Maybe Not Race

There is on openleft.com today a post, by veteran blogger Ian Welsh, entitled "The Gates Conundrum: Racism or Police Authority." Mr. Welsh describes his own approach to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates and quotes approvingly Scott Greenfield, who commented on Simple Justice: A New York Criminal Defense Blog

But there is similarly a possibility, based upon a larger experience by those who follow the conduct of police officers, that this was unrelated to Henry Louis Gates' race. This encounter could have, and has, happened to whites as well as black, to Hispanics as well as Asians. To old women and young men.

Henry Louis Gates was arrested for engaging in "tumultuous" behavior. Only in Cambridge would the complaint use the word "tumultuous". But many a man forced from his castle upon the command of a police officer who refused to accept that he was at home would have been outraged. Tumult seems an appropriate way to act. The crime was Gates' hurling words at Sgt. Crowley at a time when the sergeant commanded him to be obsequious and compliant. Gates would not calm down. There is no law that requires him to be calm because a police officer ordered him to do so. Other than the expectation that we do what an officer tells us to do, no matter what.

It may well be that what happened to Henry Louis Gates reflects, as he is accused of screaming at Sgt. Crowley, "what happens to a black man in America." Because the black man happens to be the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, perhaps the pre-eminent black scholar, it will open a discussion that we still need to have, black president notwithstanding.

It is also possible, however, that what happened to Henry Louis Gates is the outgrowth of the conflict between law and order, order represented by police who have been empowered, in our post 9/11 age, to believe that their every command is the law, that our blind obedience is mandatory. Other than a few old-timers on the Supreme Court who live in a fantasy world where ordinary people can assert their rights and refuse to comply with the command of a police officer with impunity, this encounter between a distinguished scholar, within his own home, and a police sergeant who believes that his command is sufficient to create the divide between citizen and criminal, may offer the chance to question who commands whom in our society.

Perhaps Henry Louis Gates suffered the experience of a black man in America. Perhaps he suffered the experience of all men in America. The conversation needs to include both possibilities, as neither one is acceptable.

In the category of quibbling: it's a little unfair to charge that the police officer commanded Gates to be "obsequious and compliant"- compliant, sure; obsequious, a little much. Similarly, it's a (minor) stretch to argue that police typically "believe that their every command is the law." It is a major stretch to argue "As the picture came into focus, reports firmed up the details of Gates' encounter with Sgt. Crowley" given that these "reports" appear to come from the subject's lawyer, fellow Harvard professor Charles Ogletree.

Worst of all is the crack about the Boston-area university, Harvard, by the New York attorney, who claimed "Only in Cambridge would the complaint use the word "tumultuous." Mr. Greenfield: say what you wish, the Red Sox are still better than the Yankees.

But Greenfield's theme is justified. He notes "perhaps he suffered the experience of all men in America" (maybe women, too, but there still are far fewer women than men arrested). Officer Crowley less likely reacted because of racial animus or even racial consciousness than because he is a police officer, and Gates is not. Or as Welsh more generously puts it,

I don't think it's necessary to invoke racism to explain officer Crowley's behaviour. He was disrespected by someone who didn't obey his every command. To his mind he was even lenient, he gave his orders multiple times. Gates stepped out of line and needed to be put in his place, not because he was black, but because he was a civilian who wasn't doing what a police officer told him.

This demonstrates yet another problem with Obama's comments at his press conference about the incident. Not only did he smear police departments generally with the implied charge of racism, the President managed, indirectly, inadvertently, and paradoxically, to absolve this nation's police culture of a more common failing. Too often, as Welsh observes, "something as simple as a question is interpreted by many policy as a direct assault on their authority."

Some of this may be unavoidable, especially with crime being more common in the United States than almost anywhere else in the developed world. Still Welsh, a Canadian resident, does not surprise when he comments, "I don't fear Canadian police the way I do American ones." This reflects a syndrome- not born of paranoia- that is increasingly common in American society. Hopefully, the concern/obsession with the role of race which dominates much of our nation's educated class does not blind those individuals to the need to consider bigger problems.