Hey, White People with White Kids

[tblue37]

42. Henry Louis Gates is a prominent scholar and Harvard professor.

He is well-known, but not well-known among cops, I presume. (OJ Simpson was well-known to cops, so that allowed him a significant degree of consideration from them.)

But Henry Louis Gates both Black and not well-known to cops, so his interactions with a cop was a bit less cordial.

When he was returning from a trip, his neighbor called the cops to report a burglary, since a Black man was entering a nice house in the neighborhood, so of course she assumed he must be a burglar. Isn't that the typical profile of a burglar--elderly, standing on the front porch with a suitcase, working a key in the door?

Well, he was Black, so I guess for some people that alone justifies suspicion.

The (white) cop shows up and badgers and verbally bullies this distinguished professor in his own home, but instead of kissing the cop's tushy and behaving with an "acceptable" degree of submissiveness, Gates gets annoyed and complains that he is being hassled in his own home for being Black.

The cop is pi**ed off because this Black man is not properly respecting his "authoritah" so he first follows him into his house--without being invited to--and then tricks him into stepping out on the porch, where the bullyboy cop immediately cuffs and arrests him.

And for those who complain about Obama's failing to respond forcefully to the Ferguson situation the way they want him to, my response is that they need to remember what happened when Obama dared to make the obvious point that this young bullyboy cop's racist hassling and arresting of such a distinguished man as Henry Louis Gates was "stupid."