MY president weighed in on the Gates arrest and said pretty much what every right-thinking person has said on the subject in specific and the subject in general. Take a peek:
Again, I don’t feel the need to say much about this because what all went wrong here is pretty much obvious. But I’ve heard from friends of mine that there are white folks who still absolutely do not get it. “He should have been more polite” is your first step into Failandia, people. Don’t take the second.
Any time someone tries to tell me that racism is no longer a real problem, that the police don’t have a huge race problem, or that “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about,” I will point to this story and then probably hit them upside the head while they’re distracted.
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Is there supposed to be something there like a quote from Obama? It looks like there is, but it’s not showing up.
It was refreshing that the President was willing to speak plainly on this and give his view that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly”. It’s ridiculous to think that the president’s role on something like this should be to stand aside and discount it as a local police matter. It’s not — it’s yet another example of institutional racism in America. The haters will come out over this seemingly simple question and simple answer NYT Opinionator. It will be interesting to see if this is a turning point in Presidential demeanor and plain language, something where Obama ends up stepping back, or just a non-issue that will flare briefly then fade with the next poor economic report.
Pres. Obama reached conclusions and decided who acted wrongly despite, in his own words, not knowing all the facts of the case.
Well, why should he be different than every other person in America.
Here’s a NYT link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/23race.html?_r=1&hp
and here are some representative quotes:
Given that the POLICE DEPARTMENT asked that the disorderly charge be dropped, I think the comment that the police officer acted “stupidly” is uncontroversial. His own department has basically said as much.
Robert,
Obama has taught constitutional law. He knows that a guy’s yelling at the cop for how he’s been treated is core First Amendment speech. So yeah, the arrest for that yelling was stupid, if we can safely use “stupid” as a synonym for “unconstitutional.” Every single fact in the police report can be as the police officer stated it to be, and that arrest still was not constitutional. See Lewis v. City of New Orleans, 415 U.S. 130 (1974) (overturning a statute that made it unlawful “to curse or revile or to use obscene or opprobrious language toward or with reference to” a police officer while in performance of his duties, on the grounds that it infringed the First Amendment).
There is no claim in the police report that Gates was so loud for so sustained a period that he was breaching Cambridge’s noise ordinances (which require that people not on one’s own property be hearing the noise at more than 70 decibels). The officer arrested Gates for “disorderly conduct” based on Gates yelling at him about being a racist, and the fact that the woman who called in the report, the cops who had joined him at the scene, and a few passers-by were “surprised and alarmed” by this.
(I am now REALLY going to try not to be a rubber-necker when I see stuff happening, lest my gawking presence be used as a justification for arresting a guy. “He must have been breaching the peace, because people were looking at us!”)
I listened to what my President had to say – and he’s my President even though I didn’t vote for him and oppose at least some of his policies, just like Pres. Bush was your President before him.
Obama said twice he didn’t know all the facts. He then proved it through his comments. He said that Prof. Gates jimmied his way in. Gates said that his driver broke the door open with his shoulder. That isn’t jimmying a lock open. He then said that the cop was given proof that Gates lived there and then arrested him. What Gates said was that he provided ID to the officer but then refused to answer any more questions.
Lots of people have fake IDs. Illegal aliens come into this country every day and buy fake Illinois drivers’ licenses that look just like the real thing – a man who was manufacturing and selling them in Little Village (a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago) was just arrested for this a few months ago. So it’s pretty common that when someone is asked by the cops to hand over their ID, the next thing the cop does is ask “Could you please verify your name, address and date of birth?” At which point the cop listens to hear a) do you in fact know it, and b) did you hesitate a fraction of a second before you rattle it off. That’s what the cop did when he stopped my wife for speeding two weekends ago (I was in the car at the time), and she’s white. That’s what’s happened every time I’ve been stopped for speeding or when I’ve otherwise been asked for ID.
Gates said that the cop asked him a question after he handed over his ID. He didn’t say what the question was. I’ll bet long odds that the cop asked Gates “Can you please verify your name, address and date of birth”. At which point Gates refused to answer. Now, what would you think if you were the cop? I figure the cop would think “This is a fake ID.”
So the President was right – he didn’t know all the facts. Which didn’t stop him from lecturing me about something I already knew but had no particular relevance to this case. The President – the President, for God’s sake – had no problem with assuming that this was racism even though he himself had just admitted he didn’t know what he was talking about. This does not lead to confidence about what else he’s assuming about things like health care and the economy.
Robert,
Can you cite the precise wordage where Obama makes a conclusion that can’t be justified by what he knows?
RonF,
Did you miss the part where Obama said, “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that … separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately”? He rather clearly said that he DID NOT KNOW how race was involved in this particular incident.
Also, would you like to explain either why this arrest was constitutional, or why an arrest that is not constitutional shouldn’t be deemed “stupid”?
Ron – You COMPLETELY left out the part where the Harvard PD showed up and confirmed gates’ ID. BEFORE they arrested him.
Uh, yeah, RonF. I know whenever I’m going to break into a house, first I go and have a couple of fake IDs made – one with the address of the house I’m breaking into, and the other purporting to show I’m a famous Harvard professor.
And here we go again with people being unable to discern the difference between criticism of an act versus criticism of a person.
Violating the Constitution is a stupid thing to do. However, it’s something that probably every government agent with meaningful power does at some point. It does not make the person who does it stupid as a categorical matter.
Ron – You COMPLETELY left out the part where the Harvard PD showed up and confirmed gates’ ID. BEFORE they arrested him.
So did Professor Gates. He says nothing about that in the interview he gave to his own web site. What’s your source?
Ron – You COMPLETELY left out the part where the Harvard PD showed up and confirmed gatesâ�� ID. BEFORE they arrested him.
So did Professor Gates. Check the link I provided to Gates’ own account of the incident. He says nothing about that.
So THIS is the arresting officer that Gates accused of racism? From PG’s link:
PG – no, I didn’t miss it. But then why would he launch into an exposition on race and police? What, we’re stupid and don’t know this? He didn’t come out and say that there was proof race was involved, but he sure left the impression that this was his opinion.
And I’ve already covered your other question in previous posts.
“So did Professor Gates. Check the link I provided to Gates’ own account of the incident. He says nothing about that.”
Whaa? Gates SAYS he provided ID before he was arrested in every account I’ve read from him. See, e.g., the Washington Post “scoop” interview:
At this point, he hadn’t been arrested.
Where do you get the idea that Gates was arrested before he ever showed ID?
RonF,
But then why would he launch into an exposition on race and police? What, we’re stupid and don’t know this?
Given that your automatic reaction as exhibited at this blog was to assume everything in the police report was true and that Gates was seeing a racial bias where none existed… I wasn’t going to say stupid, but perhaps “Not perceptive regarding experiences of people different from self.”
He didn’t come out and say that there was proof race was involved, but he sure left the impression that this was his opinion.
So Obama can specifically say that he DOESN’T know all the facts, and that he is speaking about race and police SEPARATE AND APART from this specific incident, but you’ll still ignore what he’s actually said in favor of drawing a contrary inference? Good lord, do you believe anything he says or is it all an exercise in discerning his true, unstated opinion with no relationship to his actual words?
“And I’ve already covered your other question in previous posts.”
Could you point out the post where you’ve explained why this arrest is constitutional, or alternatively why that which is unconstitutional is nonetheless not stupid? I don’t think I saw anything from you addressing those points specifically.
Mandolin:
Can you cite the precise wordage where Obama makes a conclusion that can’t be justified by what he knows?
From this transcript (my formatting):
I would say the conclusions he presents that would be affected by not actually having the facts would the conclusions he ticks off one by one. The first one is just an opinion, that any of us would be angry in the same situation; we don’t know that really but it’s not much of a conclusion. Two, the statement that there was proof presented that it was Gates’ home seems to be one of the facts in dispute at the moment. The third statement about racial profiling seems to be true but also somewhat unrelated to this case; racial profiling involves cops choosing to look at someone out of a random assortment, whereas this was a response to a specific incident of a type where we’d expect cops to respond regardless of the race(s) of the people involved.
PG, regardless of Mr. Obama’s undisputed genius at Constitutional law, he did not appear to be drawing on that knowledge in characterizing the arrest as stupid. Rather, he was saying that it was stupid because the cops knew it was Mr. Gates’ house. That doesn’t seem to be unambiguously proven either way at this juncture. And thus my comment; the President’s statement would be innocuous coming from a cabdriver but is somewhat distressing from the chief law enforcement officer of the country.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know that such-and-such was wrong!” is understandable, but unhelpful, rhetoric.
When something happens to a minority its a national story and obviously due to racism and says something about our culture. When some white little girl goes missing its usually national breaking news. When a black kid gets beaten up by a group of white kids its national news and civil rights leaders and the press descend on the location. When a white family is beaten up by a group of black teens shouting racist insults, barely a peep on the national news (a story that didn’t get much mention a couple weeks ago). When cops beat down a white guy its usually not worth mentioning unless someone has nice video of it. Everyone has a template and sees only what they want to see.
Maybe the professor is lucky he wasn’t a old belligerent white woman:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/google/72-year-old-woman-tasered
Person 1: Obviously this is evidence that cops hate old people.
Person 2: It seems to me that old people clearly hate cops.
Person 3: Americans suck.
Person 4: People suck.
Robert – “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know that such-and-such was wrong!” is understandable, but unhelpful, rhetoric.
Unhelpful to whom?
Please, please at minimum read the police report before you make claims like that. Officer Crowley knew at the point that he arrested Gates that it WAS his house. He says in the report, “I radioed on channel 1 that I was off in the residence with someone who appeared to be a resident but very uncooperative. … While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me. … With the Harvard University identification in hand, I radioed my findings to ECC on channel two and prepared to leave.”
(I gotta wonder if he “was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence” before he saw ID due to, say, Gates’s picture being all over the place? Dave Chappelle covered this one.)
Are you under the impression that Gates was arrested for being unlawfully present in his house or something otherwise actually related to the B&E suspicion that was the original cause of the investigation?
Gates was arrested for “disorderly conduct.” That’s what’s in the police report as the charge. “Disorderly conduct” has f*ck-all to do with whether the cops knew Gates was the lawful resident of the house or not. Disorderly conduct is a charge based on disturbing the public in some fashion. Gates was charged with violating Chapter 272, Section 53 of Massachusetts’ state code, which reads in full:
So why do you think an arrest under this law would be based on the officer’s being uncertain as to whether this was Gates’s house?
Obama doesn’t know ALL the facts, but he does know that a man was arrested for “disorderly conduct” based on the fact that the man was yelling at a cop for how the cop had treated him. That’s unconstitutional, because Gates has a First Amendment right to express his displeasure with how a government agent has behaved.
I can believe every word of the police report, and it’s still unconstitutional. I don’t need to know any more facts to know that. The only facts that could change my belief that this arrest was unconstitutional and therefore “stupid” would be if the cop suddenly adds a whole lot more to his report to justify claiming that Gates was disturbing the peace (at 1pm on a weekday, outside his own home).
For example: suddenly recalling that Gates had called on the on-lookers to help him beat these cops up (fighting words that create an imminent threat of violence); or that Gates had a voice so unusually loud that the decibel level for what people on the street were was over 70 db, and that this was sustained over more than a couple minutes (thus violating Cambridge’s noise ordinance governing residential neighborhoods); or that Gates was flailing around, foaming at the mouth and otherwise clearly a threat to his own safety (diary of a mad black professor…).
RonF @15,
If he’s taught other people about how to avoid racial profiling, he can’t engage in it himself? Hon, I’ve taught English grammar, but that doesn’t mean a “fixin’ to” never pops out. We’re all a product of our raising, though hopefully not just that.
Also, you left out that Officer Crowley totally one-upped the I can’t have acted based on racial bias because I have a black friend cliche with I can’t have acted based on racial bias because I once saved a black man’s life in a way that required me to put my mouth on his.
So why do you think an arrest under this law would be based on the officer’s being uncertain as to whether this was Gates’s house?
I don’t. Obama apparently did, from his statement.
And the officer involved is not claiming that he can’t be racist because he saved a black man’s life; he claims that he isn’t racist and as a supporting anecdote discusses his emotional distress at failing to save a black man’s life, and how hurt he felt then when people thought that he had let a black man die (when in fact he had worked as hard as anyone could to save him).
As far as the argument regarding the unconstitutionality of arresting someone for mouthing off to the cops, well, maybe. I’m not a constitutional scholar. But about half of the disorderly conduct arrests I’ve ever heard about or witnessed have basically boiled down to someone mouthing off to the cops. Maybe all those police actions are unconstitutional, but they aren’t being rejected by the system; people get arrested for DC all the time.
Unhelpful to whom?
Unhelpful to people who think that the actual facts of an incident are important and shouldn’t be elided because a third party (who just happens to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer) a thousand miles away is sure of what must have happened. Unhelpful to anti-racism activists who have to carry the burden of past “omigodtheracism” incidents that didn’t pan out, and now have to deal with kneejerk reactions formed in opposition to the President’s kneejerk reaction. Unhelpful to the judicial process that has to make hard judgments in these cases.
If a black man was hurt or attacked and the (white) POTUS came out the next day, before the facts on the ground were known to any certainty and long before any court had a chance to hear evidence and weigh testimony, and announced that he was sure that there was no racial component to the attack and that in fact, he was pretty sure that the black man involved had been acting stupidly – would that be helpful?
No, no it wouldn’t. The opposite reaction in the opposite scenario is no better.
RonF,
The police report says that Gates showed ID before he was arrested. The police report also says the officer believed Gates lived at the home before he arrested him.
“Obama apparently did, from his statement.”
Sigh. No, he didn’t. He said, “number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” i.e. that the arrest could not have been based on reasonable suspicion of a B&E and therefore had to be based on a rather trumped up claim of “disorderly conduct” — which only worked by telling Gates that if he wanted the cop’s name and badge number, he’d have to come outside to get it, at which point he was in public and a DC charge could be made at all (hard to accuse someone of disrupting public order when he’s in his own damn house). So in a sense, it wasn’t a stupid arrest — they were clever enough to get him outside. But in a sense of being able to be upheld in court? Stupid. Which is why the charges were dropped.
But about half of the disorderly conduct arrests I’ve ever heard about or witnessed have basically boiled down to someone mouthing off to the cops. Maybe all those police actions are unconstitutional, but they aren’t being rejected by the system; people get arrested for DC all the time.
Lots of police actions are unconstitutional. Why do you think there’s been an established Miranda warning for cops to memorize so they can inform people of their rights and make the arrestees responsible for taking care of those rights, instead of putting the responsibility on the cops to worry about those rights? And how many disorderly conduct convictions based on mouthing off to the cops have you seen? Precious few, I bet, because people who go to trial and get a lawyer can get those dropped. (As can, even earlier in the process, people who have a lawyer show up to bail them out.)
I assure you that merely because something is common does not make it constitutional. Even after the Supreme Court ruling, my public high school in East Texas continued to have prayer at football games and National Honor Society inductions at a church, presided over by a clergyman and also including prayer. Are you convinced that must be constitutional simply because it happens and people who don’t know any better, or who are cowed by the folks in power, don’t kick up a fuss?
PG:
That’s not what post #13 is talking about. Re-read it. In it I quote Elizabeth Anne’s post #10, where she said:
Ron – You COMPLETELY left out the part where the Harvard PD showed up and confirmed gates’ ID. BEFORE they arrested him.
That’s what I’m saying wasn’t mentioned by Gates. I would think he would have if that is what had happened. I asked her to cite a source for her assertion and she hasn’t responded.
In this thread I haven’t. In the other thread I said that acting like a jerk isn’t a crime and that on that basis this arrest probably was unjustifiable (and I say probably only because I’m not familiar with the details of what constitutes “disorderly conduct” under the law). If it is unjustifiable (and I’m willing to accept that it is not) then the officers involved should be disciplined in some fashion.
But I don’t see that as the main issue. This didn’t become a national news story because Prof. Gates’ First Amendment rights were violated. It became a national news story because he asserted that he was a victim of racism. I’m interested in whether that assertion is true. So far from what I’ve seen there’s no proof that it was. I think that the same thing would have happened if he’d looked like me and acted like he did. It looks to me like this is a case of being arrested for Being An Asshole, not Being Black.
Robert:
PG, regardless of Mr. Obama’s undisputed genius at Constitutional law,
Obama was a lecturer and then senior lecturer in Constitutional law at the U of C for a number of years, but given the opinions he’s delivered as to what he considers to be flaws in the Constitution I’d withhold the description “genius”.
Disorderly conduct actually covers a huge span of alleged behavior, most of which might not involve any contact or encounter with officers resulting in that charge. It’s kind of a broad category. In my state, “mouthing” off to officers would result in a PC 148(a), or deterring, delaying or obstructing officers and it might be justified or it might be and often is used to cover up misconduct, especially excessive force. But depending on the circumstances and things like jury composition and such, may or may not result in a conviction. Most PC 148(a) cases plead out for a variety of reasons, some mentioned here in association with disorderly conduct cases.
The excuses in Crowley’s own words for not providing ID and having him step outside from the kitchen to provide it throws up some red flags, given the citation of state law regarding mandatory ID presentation for peace officers. At the very least, considering his rank, experience (which isn’t completely known) and ahem, racial profiling expertise, his behavior is problematic because it reads too much like officer makes assumption, makes error, knows it, doesn’t want to ID himself b/c he smells a complaint coming and then arrests. And writes a report.
And as far as knowing what kind of officer Crowley is among the span of his career, that’s hard to say b/c the press is getting inundated with positive references to him which depending on state law on peace officer confidentiality might be more readily accessible than negative information would be. If he had a pattern of similar behavior, that might be more difficult to find out.
I notice that Crowley made a very weak attempt to go for a resisting allegation but then that was for behavior that was in front of quite a few witnesses. If it had been in his house without witnesses, there’s other charges including resisting or obstruction that could be substituted for disorderly conduct.
Obama has now said he wants Crowley and Gates to come to the White House and have a beer with him so his publicly voiced opinion at least has changed. Then Yahoo news said a Black sergeant who was onscene said he supported Crowley’s actions 100% as if that means anything. It may or may not. A Black officer would very likely say that under any circumstances unless he wants to be ostracized or have officers refuse to back him up on calls. The blue code is after all, a very powerful thing.
chigona:
woland:
And if you think of it, maybe someone else might. And then there’s the issue of lost ID. When you lose a credit card, why do you cancel it? Because someone might use it. If you get robbed and someone takes both your wallet and your keys, what do you do? You change the locks. The ID could have been fake, or it could have been stolen (the latter including “found it and decided to use it fradulently”). The bottom line is that IDs are sometimes in the hands of people who have no right to them, and cops very often ask a question or two to verify that the person presenting it is in fact the person it belongs to. That’s a fact. It’s happened to me. It’s the responsible thing for a cop to do.
Which does not prove that the cop arrested Gates for Being Black, which is the assertion offered by Prof. Gates.
It became a national news story because he was arrested. If he’d just complained about having a cop investigate him for breaking into what turned out to be his own house, and no arrest had occurred, then there would be no national news story. There is no story without the arrest (for one thing, there’d be no public record for others to have picked up on without the arrest).
So to try to disappear the arrest, which involves a violation of Gates’s First Amendment rights, from how this became a national news story is a bit disingenuous. Some middle aged black man, even one who was a famous Harvard professor, complaining that the police didn’t bow and scrape before him while trying to protect his house from burglary, is not going to get attention. However, a police report that indicates the cops brought a trumped-up charged of “disorderly conduct” in order to silence a black man’s complaints about racism is getting plenty of attention.
Looking at the Cambridge PD’s list of incidents is one way to see how Gates’s behavior, as noted in the police report, compares to that of others arrested under the same or similar charge. I’m looking for other “disorderly conduct” references (also including “disturbing the peace”). Anyone want to take a guess at how many instances I’ll find in the past year of people being arrested solely for disorderly conduct/ disturbing the peace at their own homes? A sample thus far:
– On 7/14/09 at 8:36 PM, police received a report that a man was assaulted and that he had walked into the fire station to receive treatment. The man had gotten into a fight in Vellucci Park. Police subsequently identified the suspect who then created a disturbance when approached and resisted arrest. 49-year-old Manuel Cerqueira of 26 Oak St. was put in custody for Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest, and Carrying a Dangerous Weapon when a knife was found on his person.
– On 7/17/09 at 11:13 AM, 64-year-old Philip MacLeod of 240 Albany St. was arrested for disturbing the peace, refusal to identify himself, and spitting in a public place in front of the Harvard Square CVS Pharmacy at 1426 Massachusetts Ave.
– On 6/6/09 at 4:31 AM, 20-year-old Shane McCarthy of 343 Broadway Cambridge, MA was arrested at Charles St. and Fulkerson St. for disorderly conduct, assault, and threats after blocking traffic and refusing to move after being ordered out of the street by a police officer. He was also charged with resisting arrest.
– On 6/6/09 at 1:25 PM, 31-year-old Maurice Hall of 37 Bowdoin St. Boston, MA was arrested in Central Sq. at Mass Ave. and Pearl St. for a & B with a Dangerous Weapon and Disorderly Conduct after being observed punching and kicking another male in public. Hall also had warrants out of Boston District Court for Disorderly Conduct.
– On 4/26/09 at 12:42 AM, 52-year-old Gail Lewis of 240 Albany St. Cambridge, MA was arrested at Mass Ave. and Brookline St. for Disorderly Conduct.
– On 4/25/09 at 8:20 AM¸ 41-year-old Kevin Lewis 37 Weston St. Waltham, MA was arrested in front of 598 Mass Ave and charged with Disporderly Conduct after a fight that the police had to break up.
– On 4/10/09 at 3:58 PM, 29-year-old Robert Bonds of 812 Memorial Dr. Cambridge, MA was placed under arrest at 7-11 on Mass Ave. for disorderly conduct. A witness also stated that he struck a woman in the face.
– On 3/14/09 at 11:52 PM, 28-year-old Anthony Francois of 808 Memorial Dr. Cambridge, MA was stopped on River St. and a threshold inquiry was conducted. As a result of the investigation, Francois will be charged with Possession of a Class D Substance/Marijuana with Intent to Distribute, Disorderly Conduct and a Municipal Ordinance violation.
– On 3/13/09 at 5:14 AM, 21-year-old Trevor Powell of 32 Normandy Ave. Cambridge, MA was arrested outside of his residence for Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Arrest.
– On 3/12/09 at 12:39 AM, 21-year-old Daniel Napolitano of 63 School St. Hanover, MA was arrested on JFK St. and charged with Disorderly Conduct, Resisting Arrest, A & B on a Police Officer, and an Outstanding Warrant. Napolitano was uncooperative during a brief investigation and began yelling obscenities. Napolitano refused to cooperate while being placed into custody and with the assistance of several officers was handcuffed. While being placed in the wagon, Napolitano spat in the face of a Cambridge Police Officer. Upon being booked an active warrant was also found on Napolitano.
– On 12/29/08 at 11:38 PM, Adrian Smith, 29, homeless, was placed under arrest and charged with Disorderly Conduct on Mass. Ave.
– On 12/29/08 at 8:51 PM, Shawn MacDonald, 18, of 182 Lebanon St., Malden MA was placed under arrest in Central Square Aggravated Assault and Battery, Disorderly Conduct, and Trespassing.
– On 11/1/08 at 8:45 AM, a bank on Mass. Ave. reported that some time over night between 10/31/08 and 11/1/08, an unknown person chained the front doors of the bank together, so as not to allow customers to enter and use the ATM machines.
– On 11/1/08 at 2:49 PM, Mr. Francis Chandler, 58, of 240 Albany Street, was arrested on Mass. Ave. and Essex Street for Disorderly Conduct.
– On 10/31/08 at 8:24 PM, officers were dispatched to 7-11 in Central Square for a male threatening the clerk with physical violence. Adrian Smith, 29, homeless was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct.
– On 10/21/08 at 7:08 PM, criminal complaints will be sought against a Cambridge resident for Disorderly Conduct, Failure to Stop for the Police, Reckless Endangerment of a Child, Failure to Identify Self, Child 5-12 Years Old Without A Seat Belt, and Failure to Wear A Seat Belt.
– On 10/21/08 at 10:35 PM, Jeffrey Sanders, 47, of 9 Columbia Terrace, Cambridge MA, was placed under arrest for Disorderly Conduct.
– On 10/1/08 at 7:18 PM, Miguel Acevedo, 48, of 50 Churchill Ave., Cambridge was arrested for Disorderly Conduct on Mass. Ave. at Norfolk St. after an officer witnessed him break a glass bottle on the public sidewalk and then run across Mass. Ave. causing vehicular traffic to stop. There was heavy pedestrian traffic in Central Square at the time.
– On 10/1/08 at 10:24 PM, Paul Biggins, 48, of 240 Albany St., Cambridge MA was arrested for Disorderly Conduct and Trespassing after he was told to leave the doorway of a Central Sq. business, soon returned, and then raised his fists and shouted profanities at two officers causing a crowd of passersby and patrons from two restaurants to gather.
RonF,
Please provide a citation to a source not produced by the police that quotes Gates as saying he was arrested solely for “Being Black.”
RonF,
What would constitute proof that racism played no role whatsoever in the arrest? How would that be proven?
I don’t think you’re correct, Robert. I don’t know all the facts about … FDR’s life, but I still know he was a man. I don’t know all the facts about Gettysburg, but I do know that less than 100% of the casualties with white men.
It seems like Obama is using the same correction. All of his claims are carefully constructed to apply only to the limited situation. He doesn’t actually say that Gates was arrested for being black; he says that the situation demonstrates that race is still a problem in the country (which the discussion surrounding the incident on blogs proves is true). He did say “everyone would be angry” and you’re right, it’s a generalization to assume that *everyone* would be angry at having policemen assume they were criminals for trying to get into their houses, but that has nothing to do with “having all the facts,” that’s just a generalization of the type that marks conversation.
I’m perfectly capable of reading the sections of Obama’s speech where he says he doesn’t have all the facts, which you emphasized. What I don’t see is where these statements conflict with the rest of the content of his speech.
I think you’re projecting a lot of baggage onto Obama’s statement which is not actually there.
PG asks:
Please provide a citation to a source not produced by the police that quotes Gates as saying he was arrested solely for “Being Black.”
I think the professor’s own words will do. Professor Gates gave an interview to a site called The Root, which names him as it’s Editor-In-Chief. It’s 4 screens. Here are some quotes from Professor Gates. The first one is what Gates said that he was thinking while the policeman was looking over the ID that he had just given him:
At this point all the police officer has done is asked him to step out on his porch and inform him that he is responding to a 911 report of breaking and entering at that address. But Gates, whose driver at his direction has just hit the door with his shoulder and popped it open (that’s Gates’ description) calls that ridiculous (to the cop’s face, BTW) and instead thinks that the copy has constructed a scenario in his head starring Prof. Gates based on racism. At which point, again according to Gates, the policeman asked him a question which he refused to answer. Personally I think it’s suspicious that Gates, who was otherwise pretty specific about what happened, didn’t say what that question was.
He figures, quite invalidly from what I can see, that the cop investigating a 911 call of breaking and entering would not have asked a white person to step out on the porch. Again he is projecting his own racism on the cop.
Now, the cop is supposed to give his name and badge number upon request, so he was in the wrong here. But yet again Gates openly makes the claim that the way he was treated is due to racism on the part of the cop, without giving any consideration to the idea that the cop’s reaction was due to the fact that he was acting like a complete jerk. I personally figure the latter was by far the more likely scenario.
This was his reaction to being arrested. It seems pretty clear to me that he figures his arrest was due to his race. And it’s not the only time, either. Risking an accusation of beating a dead horse, I quote this from later on in the same interview:
According to Gates he was arrested out of spite because he was black.
chingona asks:
That’s not the proposition in question here. Professor Gates has made the accusation that racism was the cause of his arrest. He’s the one who has to offer proof, and so far he hasn’t. All he’s done is spin up presumptions based on his own racism.
RonF,
Notice that you have to say things like “It seems pretty clear to me that he figures his arrest was due to his race” instead of being able to quote Gates as saying something to support your claim, which was “the cop arrested Gates for Being Black, which is the assertion offered by Prof. Gates.”
On the contrary, Gates is asserting that he was treated differently than a white person would have been treated. Surprisingly for someone of your particular educational background, you seem to be conflating cause (I was arrested because I am black) and influence (My being black altered how this situation played out).
Over and over, Gates says his treatment by Crowley is influenced by his race (you wouldn’t treat me this way if I were white), not that his race spontaneously inflamed Gates to arrest him (you arrest me for being black). You want that to be Gates’s assertion, because that of course would be pretty ridiculous — Crowley would be spending all his time arresting black people if Crowley actually went around arresting people for Being Black.
And you evidently think there must be racism in how this incident played out — so you’ve assigned the racism to Gates: “Again he is projecting his own racism on the cop.”
PG, do me a favor and read the entire interview. I can’t see how you can come to any conclusion other than he figures that the fact that this situation ended in his arrest because he is black. If you don’t think so then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
And my presumption regarding Gates’ racism is based purely on his own words, not on how the situation played out. Had this situation ended at the point that the cop walked away and Gates stood inside his door while continuing to voice his displeasure with the cop as he drove off I’d still think that Gates is clearly a racist.
RonF,
Gates is clearly a racist? Care to back that up?
RonF,
Well, of course you would have the same judgment without the arrest. You’ve repeatedly been trying to excise the arrest from this incident, even claiming that the unconstitutionality of the arrest is irrelevant to how this became a national news story. If there were no arrest, you wouldn’t have to contend with people like me pointing out that uh, the guy with a *gun*, the guy who is actually exercising state power (government being another word for a legal monopoly on the use of force), took away Gates’s liberty because he didn’t like having Gates yell at him.
And I read theRoot.com article well before you did. If you’re unwilling to consider the difference between cause and influence — just like you don’t want to see a difference between being a racist and having racial biases — then you’re right, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
But you’re moving the goalposts in a subtle yet meaningful way when asked to base your claims in Gates’s words. Do you not perceive any difference between “this situation ended in his arrest because he is black” and what you initially asserted: “the cop arrested Gates for Being Black, which is the assertion offered by Prof. Gates.” ? You genuinely cannot see any difference between “X happened *because* of Y” and “In the absence of Y, X would not have happened”? Again, that surprises me coming from someone who went to MIT.
You want to pretend that Gates is saying “I was arrested because of my race” rather than “Had I been white, I would not have been arrested.”
If black, then arrested (If X, then Y)
is not the same as
If not-black, then not-arrested (If ~X, then ~Y).
When you do contrapositives, you have to not only negate, but also reverse the order.
If X, then Y = If ~Y, then ~X. If black, then arrested = If not-arrested, then not-black. That’s the concept you’re trying to put into Gates’s mouth with precious little evidence for it.
The contrapositive of what might be a supportable summary of Gates’s words:
If not-black, then not-arrested is If arrested, then black.
And when you look at how seldom people in Cambridge, a city of over 100,000 people, are arrested for “disorderly conduct” in the absence of any other charges and when they are just outside their own homes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of people arrested in those circumstances are black.
For an example from Gates’s life that he actually probably *would* describe as “arrested for Being Black” (if black, then arrested):
This in turn reminds me of one of the few times I felt embarrassed by someone’s mentioning race.
This is the first time I had the chance to see Obama speak about this. I’ve been out of the loop for a few days when it comes to news stuff, but so glad that I got all caught up, although your comment section has been taken over by idiots. *cough*RonF*cough*
Please don’t call other comment-writers “idiots, which is both against the moderation goals of “Alas,” and possibly able-ist.
An interesting L.A. Times column here by Columnist Sandy Banks.
Alas, she appears to be already right about the comments.
RonF,
This quote is very meaningful to me. The fact that you can’t see how anyone could see an incident differently than you do suggests that you have a very different understanding of things than do I. My worldview is generally based upon the idea that many people will see things much differently than I do based upon their life experiences being influenced by a variety of structural factors such as race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability.
*sigh*
AL,
And your worldview appears to be borne out by the findings from a study published in the Harvard Law Review last year. There was a Supreme Court case a couple years ago when 8 of the justices decided they could say for sure, based on a video, that a suspect being chased by police and severely injured when they rammed his car was the one who had caused the danger and ramming his car was necessary to remove the threat to the public.
The case attracted attention because normally viewing a video is something done at the trial level, by jurors; it’s fact-finding, not a question of law. But the justices, like RonF, decided that there was no way anyone could perceive this differently than they did.
Based on RonF’s comments wrt racism in past threads, I’m fairly certain that even if Crowley had said, “I’m arresting you because you’re Black,” that RonF wouldn’t concede that racism had anything to do with it. In other words, this thread has become an exercise in futility.