The Man

The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates is a quintessentially American phenomenon: a chance to have a serious debate about a serious issue which instantly devolves into the equivalent of enraged chimps hurling their own feces at one another.

I have thought about each side of this story, a simple step that most commentators clearly have not taken, and I'm left with one overarching conclusion: the huge majority of white people are fundamentally ignorant about police.

From many corners, though mostly from conservatives, comes this bewildering query: why would anyone in that situation feel angry at or threatened by the police? These people have no idea what it feels like to encounter police in similar circumstances.

These are also the types of people who fetishize the military, the CIA, the cops, basically anyone with a gun, as being beyond reproach or threat of criticism. Yes, for these people, the government can't do shit right, but any government employee with a gun is automatically ethical and trustworthy. It's really a rather interesting dynamic.

I can't speak as a black man, but I have been stopped and searched either on foot or while driving by police about 10 times in my life. I've never been arrested. Through these encounters, I have learned things about police, things which Gates' haters can't seem to comprehend.

Firstly, at 30 years of age I still find it absurd that anyone younger than myself can be a police. Young men make fine soldiers but terrible police. Young men are not capable of understanding the fundamental job of a police officer. Protect and serve. That's all.

I know one police personally, a few years younger than me. I asked him when he finished training whether there had been any instruction in law or the Constitution, especially as regards probable cause when searching suspects. The chilling yet unsurprising answer? None.

So for people who think police are perfect, here's what happens during an encounter with any police: they decide whether or not you are suspicious. If they decide you are suspicious, you are at their mercy. They will stop you. They will search you. They will arrest you if they want to.

Once a police decides you are suspicious, that is the "probable cause" with which to treat you as a hostile. "You don't mind if I look through your car, do you?" If I say "Yes, I do mind", the police will use my assertion of my rights as evidence that I am guilty of something, and therefore "probable cause" to search without my consent. So you have rights, but if you invoke them, that is evidence of your guilt.

The only way people could not understand this is if no police has ever thought they were suspicious. And good for them. That must be really nice. But most young men, and nearly ALL black men of all ages, have been classified as inherently suspicious by a police at some point in their lives.

Once a police decides you are suspicious, you have to surrender to his will or consign yourself to arrest. Why? Because these interactions are all about them. About the police. About them making sure that you know who is in charge. And that's what happened here.

Gates was arrested for not kissing the ass of the police, essentially. He dared challenge their authority. And he was right, but most police are not capable of looking at that side of things. Gates was arrested to soothe the ego of the police he sassed, no more and no less.

Who, I might ask, was being protected and served by arresting this 58 year-old cane-aided man in his own home? Nobody and nothing was protected or served, save the ego of the arresting officer.

Now, in terms of the police's point of view, I heartily and readily acknowledge that they have a difficult job to do. Of course. And in responding to a citizen's call about a possible burglary, the police were simply doing their job by responding and attempting to discern the identity of the man in the house in question. And I'm sure that Gates treated the police with contempt and scorn that he probably did not deserve or directly provoke.

The interesting thing is that Gates was not arrested because he was black; his (surely old, white) neighbor called the cops because Gates was black, setting this whole charade in motion, but Gates' arrest was not due to his color. It was due to his condescension.

Gates pulled the race card, yes, but he also pulled the Harvard card. And if I was that police, that would have pissed me off something fierce. Gates pulled the old "do you know who I am?" card. The old "I play poker with your boss" card. The old "I teach at HARVARD, so I'm obviously much smarter than you" card. And if I had to guess, that was what got him arrested.

The larger point is this, though: the police should have walked away. If you get to carry a Glock around in my name, you'd better have thicker skin than was shown here. And middle-aged white men need get their shit together and acknowledge: the guys with guns are the very ones who should not be assumed to always be in the right.