Commentary: Professor arrested for 'housing while black', page 1

Two steps forward, three steps back. This sure seems like pandering to the lowest common denominator and the perpetuation of stereotypes. They need to clean house at CNN.

(CNN) -- Last Thursday, President Obama, in his fiery speech before the NAACP Convention, admitted that "an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a prison." But he surely couldn't have imagined that only a couple of hours before his oration, one of America's most prominent scholars -- and a distinguished professor at Obama's alma mater, Harvard University -- would breathe cruel and ironic life into that sad statistic.

Dramatize much?

Several features of the story scream the presence of lingering bias and racism. A black man in a tony neighborhood simply seems out of place, even to his neighbors.

This, guy, apparently a friggin' proFESSOR of sociology thinks it's grand to find specters without supporting evidence.

Had Gates been a white professor trying to get inside his home, and called on his driver to help him jar his door open, he probably wouldn't have as readily aroused the suspicion of neighbors. And when police arrived to check out the premises, they probably wouldn't have been nearly as ready to believe the worst about the occupant of a home who clearly wasn't engaged in a criminal act.

This is complete drivel. Fed to the people of the world as acceptable by racist loudmouths. Plastered on the front page of CNN for WHAT purpose?

Whatever one believes about what happened, Gates clearly wasn't the beneficiary of the benefit of the doubt, a reasonable expectation since he posed no visible threat.

As if ANYONE gets the benefit of the doubt anymore? Please, prof. It doesn't matter what color you are.

It is also striking that Gates seems to be the victim of a police mentality that chafes at a challenge of its implicit authority. While that may be true for folk of all races, it seems especially galling to cops to be questioned by a person of color.

Ok..by this point I am infuriated. It almost seems as this 'supposed' man of higher learning is purposely trying to create, or nurture a rift between races.

Gates' crime appears to be a new one in the litany of crimes that black folk commit by virtue of their very existence -- in this case, HWB, or housing while black. If a famous and affluent black man in his own home can be accosted, arrested and humiliated, then all black folk can reasonably expect the same treatment.

I knew better than going to CNN anyway. Why are they doing this? Are they trying to rile people up? Maybe some riots would help smooth things over?

I know this trend has been addressed before. I was reluctant to believe that there are still people willing to speak out with hateful, biased, racist stereotypes and have it put out in front of everybody on the evening news.