Allegations of racial profiling after Harvard professor arrest

This is my neck of the woods, and I have been following this story all day and I still don't know who is telling the truth.

You have the Boston Herald reporting that he did not show his ID, and pulled a "do you know who I am" speech.


If this is true, then I don't care who you are if police get called for a possible break in you need to corporate.

Then you have the opposite angle from the Boston Globe.


Who is right, and why are the stories so conflicting? Usually the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I am sure both parties involved over reacted. But even now that the charges have been dropped, Al Sharpton needs to get his fill. This guy is a vulture. He already has ridiculous quotes like this.

“I’ve heard of driving while black, and I’ve heard of shopping while black. But I’ve never heard of living in a home while black,” said Sharpton, a New York minister who has made a national name for himself by seizing on cases of alleged racism.

I really hope I don't have to listen to this story any longer than today.

One word: AGENDA!

Here is a prominent professor being arrested trying to enter his own home. I asked myself WHY is the President of the United States commenting on this??

Turns out Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (1) and an acquaintance of our President!

This stinks! But the good news is their wicked agenda is getting more and more see-through all the time!

1 - www.mega.nu:8080...

Originally posted by deadoralive
Listen to this guy.. The last minute or so is very disturbing.

What the hell is this world become?

LMAO as a black dude myself I wanna say most black people dont think like weirdoass guy.

This dudes a stupidass racist. Pathetic. A lot of black people arent racist, just as a lot of white people arent racist.

Racists suck and bigots suck

All racists are scum whether they white or black or latino....etc.

Peace!



[edit on 23-7-2009 by jeasahtheseer]

Turns out there is a bit of a cover up going on. What a surprise right? Here is the incident report, which indicates pretty clearly that it was gates who was instigating the arrest and the only one who suggested anything racial.

www.amnation.com...

Apparently, the Boston Globe had put this on their site and then removed it because it showed the truth about the story.

www.boston.com...
blogs.telegraph.co.uk...

Update: the police report describing Gates’s hysterical behaviour has apparently disappeared from the Boston Globe site. Strange, don’t you think?

Posted by jeasahtheseer

LMAO as a black dude myself I wanna say most black people dont think like weirdoass guy.

This dudes a stupidass racist. Pathetic. A lot of black people arent racist, just as a lot of white people arent racist.

Racists suck and bigots suck

All racists are scum whether they white or black or latino....etc.

Peace!

I know that. It just boggles my mind how this stupid ass guy can get away with saying this on TV and get an applause for saying it It'd be like me going on TV and saying we need to exterminate black people! But that would never happen coz im not racist and never will be bruv.

[edit on 23-7-2009 by deadoralive]

Just going to comment on one aspect of this and that is he presented his id with his address on it. My id has the house i lived in three houses ago on it. presenting an id doesn't mean you actually live there, and most people don't forget their house keys.

reply to post by Wimbly


Ya, I read the police report yesterday and Gates should just walk away. Obama is now going to look foolish as well. When he was questioned about it last night.

source
If say you don't know the facts, why would you say that the police acted stupidly? Doesn't make sense.

And this so called racist, tried to save Reggie Lewis when he died.
story

And for the people who don't remember Reggie Lewis he was a famous pro basketball player who died young.

Did anybody bother to notice the two BLACK OFFICERS that were also on scene?

I can only assume, and hope, that they too will be accused of racial profiling....against their OWN RACE.

When you are being belligerent, multiple times, to a Police officer, you should expect to get arrested. The Professor did not handle himself properly and thus got arrested. Read the police report and the sequence of events and make your own judgment.

The Police officer handled the situation about as good as you can, when you have a report of a break in, a person who at first refuses to show ID or come outside and then keeps going off on the officer. It is racial, I agree, but it's the professor who is doing it. He wasn't arrested for being in his house, it was his actions toward the police that did it.

If you are a jerk to a Police Officer long enough, they are probably going to arrest you, you shouldn't be surprised by that.

Was placed undr arrest at //// Ware street, after being observed exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, In a public place, directed at a uniformed police officer who was present investigating a report of a crime in progress.

The only reason that phrase is used in the report is because that was his crime for doing it in public. While in his home the proffesor had the right to say anything he wanted short of threatening the safety of the officer. The officer was pissed and used his training to trick the proffesor into leaving his home and in doing so lost his rights by being in public. And if you ask why would a professor do that sounds like he wasn't thinking because of losing his temper. The cop probly lost his temper to from being yelled at But is trained to think under stress and did so by figuring out how to trick the professor into allowing himself to get arrested. Notice the professor asked for the officers name repeatedly as the officer said i'll answer that outside. A officer has to give his name if not clearly visible on his uniform.

Who wants to bet that the MSM wont be nearly as vocal about this report or the actual facts of the case? They got their use out of it last night during the conference. Gates even has his daughter out playing up victim hood on all the networks.

Originally posted by deadoralive
Listen to this guy.. The last minute or so is very disturbing.

What the hell is this world become?

I'm sorta speechless about this guy! WTF? How did he come to the conclusion that it's all about white people wanting to kill black people!?

Of all the people who have things to say... how did THIS guy end up speaking on C-SPAN? geez...

By the way, I'm a white guy married to a black woman. I've helped dry rice in towns in Kenya, towns so small they don't even have running water or electricity. I was accepted by my wife's grandma and all the family.

This guy is making one huge assumption about "black" and "white" and he is way the heck off!!

His ignorance disgusts me to be honest.

The Cambridge police are known for being aggressive and sometimes just mean.

At the same time, there's a class difference between Gates and the police that was also at play, along with race. Gates, being a Harvard professor, belongs to the upper class while the cops are just working guys, and the cop may have resented what he believed was Gates' superior attitude.

I still think, though, that Gates was justified in being outraged that he was being accosted in his own home. He lived there. He even has a right to break a window if he's forgotten his keys. The burden of proving that Gates was committing any kind of unlawful act was on the shoulders of the police, and they did not handle the situation well.

Those of us who have not had the experience of being black in a predominantly white world probably cannot appreciate what it feels like to be racially profiled. Barack Obama has written of his standing in front of a restaurant when a man threw him his keys, expecting him to park his car.

Then there was the reaction of his neighbor, who saw a "black man" entering Gates' house and called the police in the first place. Did the neighbor jump to conclusions based on Gates' race? It's hard to know now.

Both the police and Gates overreacted. I think the situation has been settled now, hopefully to everyone's satisfaction.

Not every case of profiling or suspected profiling has been resolved so easily, though.

reply to post by MegaCurious


That's pretty much how i think about the situation, i don't even read posts that involve discrimination, prejudice, or racism because it's always the same..folks need to read through the multitude of posts on ATS and see how this issue is tackled. Quite frankly, i'm tired of debating those that don't realize that they have some racist attitudes and ideas themselves..its one of the reasons why i don't frequent GLP.

If an article shows up on this site that involves racism against black people we get that "oh your playing the race card", or the "it isn't racism at all" just a misunderstanding, saying just about everything except owning to the fact that yea, THAT's racism. You get the few posters that see it as it is, but those peeps are few and far in between.

But if the discrimination is against white people its straight racism and prejudice. We don't get the "maybe we are seeing it wrong" or "there could be another reason as to why it happened" (thats usually reserved for racism against black folks). Those articles have posts that are ususally filled with comments like that its not fair, disgusting, etc. Funny how tones change when one factor is changed. It's surprising how far the pendulum swings the other way when white folks are offended..then its a problem. We get a 20/20 and Dateline special on it.

Honestly some white folk just don't get it. Some try some don't *shrugs*, it really is a conundrum..being black in America. Sorta damned if you do and damned if you don't.

The most disgusting part of this whole thing is the way that Obama referred to the police as stupid in their handling of this incident. Not questionable, or ill-advised - that would have been bad enough with the few facts we have, but stupid - that's disgusting.

We have a racially biased president.

The professor felt insulted that he was being asked for his ID after his neighbors reported a possible break in when they saw him forcing his front door.

Initially he refused, then complied, but became beligerent in the process - so he was arrested.

If you are pulled over for expired tags, but have valid tags thanks to a DMV screw up - your innocence does not entitle you to become belligerent with the officer - even if you're black.

[edit on 23-7-2009 by Retseh]

Crowley is telling his side of the story. It sounds to me like Mr. Gates was the stupid one here, not the officers.

story


Looks like Obama realized he had egg on his face. Good gesture on his part.

The other interesting point to note here is that the accused officer is actually the racial profiling trainer - i.e. he has been specifically selected to train officers about handling minority related incidents in a reasonable and professional manner.

The weight of opinion is slowly but surely shifting against Prof. Gates in this matter, and that in turn is making Obama look biased and quick to judge.

Hardly traits you find in a good president.

This little spat has caused him quite a bit of damage, you can be sure he will hide his personal racial agenda away in future, but I for one find it reassuring that we finally got a glimpse of the real Barack Obama.

Obama really should have kept his stupidass mouth shut about this. GRRR I hate Obama! Everything he does boils my blood!

At first I was kinda on gates side but the more I read about this I see he most likely did flip out and cause a scene. He gets no sympathy from me anymore.

[edit on 24-7-2009 by jeasahtheseer]