Life imitates art

Black scholar's arrest raises profiling questions

By MELISSA TRUJILLO (AP) – 35 minutes ago

BOSTON — Supporters of a prominent Harvard University black scholar who was arrested at his own home by police responding to a report of a break-in say he is the victim of racial profiling.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. had forced his way through the front door of his home because it was jammed, his lawyer said Monday.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home near campus after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates — the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research — initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.

"Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver's license and Harvard ID — both with his photos — and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com

He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." He was released later that day on his own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.

Gates, 58, also refused to speak publicly Monday, referring calls to Ogletree.

"He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the conversation continued after he showed his identification," Ogletree said.

Ogletree declined to say whether he believed the incident was racially motivated, saying "I think the incident speaks for itself."

Some of Gates' African-American colleagues say the arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling in Cambridge.

Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years, said he was stopped on campus by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.

"We do not believe that this arrest would have happened if professor Gates was white," Counter said. "It really has been very unsettling for African-Americans throughout Harvard and throughout Cambridge that this happened."

The Rev. Al Sharpton said he will attend Gates' arraignment.

"This arrest is indicative of at best police abuse of power or at worst the highest example of racial profiling I have seen," Sharpton said. "I have heard of driving while black and even shopping while black but now even going to your own home while black is a new low in police community affairs."

Ogletree said Gates had returned from a trip to China on Thursday with a driver, when he found his front door jammed. He went through the back door into the home — which he leases from Harvard — shut off an alarm and worked with the driver to get the door open. The driver left, and Gates was on the phone with the property's management company when police first arrived.

Ogletree also disputed the claim that Gates, who was wearing slacks and a polo shirt and carrying a cane, was yelling at the officer.

"He has an infection that has impacted his breathing since he came back from China, so he's been in a very delicate physical state," Ogletree said.

Lawrence D. Bobo, the W.E.B Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard, said he met with Gates at the police station and described his colleague as feeling humiliated and "emotionally devastated."

"It's just deeply disappointing but also a pointed reminder that there are serious problems that we have to wrestle with," he said.

Bobo said he hoped Cambridge police would drop the charges and called on the department to use the incident to review training and screening procedures it has in place.

The Middlesex district attorney's office said it could not do so until after Gates' arraignment. The woman who reported the apparent break-in did not return a message Monday.

Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 and holds one of 20 prestigious "university professors" positions at the school. He also was host of "African American Lives," a PBS show about the family histories of prominent U.S. blacks, and was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997.

"I was obviously very concerned when I learned on Thursday about the incident," Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. "He and I spoke directly and I have asked him to keep me apprised."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


Clever and funny Amos & Andrew satirizes stereotyping
Amos & Andrew

Written and Directed by E. Max Frye.
Starring Samuel L. Jackson
and Nicolas Cage.
Loews Cheri.

By John Jacobs
Staff Reporter

GoodFellas, White Sands, Jungle Fever, and Patriot Games to name a few. He's also in two movies now playing, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 and Amos & Andrew, which also stars Nicolas Cage, from Raising Arizona.

Jackson's character in Amos & Andrew is Andrew Sterling, a black playwright who's finally begun to experience success. He was on the cover of Forbes magazine. His plays have been on Broadway. He's finally able to afford a BMW and a summer house on an island, the residents of which are all very wealthy and, well, very white. It's when he drives in to spend his first night in his new home that events take an interesting turn. A well-meaning, but racist couple sees him in his own house and thinks, "[Gasp!] Look! There's a thief in the neighbor's house! That's probably the son's BMW is in the driveway! This must mean . . . My God! He's been taken hostage! That must be it. We all know what a black man is doing in an expensive house, right? He's stealing the stereo." The instructional video for the Neighborhood Crime Watch on this island must be a tape of the LA riots.

This movie pokes fun at this more passive type of racism which most of us call "stereotyping." All of the white people in this movie (with the exception of Amos) are comically small-minded characters stuck in a racist frame of mind that distorts everything they see. Because of their gross misinterpretations of events, the plot gets wildly out of control. Although the movie is a comedy, it makes having such sweepingly negative stereotypes look as irresponsible as it really is.

What I thought was unusual was how clueless the neighbors were. Didn't they see the "For Sale" sign in the yard? Don't they gossip with other neighbors? (I thought about the last time I moved. I was ten years old and I found out about it when, at my neighbor's house, I overheard him talking about it on the phone.) But then it hit me. Of course! Most rich people have at least two sets of neighbors. It's a requirement, right? And they are too important to actually talk to each other. Try and talk to rich people. See if they don't, no matter how they respond, make you feel like a salted slug.

Anyway, the racists stop strolling and call the chief of police, who's running for commissioner. Politically gifted, he realizes that this is his lucky night. He does what any candidate for commissioner would do in an election year -- he goes hard-core. He and his backups stake out the house. The policemen are inept (it's not NYC, you know, just some snooty island), so I understood when one of them tripped headlong into Andrew's car, setting off the alarm. Sterling wakes up, of course, because no one can sleep through one of those things. He goes outside to check it out, but he can't hear the officer over his car alarm, so he points his alarm silencer at the car and . . . What happens? Let me just say that Sterling may enjoy hearing the pitter-patter of little feet in his house, even the pitter-patter of rain on his roof, but not the pitter-patter of bullets through his front door. Alarm silencers should be banned, maybe -- just like super-soakers.

Eventually, the chief tries to call the "hostage," discovering that, (whoops!) he and his officers have just shot up Andrew Sterling's house-the Andrew Sterling. This is where Amos comes in. Amos is that loser pothead you went to school with back in high school who was always in trouble, but here he's disguised as Nicolas Cage. Amos was arrested for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor." "She looked eighteen," he responds. Ha, ha. It's a very old joke, but a good one, I guess. The chief has another flash of genius. He gives Amos a choice, telling him that he'll go free if he plays the part of the hostage-taker. If he doesn't, he'll get sent to a real prison as a "career criminal," which he really isn't; he's just a loser. Amos says yes, but he isn't as stupid as he looks, or as you remember him to be from high school.

The chief wants to use him as a trophy, so Amos takes Andrew hostage and demands a million dollars and a helicopter. But the pair escape from the house without being seen, and get to talking. Andrew, Amos says, sees racism where there isn't any; there's just bad luck. But then Andrew tells the sad story of his father, who gave 40 years of his life to some company. When he died a few weeks after retirement, only the black janitor came to the funeral. They reach a tacit understanding that they both suffer from negative stereotypes: one is a "nigger" and one is a "career criminal."

Meanwhile, the policemen, the press, and federal agents have stormed the house. The result is a well-filmed scene of confusion. Blocks away, Andrew helps Amos escape in a stolen Mercedes. Amos heads in the direction of Florida to start, we assume, a new and crime-free life. Andrew Sterling also has his vague catharsis, and they all live happily, except for the chief of course, who will be ruined by the press in one of its classic frenzies.

For a few minutes before the movie, I was worried that Cage, as the main comical character, would upstage Jackson in his more serious role as Andrew. But that didn't happen. Both actors had very commendable performances. The screenplay is clever, and the movie is, overall, well-done, coherent, and funny. All the characters are believable, and the film is, if not a must-see, definitely worth seeing.