Post-Modern Racism

I like my drama to be expensive, with good actors and with orchestra seats. I particularly like Edward Albee plays because I can identify with some of it. If it’s drama that I haven’t paid for, I cut the actors a little more slack. Being locked out of your house should not be that dramatic.
Most of us have locked ourselves out of our houses before. Sometimes we leave an extra key with a neighbor we like so we don’t have to hire a locksmith or jimmy it ourselves. Most of us would be very, very happy if our neighbors knew us well enough to see something going on across the street that might be a crime and called the police to report it. Most police officers would be delighted to know that it was a false alarm and once they knew that the owner was safely inside, that their job was done.

Why did none of these things happen for Professor Gates or Officer Crowley? Did the individual who called 911 know that Professor Gates and his wife lived there? Did the 911 operator ask who lived there or ask anyone to describe what he looked like? Why did each man react the way that they did?

Based on what has been reported (not that that is always accurate anyway), I can’t conclude it was all racism or that it was all the fault of one of them. I’m certain that Professor Gates has seen a fair number of police officers beat the crap out of African American men for exercising or advocating for their civil rights or for no apparent reason at all. I am sure that Officer Crowley realizes that there are African Americans who live in Cambridge and that some of them teach at local universities (in this case the university – Harvard).

From what I know in news accounts, this was a huge failure to really listen. The officer could have looked at the Professor’s ID, turned on one heel, bid the Professor a good night and walked away even if the Professor was surly in the process. Professor Gates could have stopped himself from assuming that every question a white man in uniform asks him is a personal affront that is symbolic of Jim Crow days, especially since he clearly had the intellectual upper hand. Part of listening – not just hearing words but actually listening to them – is to consider their source and the context in which the words are said. Neither man gets a free pass on that obligation.

The arrest was a public humiliation for both men, albeit more humiliating for Professor Gates. It never had to happen. I’m no fool. There are plenty of times that racial profiling is rampant in some communities, so much so that some of my friends are afraid of being picked up by a state trooper for DWB – driving while black. I voted for Barack Obama in the last election. He is smart enough to know that you don’t reflexively call a police officer’s actions “stupid” until you know all the facts or to publicly comment on your friend’s behavior or, in my view, to make the most condescending statement of all: that this particular event was a “teaching moment”, especially when there are plenty of better “teaching moments” that deal with racism. This was the Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s job, not the President’s. Patrick is African American and certainly knows who Professor Gates is. If I am wrong, my President is going to spend more of his time on this issue than any other. Maybe that’s the way it ought to be but if it is, we’ll end up with a brilliant one-term President who lost the independent voters that helped him make history. Too many other issues will go down the toilet and we’ll be right back where we started.

Several years ago, my sister, recently married to an epidemiologist who happens to be Indian, was pulled over on the New York State Thruway in Upstate NY. She was not speeding. She was stopped because she was white and her fiancé was dark skinned. All the officer asked her was if she knew the man sitting next to her and if “she was alright”. She confirmed that she was just fine, thank you very much, and went on – crying through the remainder of the trip at the humiliation her fiancé had just experienced. She was listening to every word the trooper said which translated into “I think you are being carjacked by someone you shouldn’t be with.” (Note: I would have ended up with mug shots if that had happened to me.) That would have made for a better “teaching moment” than the Gates/Crowley encounter. I say that because there can be no debate about what my sister and my brother-in-law experienced. The Gates/Crowley event has a little more nuance (starting with a 911 call that came from what I understand is a stable, relatively crime-free neighborhood. It is far too open to debate about exactly what we should expect from each party.

Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency came after a nearly flawless campaign; one that transcended race in ways that few neo-cons thought was possible. It’s naïve to think that the President won’t and shouldn’t avoid discussing these issues. To me, the President’s instinct came right from the heart. I just wish that in this case he had called his friend Deval Patrick at the Governor’s residence and asked him to get all the facts and handle it appropriately. There is no credible reporter that could have criticized that approach.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say. 40 years ago this year, a throng of lesbians and gay men had enough of NYPD raids on the places where they gathered. The Stonewall riots set into motion the modern LGBT civil rights movement. In 1992 while in law school, I was asked by a friend to speak to an auditorium full of parents – mostly white but fairly diverse - about the importance of including the children of gay parents in their curriculum, including the book, Heather Has Two Mommies. I gave my speech and was treated respectfully but not warmly, at least until I ended my remarks by telling that them that I was a gay man and had a mother and father just like their students did. In fewer than 5 seconds, I was shouted down, called epithets that I need not repeat here and was threatened with physical harm. Two police officers – one black and one white - grabbed me and hustled me out of the back door. They didn’t arrest me. They told me that they felt the need to walk with me to my car to make sure I wasn’t harmed. The black officer told me “you certainly have some balls, buddy…that was a tough room.” As I sat shaking in my car, I began to understand what I think people like Professor Gates lived through. I didn’t stop and will never stop advocating for full equality for all of us. I wish I remembered the name of the black officer so I could find a way to thank him but I wasn’t in any state of mind to commit it to memory. I didn’t stop my activism although I did make some changes in how I did it. I might not have any credibility as it relates to racism but I do know what discrimination feels like.