Arrest of Prominent Black Scholar Triggers Charges of Racial Bias
Jul 27th, 2009 • Posted in: News Issue vaults to front pages when president says police acted “stupidly”
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
An incident involving race, ethics, and sensibilities echoed from a Cambridge doorstep to the White House last week, as President Obama weighed in on the arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates.
Gates charged that his arrest, after he and another black man were seen attempting to force open the door of Gates’s house, which Gates said was jammed, was racially motivated. The officer who arrested Gates said that the professor became unruly.
The arrest stirred vigorous, sometimes vituperative debate in various forums, including unsurprisingly talk radio. Critics claimed the arrest was symptomatic of residual racism. Supporters of the police and police officials, including the Cambridge police commissioner, insisted that the officer acted appropriately and without any racial motivation, the Boston Globe reports.
On Monday, the Cambridge police department released the audio recording of the 911 call that brought police to Gates’s house. The caller does not allude to race, says she sees suitcases on the porch, and notes, “I don’t know if they live there and they just had a hard time with their key, but I did notice they had to use their shoulders to try to barge in,” reports the Boston Globe.
The incident vaulted to the front pages of major newspapers and to the top of the lineup on the network news after President Obama, asked about the case during a press conference, conceded he did not know all the particulars but declared that Cambridge police had “acted stupidly.”
Obama’s remarks, reports the Hill, drew the ire of police unions and the officer himself, a sergeant who had taught classes on how to avoid racial profiling.
By week’s end, Gates and the officer who arrested him both said they would accept the president’s defusing offer to meet at the White House for a beer, reports UPI.
Sources: Boston Globe, July 27 — UPI, July 25 — Boston Globe, July 23 — Hill, July 23.
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