Professor Gates' Disconnect

By now, we all know which facts are beyond dispute: Harvard professor/celebrity Henry Louis Gates came home to Cambridge from a trip, found his front door jammed, and enlisted his driver in forcing it open. Someone observing the scene called police and reported it as a break-in. Police officers arrived, questioned Gates, and eventually learned that he did indeed live at the house.

We don't know who said what wrong thing first, or how the incident escalated, but Gates was not pleased with some part of the encounter, and asked the investigating officer for his name and badge number. The officer exited Gates' home through the front door, Gates followed him, and was arrested on his front porch for disorderly conduct. The charges were quickly dropped.

Gates has discussed the incident as if it is an example of how black men in America are treated by police. He's right about part of the equation. If you're an average guy in an encounter with a police officer, his badge gives him license to hold all negative attitudes -- yours and his -- against you. Unless and until all the traditional negative attitudes have disappeared from black-white encounters, a black man running into a white cop is likely to end up on the receiving end of a few more negatives than his white neighbor crossing the path of that same cop. Gates, like Leroy Average Brother, has reason to think that his close encounter with police went sour more quickly than it would have if he looked different.

Gates probably knows that there are Harvard professor/celebrities who would have been treated like the big shot pillars of the community they consider themselves to be. "Very sorry sir, nothing personal. All we knew was that we got a phone tip that two men were breaking in the front door. We're glad it turned out to be a false alarm, and we want you to know we're here for you in case the call is real next time. Are you all set with getting that door fixed?"

It's also probable that what Gates got instead was tone and body language that said something more like, "Who the hell are you to be questioning me? You're lucky I didn't dent your skull for taking too long to show me some ID." It's a very rare black man vs. police encounter where both behave as if law enforcement is the side that has to be careful and accommodating. Almost every black man in America knows that he doesn't have status that trumps a police officer's feeling that he is freer to vent on you than your neighbor.

Galling as that fact may be, though, it's still worth Gates' time to recognize that while he may have been lined up for disrespect for the same reason as Mr. Average Brother, that dis took far less severe form than Leroy would have expected. Insert Leroy into the scene -- upscale neighborhood, report of a burglary, front door forced open, Leroy Average Brother found inside -- our boy Leroy is lucky to avoid becoming the latest Amadou Diallo. If Leroy happens to go unshot, he'd know to cut his losses at the scene, hold his temper and tongue, and express any irritation about the incident to someone other than the offending officer. And if Leroy couldn't help venting his frustration, even if only by running off at the mouth, he'd likely have some cuts, bruises and lumps to show for it, along with some extra charges like resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Gates told officers that he was uncomfortable with his arms cuffed behind his back and the arresting officers loosed his wrists and recuffed them in front of him. Think they would have done the same for Leroy?

If the reaction to Gates' trauma is something less than boiling outrage even from the Leroys of America, it's probably not because they think race is no factor in police treatment of black men. It's more likely that folks are feeling the disconnect between Gates' treatment and his reaction.

If Gates had received the Leroy treatment, had lumps on his head, broken bones and swollen eyes, there'd be a wave of anger as a result. Millions would be upset at the demonstration that the wrong appearance makes you unsafe from the police in your own home. Getting denied the upper-crust treatment you think you've earned doesn't quite have the same widespread resonance. This is not nearly Rodney King; it's a bit more like Oprah being turned away from the Hermes shop in Paris.

The most obvious solution when you're denied the BMOC/HNIC treatment: make the mope recognize that he should have known who he was messing with. Make some phone calls. Pull some strings. Get the guy transferred to a hellhole. Or fired. Behind the scenes, leaving no fingerprints. Let him and his former coworkers suspect that the day his life started to spiral downhill was the day he got on your bad side.

Gates will serve his image well if he can get satisfaction for his personal insult in that kind of private way. He'll make better use of his public platform by focusing attention on how Leroy gets treated.