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Analysis: Gates Arrest a Signpost on Racial Road

by JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer , July 23, 2009

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It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America's most prominent Black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it's not just another episode of profiling; it's a signpost on the nation's bumpy road to equality.

 

The news was parsed and tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all, Dr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates: summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, acclaimed historian, Harvard professor, and PBS documentarian. He was named one of Time magazine's “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997 and holds 50 honorary degrees.

 

If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average Blacks can expect in 2009?

 

Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

 

“My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness,” he said Tuesday. “Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to White law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever.”

 

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a White police sergeant arrived.

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Comments posted here may be reprinted in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine, and may be edited for purposes of clarity and/or space.



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