Gates Arrest

So Professor Henry Louis Gates of Harvard was arrested on charges (now dropped) of disorderly conduct. He claims racial profiling and a racist police force are to blame. The stories from both sides differ in the critical component of whether or not Professor Gates supplied proper identification when requested. The police say that their request for ID was denied and that Professor Gates became disorderly and began to draw a crowd while calling the responding officer racist and asking, “do you know who I am.” Wonderful. While I wasn’t there and really am not fit to comment on these things with any knowledge other than my personal intuitions…I get the feeling I know who Dr. Gates is. He is the worst kind of intellectual elitist who has made a career off of racial bias. Should we expect any other response from a man so steeped in a world he perceives as total white hegemony…I think not. Of course, the “do you know who I am” is the icing on the cake here…because as a Harvard professor, what more do you need. Not only do you have a PhD but you teach at the most prestigious university in the country, how could we NOT know who he was. Furthermore, doesn’t that position absolve him of any wrong doing? Doesn’t knowing prominent leaders like the Mayor of Cambridge, the Governor of the Commonwealth, and the President of the United States entitle you to act like a small child without fear of rebuke. Gates thinks that it must. Dr. Gates is clearly a smart man and surely he must appreciate the notion that the police must respond in this fashion and that contrary to President Obama’s remarks, they have not acted stupidly. If Gates’ home had been the victim of a robbery attempt and the police had not responded would this also draw cries of racism, would Mr. Obama think they were smart to have let such actions go for fear of being perceived as racist? Certainly not. Patrick OUT!!!