richard, since it’s so squarely in the realm of journalistic ethics. You tell us what you think is motivating the Crimson editors to leave up the troubling posts, but you don’t tell us whether you think it’s a good decision to do so.
I’d have thought that part of the point of running reader comments in a newspaper is that you try to keep the discussion civil. Certainly, I imagine, if this were the old days of print the more troubling comments would not have been published. Have the ethical standards in journalism changed in the internet era, or are the standards the same and editors are just failing to live up to them as they did in the past? Or is there some other explanation?
I confess that, like Judith, I’m troubled by the idea that those comments are allowed to stay. I’m equally troubled by some of the comments I’ve read attacking the police officer. It seems to me that the journalist and editor - whether s/he likes it or not - is crafting the perception of what’s out there as much as simply reporting it. And that leaving the ugly comments up contributes to the ugliness instead of just reflecting it.
At least that’s my initial impression. I really would love to know what the position is from the point of view of the journalist. Is it right to leave up the ugly comments in this kind of situation, when you know they will further the divisiveness that we’re now encountering? Or does the journalist have a responsibility to try to ensure that the discussion remains civil?
7/23/2009 8:42 am
Well said, Theda. As to your closing question, we shall see. I hope by now someone attached to Obama has the wisdom to have communicated the fact that your question goes well beyond what happened on Ware St, and matters to all of us in ways that have nothing to do with Skip Gates.
Good post, Richard
7/23/2009 8:48 am
Thank you, Richard.
Sean, I don’t have a simple answer to your question. I know bloggers are supposed to have opinions on everything, but I genuinely am undecided about this point. On the one hand, I would much prefer to shape a more civil discussion, and if such comments appeared on this blog (so glad they don’t) I’d almost certainly delete them. Just because a newspaper gets a letter doesn’t mean it has to print it, right?
On the other hand, I suppose there is some value in reminding people that there are still plenty of haters in the world, and some of them are right here at home.
7/23/2009 8:59 am
In responding to a call about a possible break-in into a Cambridge home, Sergeant Crowley was discharging his professional duty. The investigation and possible litigation will establish whethe he handled his duties according to the standards of his profession.
Perhaps paradoxically, the attention this incident has received, provides Professor Gates the opportunity to share with the nation the results of the scholarship he and his colleagues at Harvard have conducted over the years on race relations and how to improve them. As a Professor of distinguished status at Harvard, who has enjoyed the support and favor of all Presidents, particularly of Larry Summers, he has been in a most privileged position to conduct first rate research that will provide the necessary intellectual breakthroughs to truly move the needle on race relations.
We can only assume that Professor Gates has discharged his professional responsibilities in using those opportunities with the very same high standards of ethics that he expects of the Cambridge police.
7/23/2009 9:03 am
Richard,
I’m relieved to hear that bloggers - at least responsible ones like you - don’t have opinions about everything. It gives me some hope that the Socratic standard for wisdom is not completely dead.
That said, I think you told me what I wanted to know about your view when you said that you’d almost certainly have deleted the comments if they showed up on your blog.
7/23/2009 9:17 am
If I were Drew Faust, I’d be calling Cornell West for confidential advice on how to handle this situation.
Harvard’s relations with Boston and Cambridge, and in particular with the working class community in both, are already sower over many issues, most recently the decision to slow down construction in Allston and the layoffs. This episode has the potential of turning them even sower.
The President has been prudent in her comments, but she may need the kind of advice not readily available among her Harvard colleagues. I recommend West -who is a compassionate man, who loves Harvard deeply, and how knows Skip Gates well. I recommend also Reverend Jackson who knows how to heel wounds and how to work with wounded people.
7/23/2009 9:20 am
Sean,
My sense is that newspapers don’t really control comments, and therefore you find all sorts of whacko stuff turning up in them (look even at the Globe on these stories), while bloggers rightly project their standards/expectations and do some censoring. So where would the Crimson fall here?
The Crimson as I recall cancelled their comment function a year or two ago in response to some deluge of comments on an issue that now escapes me. I’m not sure how much filtering they do by policy particularly in the summer.
By the way, Skip is probably not avoiding the Crimson per se, it’s just not big enough to get his attention.
7/23/2009 9:24 am
Surely there are scholars at Harvard studying what can be done to improve race relations. See for example:
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7773.html
One might imagine that Professor Gates does all in his power to support those scholars and to support their research and help them become tenured at Harvard. Could someone ask him?
7/23/2009 9:31 am
Right, that’s my point (vis-a-vis the Crimson), Richard—there’s not a sense of obligation to the community paper, but a sense of, Which media will best advance my cause?
If nothing else, it suggests strategy, that Skip is consciously thinking about how to play all this.
7/23/2009 9:31 am
Richard (T),
I think you’re probably right that newspapers do very little filtering of their comments nowadays. My question was not about what newspapers actually do, though; it was about what they ought to do. I guess I’m inclined to think that, to the extent they are not “projecting their standards/expectations [by doing] some censoring”, then they are neglecting their professional obligation, at least in some circumstances. I can see that there might be some value to reminding people that there are “haters”, as Richard says. But you don’t have to do this by making your newspaper a conduit for their hate.
7/23/2009 9:32 am
And I agree that most newspaper probably don’t have the staff anymore to edit comments! Sad and sort of pathetic but true.
7/23/2009 9:59 am
The officer in question speaks:
http://audio.weei.com/m/25432556/stg-james-crowley-cambridge-police.htm
7/23/2009 10:06 am
Thanks for weighing in, Theda. I agree that Skip Gates should just let things be now, instead of ratcheting up this case. Your comment is very sensible.
RT may be right that many papers aren’t monitoring their comments sections. There certainly are some hateful messages out there. I think it’s okay for news media to remind us that there are haters out there, but the “stun gun” comments could be read as inflammatory, in my view. I agree with Sean Kelly that “you don;t have to [remind us that there are haters] by making your newspaper a conduit for their hate.”
Finally, to respond to “Harvard’s Standards” about scholars at Harvard working on race relations, one person doing really interesting work is Professor Mahzarin Banaji, in Psychology. Her studies of unconscious bias are truly eye-opening.
7/23/2009 10:10 am
I like the constructive turn this is taking-let’s bring some scholarly thinking and learning to bear on all the facets of this very socially charged situation!
7/23/2009 10:21 am
Sorry, Anon, I’ve deleted your last. You know how I hate those strings of semi-rhetorical questions. I think the comment you were referencing is pretty straightforward.
7/23/2009 10:32 am
Nope, not that one either.
7/23/2009 10:40 am
9:59
Thanks very much for posting the link to the interview.
Sgt. Crowley spoke intelligently and articulately and came across very well.
7/23/2009 11:32 am
Let’s do the thought experiment that Harvard is today essentially as diverse as it was when Larry was President.
Would we attribute this apparent lack of progress to the ‘unconscious bias’ of the President? of the Deans? Of the faculty? of professor Gates? Would we blame Cornell West’s departure from Harvard on the failure of Professor Gates to do better? On Larry’s unconscious bias? Probably not.
Reasonable people would give them all the benefit of the doubt and recognize that it’s all very complicated.
Why is it then so hard to extend the officer who arrested Professor Gates, and Professor Gates himself, the same benefits, at least until a proper investigation is done? Why can’t we all, including President Obama, suspend judgment until all the facts are in? What makes some members of the Harvard faculty assume, implicitly of course, they should live by different standards than ordinary people have to live by?
Professor Skocpol has offered the best way to try to make sense of this sad and painful episode: the plot of Rashomon. This is a generous and pragmatic way to frame this controversy and to move forward.
The alternatives lead down very painful trends of thought. The possibility that an officer was racist and abused his power with a senior citizen because of the color of his skin. The possibility that a Harvard Professor chose to advance his ratings and income at the expense of destroying the reputation and career of a police officer, and perhaps in the process cause damage to the institution where he works and to the community where he lives. These possibilities simply cannot be.
Theda Skocpol must be right. It’s all a misunderstanding and it’s all very complicated and we should all watch the movies Rashomon, as well as Crash. And wait until the facts are in.
7/23/2009 12:03 pm
I’m sorry, but where did Skocpol make reference to Rashomon? Might you be thinking of Feste’s comment from the other day instead?
7/23/2009 12:22 pm
is Theda not Feste?
7/23/2009 1:54 pm
The White House now wants to “be clear” that Obama wasn’t calling the police stupid, though he still thinks they acted stupidly.
Maybe Sean chastised him on his language?
7/23/2009 1:57 pm
No, Theda is not Feste.
7/23/2009 2:01 pm
That’s what I thought Feste. Theda is always Theda. Interesting correction from Obama; i.e. time to move on.
7/23/2009 3:25 pm
I’m confused.
From The Boston globe: “Furthermore, Gates said that as a man who is “half white,’’…
From African American Political Blog; “Get this, Gates said that as a man who is “half white,’’
7/23/2009 3:29 pm
I’m flattered by the mistaken attribution. Theda’s no fool.
7/23/2009 4:27 pm
Sam Spektor, you’re probably confused because of the way in which “black” has traditionally been defined in our society: it’s perfectly possible to be “black” in America while also being the child of one white parent and one black parent.
7/23/2009 4:35 pm
I’m flattered that you think I have that kind of access, Harry. But the better explanation is that my call for charity was not all that original - thankfully - and that someone better placed than I thinks de-escalation is a good idea too.
7/23/2009 4:42 pm
Now Evelyn Higgenbotham has a letter on the Crimson web site expressing the outrage of her entire department.
I see zero possibility of this going away any time soon, what with Gates demanding that the officer “beg” for forgiveness (though he has not, apparently, filed a complaint about his behavior), and Faust, the department, and Obama all vocally his side. Sgt. Crowley seems not to be in a begging mood — and doesn’t sound stupid either, by the way.
7/23/2009 5:49 pm
I don’t get it. This is what they issued on Tuesday, obviously by agreement of both parties:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/cpd/News/NewsDetail.cfm?story_id=2250
It would have been better for EVERYONE if it had ended there, but it didn’t and now we’ve got the President of the United States, having misstepped at a live press conference on health care in the US, through Gibbs saying pretty much the same thing the parties agreed to on Tuesday:
Gibbs:
“I think what the President ultimately talked about was, obviously there was a point at which, inside of the house, both parties involved, probably recognizing that the situation originally responded to wasn’t what was actually happening, in terms of a crime being committed, and at that point — at that point cooler heads on all sides should have prevailed. I think that’s what the President was denoting in the ultimate arrest and the since dropping of those charges.”
It’s incredible to me that this is being kept going.
7/23/2009 6:04 pm
Judith,
I’m well aware of the way in which “black” has traditionally been defined in society (I was born in the middle of Harlem and went to largely segregated public schools… 75 percent non white and 25 percent white).
My confusion stems from the fact that I hadn’t realized that one of Skip’s parents was white. I’ve read Colored People (and enjoyed it very much), but don’t have it with me.
Here is what Skip says (in a Web piece) about his mother’s family “”When we were growing up, being a Coleman was a very big deal in Piedmont,” Gates wrote. “My uncles and aunts were very well though (sic) of. Most went as far at the paper mill as a colored could go in their respective trades, once the mill decided to allow blacks out of the loaders.” “The Colemans were the first colored to own guns and hunt on white land, the first to become Eagle Scouts, the first to go to college, the first to own property.”
Of his father (on the same Web site) “His father, who worked jobs as both a paper mill loader and as a janitor, told stories at the black Veterans of Foreign Wars club.”
My confusion, Judith, in the most simple terms is this: were either Skip’s father or mother white?
7/23/2009 6:35 pm
The AP is reporting that Sgt. Crowley has taught a class called “Racial Profiling” for five years at the Lowell Police Academy.
http://tinyurl.com/lenwud
7/23/2009 6:56 pm
I’m no expert on Gates’s ancestral heritage, but since he had his DNA tested to learn more about his ancestry, he has made much of the fact that he carries as much Western European genetic markers as he does African. (Slate article here: http://tinyurl.com/mabc77 ) This may be why I have seen recent news articles refer to Gates as biracial, but while I believe he has biracial children, I don’t know that he identifies as such himself. After his DNA was tested, Newsweek reports him as being surprised to discover his European heritage, “I’m thinking I’m a Brady and maybe I’m from Nigeria, and here I am descended from some white woman,” says Gates. “It’s incredible.”
http://tinyurl.com/mw2yvd
Of course, there has been a lot of skepticism about what such testing really reveals.
7/23/2009 7:04 pm
RT,
Everybody’s feet are now getting set in the once-wet concrete they stepped into. The new Gibbs statement seems to presume that Crowley lost his cool and was yelling at Gates the same way Gates was allegedly yelling at Crowley. I don’t think that’s been reported anywhere, though I haven’t tracked every word of this. Rather than just leaving it at saying the arrest was wrong, he’s sticking to his story that it was stupid.
My point was really (though I didn’t say it) that whatever this means for Gates, Crowley, and the U.S. of A., it’s awful for Harvard. We should not institutionally be picking sides in this and we don’t look good doing it. I know we protect our own (viz. Shleifer!), and if I got arrested on a bum rap because of some run in I had at home with the Brookline PD, I’m sure I’d be pleased that the president and the dean of engineering were making public statements about what a great guy I was. But I sure wouldn’t expect it, and as I sit here right now mostly interested in Harvard’s welfare, I don’t think it’s good to be grandstanding on an issue between a professor and the Cambridge police where the facts (except for the arrest itself) are in dispute.
7/23/2009 7:05 pm
Neither are you Richard 😉
7/23/2009 7:05 pm
I left a comment earlier that may have been blocked because of links (sorry if this now duplicates). I believe that Gates’s comments about being “half white” stem from the results of the DNA testing that he did to learn about his ancestry. He has made much of his surprise that the tests showed that he has as much European as African ancestry.
7/23/2009 7:09 pm
Well said Harry.
7/23/2009 7:12 pm
Is race in the genes? or is it a matter of identity? If you grow up thinking you are black, and DNA testing at an advanced stage in your life proves you are half white, does your identity then become white?
Most humans have African ancestry.
7/23/2009 7:13 pm
The Statement of the CPD settles it. It’s over for both parties, we should drop it too.
7/23/2009 7:17 pm
Governor Patrick has now expressed his views on the issue
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/cambridge_polic_3.html
What is going on?
7/23/2009 8:39 pm
.-
7/23/2009 9:01 pm
So RT, neither side is budging. The police union (unsurprisingly) and commissioner (more significantly) are standing with Crowley. Gates continues to give frexh interviews and to be unequivocal. He was asked on Sirius/XM radio what happened when Obama said the police acted stupidly, and he replied, “it was like a slot machine.” Interesting metaphor, referring to the number of emails he got suddenly. He went on, “I think that the circumstances are so egregious…that…it was the adjective that…logically popped into his head.… There’s nothing that I could have done to justify Sergeant Crowley’s action.”
7/23/2009 9:09 pm
And now the NYT reports Crowley’s version and has Gates flatly countering that he had “used no racial slurs,” “employed no profanity” and “made no threats.”
7/23/2009 9:10 pm
Another account of Gates’s Sirius/Oprah radio interview: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Gatess_version_A_rogue_cop_and_a_battle_of_wills.html?showall
SE will be disappointed to learn that Gates specifically denies saying “yo mama.” Others (including those who think Gates was seriously wronged, such as myself) may be disappointed that Gates continues to make grievously self-aggrandizing statements.
7/23/2009 9:47 pm
You’re right, Harry. This will keep going as long as it seems convenient to the parties involved, and the pity is it doesn’t help Harvard, or anyone particularly, at all.
Theda, I’m RT mostly because it’s less confusing if the blogger be the only Richard.
7/23/2009 10:47 pm
This is so discouraging. Gates is doubling down on the claim that he didn’t say ANYthing about the officer’s mama, and I find it impossible to believe him.
I almost wish I didn’t recognize the classic template of deceit SO easily in Gates’s overdetermined explaining-away of this detail. Reasons it can’t be true multiply and dance around each other, then stumble over each other, as Gates tries to riff on and reverse the overriding fact: this detail is so implausible it MUST be true. You simply can’t make this stuff up, and even if you could you never would.
First Skip tries to laugh off this moment that is so incongruous in the police report, and says that it must be false because it’s so absurd. (In point of fact, its absurdity is a VERY strong argument in favor of its being true.)
He accounts for the presence of the phrase in the police report with this:
“I think when they put together that report they did some historical research and watched some episodes of ‘Good Times’ or something.”
No, Skip, YOU’RE the one who does ‘historical research’ (odd that in this conspiracy theory it’s the cops who usurp the professor’s job) and uses phrases from the way the dozens were played forty or fifty years ago. You’re the one who bandies about old phrases as markers of your versatility and ironic retro-hipness, and does so with great brio and charm (so that they seep into your patterns of speech). And anyway, you’re obviously joking, but why DO you think this in the police report? Seriously.
And then here’s the NEXT sentence, multiplying the excuse and muddying the waters:
“What kind of black person today says [that] to a big white police officer?”
Skip, keep track of what you’re saying. Is your claim that you couldn’t have said such a thing “today,” because it’s so anachronistic? Or that you couldn’t have said such a thing when feeling threatened, because the cop was so big and menacing (and, yes, as you say, white)? Cause those are totally different reasons, and contradictory ones.
If the phrase is so anachronistic as to be a punchline only, an insouciant self-parody, then the cop couldn’t possibly be earnestly provoked by it, and his size doesn’t matter and should have been left out of the sentence. If on the other hand it’s deadly serious, ‘fighting words’ as Judith suggested, a dare to the cop to become brutal, then it’s not anachronistic and not implausible and has nothing to do with the show “Good Times.”
Opposite reasons the detail can’t be true. And yet here they appear in the same sentence.
It seems to me that in the course of saying that last sentence Gates realized that it wasn’t really a rhetorical question. “What kind of black person says stuff about ‘your mama’ today?” What kind indeed? The kind who’s cocky, insouciant, fun to be around, and knows the rich history of African-American verbal fencing and point-scoring. An intellectual occupying two worlds and several eras, and tongue in cheek in all of them: authentically black, ready with the quips, but also making them parodies of themselves at the same time, winking to indicate that his feelings are much more sophisticated than an assertion about your mama, because he is, after all, the University Professor.
The anachronism is pure Skip. And the cockiness is also pure Skip; I believe he’s denying saying the phrase now because he can see that the cockiness involved in talking about someone’s mama would, in the public sphere, undermine his story of being afraid. (The truth is more complicated. Worse still, deeper down, he suspects that the cockiness might be intertwined with, an overlay on, the ways in which he has sometimes, including perhaps last week, truly been afraid of white power.)
And the cockiness he truly felt at the time (coexistent with the fear and anger that made him fly off the handle) undermines his current self-deluding narrative about being “chosen” to represent all black people oppressed by racist cops. (Really, Skip? God visited this affliction on you to make you a martyr to the cause of racial profiling? I think maybe this is a cup you should let pass from you.) As he denies specific elements of the police report he builds his fortress of self-delusion higher (this at least is what I fear — perhaps I am wrong, which would be a relief. But I feel 80% confident now that the policeman is telling a more reliable story).
Many many black people are indeed oppressed by racist cops. But I’m now quite far from believing that Skip was one of them in his initial conversation last week.
“I’ll talk to your MAMA outside.”
Impossible — absolutely impossible — to imagine a cop making that up, or including it if he wasn’t 100% sure that that’s what Gates said.
Let me sum up with an exhortation to the good professor, which should however be prefaced with the caveat that I am only 80% confident of anything in this “your mama” post. It’s possible that the policeman misheard Gates, or that he invented this detail in some moment of insane whimsy for his report, or that he and his buddies did some historical research. Or there may be some other explanation. But if I’m right that the cop isn’t lying, and that Skip did actually say this phrase, then I feel justified in exhorting him as follows.
Skip, in my eyes (for whatever that’s worth), you are burning a ton of credibility and undermining yourself in this attempt to laugh off the only detail in the police report that must ring true to any careful analyst — must ring true precisely BECAUSE it so implausible and anachronistic. It is way past time to STOP DIGGING.
People out there really are facing “temporary layoffs, easy credit rip-offs,” and so on. This is NOT a Good Time for you to pretend that your own brilliant riffing on African-American culture, your own self-fashioning over many hardworking decades as a man of two rich cultural worlds, is actually the blackface invention of a racist unlettered guy at a typewriter channelling Jimmie Walker.
Who would have thought this advice would ever need to be given to Skip Gates:
Don’t attribute your words to the white guy at the typewriter! Own them, accept and love yourself as a cocky SOB.
(And let Harvard and the US move on from this distraction.)
Everyone else loves and admires you as a cocky SOB too; I know that as your student in spring 1997, sometimes loudly disagreeing and always perplexed and LEARNING, I certainly did.
Standing Eagle
7/23/2009 10:55 pm
Hey, Mad @er! Great handle!
Much better than @-Man (which was my suggestion, obscured by an HTML fault).
7/24/2009 8:08 am
Do any of the responses here come from someone who considers him/herself black?
7/24/2009 10:17 am
The earlier post labelled “Theda” did NOT come from me. I ordinarily do not read this blog — and will shortly go back to that stance, If ever I do intervene, it will always be with my full name and with a completeness that will make it obvious it comes from me.
I listened to the radio accounts of both Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates. The former comes across as much more credible and less self-obsessed. The is a no-win for Gates and others trying to turn this murky town-gown incident into a template for racial wrongs in America. (I especially love Governor Patrick telling us it reminds him of the angst he felt as a teenager at Milton Academy! Memo to Deval: all teenagers have fears and uncertainties, and most do not suffer them in the posh surroundings of Milton Academy.)
As the HERALD points out today, release of the tapes and transmission time-lines will no doubt corroborate the officer and may even reveal Gates ranting in the background. There just is no public evidence so far to support the notion that this was a “rogue” officer or a person operating with racist intent, even if it was unwise in the end to arrest the misbehaving Gates.
After properly apologizing and dropping charges within one day of the unfortunate incident with its mutual misunderstandings, the Cambridge police are now taking the additional step of setting up a review panel. Speaking as a resident of Cambridge and a professor at Harvard, I regret that Obama’s very unwise national politicization of this incident has made this necessary. Talk about a “stupid” move, Mr. President; you need to stick to health care reform.
The goal for the Cambridge review is said to be coming up with guidelines to help police perform better in the future.
Here is my recommendation for the guidelines, which I would call: ELITE HARVARD PROFESSORS YOU DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH WITHOUT FULL BACKUP:
— issue to all Cambridge police a facebook and bios of the top ten most elite and arrogant Harvard professors who are well-connected to the President of Harvard and/or the President of the United States, and who have the national media pundits on their speed-dials. Include pictures and home and office addresses. The list should have Alan Dershowitz and Henry Louis Gates right at the top.
— if you get a call to their homes or offices for any reason, put on a slavishly deferential attitude, no matter what
— either do whatever the Elite, Well-Connected Professor wants, or if you feel you have to do something else, check in first with the Chief of Police, Mayor of Cambridge, President of Harvard, and perhaps with the President of the United States. Get them at your back before you ask anything, or do anything, to the Elite, Well-Connected Professor.
— following these guidelines MIGHT help you avoid being stereotyped and condemned in the national media. And might help Cambridge avoid spending a lot of money and official time investigating you.
These same guidelines and face-book entries would help non-elite Harvard professors, too. None of us should want to mess with Skip Gates, or Alan Dershowitz, or their ilk. Too dangerous. They will show us they are “not to be messed with.”
7/24/2009 10:32 am
Good post, Theda!
Been watching for your input to the health-care prognostication. Think it’ll get done? Think it’ll be the much-needed thin end of the wedge toward phasing out the for-profit health-insurance business (or at least correcting its business model)?
Bated breath, seriously. I know Obama is playing the long game. I pray he can win it; will we know by, say, Halloween whether he has done it or not?
SE
7/24/2009 10:38 am
Brilliant, Theda, and also correct.
7/24/2009 11:00 am
Key quote from Sgt. Crowley:
“I told him who I was, as is contained in the report; he asked me a second time in the house, which I responded to him — but I am not at all surprised that Prof. Gates either doesn’t recall or won’t admit hearing that, because he was yelling so loud. He was yelling over my attempts to communicate with him, so it’s not surprising to me that he didn’t get it.”
7/24/2009 11:36 am
Professor Skocpol,
Great post
7/24/2009 12:26 pm
I would like to elaborate on Harry’s point, in that I wish Harvard officialdom had made a more neutral statement, of the form, “We offer our heartfelt personal support for Skip Gates, a professor who has taught and served with distinction at Harvard for many years. As the facts of the case are in dispute, we can offer no further official comment at this time.”
As Harry knows, I have served on Harvard Administrative Board (the disciplinary board for undergraduates) for several years. When a dispute like this arises among students, or in cases of cheating when there are discrepancies in the stories of students and professors, we are required to dispassionately investigate, and not let our own biases sway our course of action. Shouldn’t that be serving as our example here? My understanding (which seems to match that of several commenters) is that in this case there are many significant disagreements as to what occurred and what was said, and as far as I know, nobody from the Harvard administration was actually there. While some in our community might be naturally inclined to believe the police and others the professor, and everyone has the right to their own personal opinion, there’s no reason for anyone in an official position at Harvard to take a side on this issue, which doesn’t directly involve the Harvard administration in any way that I can see, especially without a demonstrated knowledge of the facts.
7/24/2009 12:53 pm
Actually, Michael, you don’t go quite far enough. Gates was not arrested in China. We are institutionally taking sides against the police force of the city in which we work. When Harvard remembers to do so, it tries to treat Cambridge as family too, so we are picking sides in a murky issue where we are going to have both sides as family members when the dust settles.
Also, to correct one red herring I introduced awhile back, I was confusing a house Gates used to own on Francis Avenue, a short distance away, with this house on Ware St, which apparently is owned by Harvard, and to which Gaytes must have moved in the past few years. Ware St is not as fancy as Francis Ave.
7/24/2009 3:09 pm
David Gergen (on the NY Times “Room for Debate” blog today) repeats the error that Gates was arrested in his home. He was arrested on his porch in public view. This is not a trivial distinction. The arrest would have been illegal in his home: it would not have been disorderly conduct under the law. Officer Crowley asked Mr. Gates to step outside not so that he could legally arrest him but because at that time (as he said) he had reason to believe that intruders could still be in the house. This is standard police procedure in such circumstances. Gergen should get his facts straight before he accuses public officials. Pundit professors still have an obligation to the truth, even if they are paid by CNN.
7/24/2009 3:36 pm
Meanwhile Obama has done the right thing, retracted his use of the word “stupidly”, talked on the phone with Crowley, and suggested Gates and C. may each have overreacted. If THIS doesn’t end it, then the S-word will need to be redirected.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528608
7/24/2009 3:54 pm
Here’s the video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/obama-addresses-gates-rem_n_244518.html
7/24/2009 4:36 pm
I think this is a very classy move by Obama. He may be the only person who is in a position to make this work, though I confess I held out hope that Mayor Simmons and President Faust would work together to mediate the dispute.
7/24/2009 5:22 pm
Great post, Prof Skocpol.
7/24/2009 5:57 pm
What an incredibly classy man Obama is.
“Obama, speaking at his White House press conference, added that there has been discussion of having Gates and Crowley over to the White House for a beer, and that he hoped the affair could serve as “a teachable moment” encouraging “all of us…[to] spend a little more time listening to each other.” Obama said that he and Crowley had also exchanged friendly banter about getting the press off their lawns.”
There is indeed a balm in Gilead. And this first black President is the BALM.
SE
(Just realized that I seem to have stolen Sean’s descriptor, ‘classy.’ It’s really the best word, isn’t it?)
7/24/2009 6:00 pm
In his absence (an all-too-frequent occurrence these days, I might add), our Blogger has asked me to convey to commenters a request to limit their remarks to Twitter-length (140 words). Apparently, the servers are overheating….
7/24/2009 6:12 pm
Tweet, tweet.
7/24/2009 6:27 pm
Mexican Drug Violence has apparently been partaking of his own product.
7/24/2009 8:44 pm
There are audio recordings of the incident that will show Prof. Gates out of control and shouting vulger remarks about the officers mother. I think the wealthy Prof. should have let this go instead of making the media rounds trying to destroy the working class cop who is supported by people of all races.
7/24/2009 9:03 pm
…
7/24/2009 9:22 pm
As it becomes apparent that Professor Gates misrepresented the facts, using his affiliation with Harvard University in the process, President Faust must be considering what kind of disciplinary action would be appropriate in this case.
Four years ago Professor Martin Weitzman in the Department of Economics was disciplined because he took an estimated $600 worth of cow maneure from a field without properly compensating the owner.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506946
Similarly Professor Schleifer in the Economics department lost his named chair over a situation where he divulged confidential information about his work in Russia to his wife. Information she alleged used to personally benefit in making investments based on that information.
How much is the damage caused by Professor Gates worth? Would President Faust take responsibility in asking a disciplinary committee to investigate this case?
Failure to doing this would signify a clear endorsement of Professor Gates’ actions and of his public and notorious use of his Harvard affiliation as he defamed the Cambridge police.
Would the many Harvard professors who have expressed their views over this incident on this blog have the courage to demand their President to responsibly protect the institution she was entrusted to protect and represent? or will they all instead be complicitious in the sufferings of this republic?
7/24/2009 10:00 pm
Professor Shleifer apparently treated his Harvard affiliation and friendship with Larry Summers as if they were a get-out-of-jail free card. Harvard’s willingness to protect him and to pay the lion’s share of his fine remains an outrage, which I still think Harvard should repudiate.
The conflict of interest disclosure issues among HMS faculty with big pharma also disturb me greatly.
Although Prof. Gates might have made some questionable choices in his failure to defer respectfully to police requests, his transgressions pale in comparison to the above.
As a former Harvard affiliate, and as a parent of a recent graduate, I’m greatly heartened by the sensible and thoughtful comments posted by Professors Lewis, Mitzenmacher, and Skocpol.
I’m also greatly heartened by President Obama’s willingness to correct his initial precipitous remarks. I hope President Faust will consider hers as well
7/26/2009 11:51 am
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7/29/2009 6:01 am
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