Confusing expediency with agency
Henry Louis Gates isn't the first person to have been arrested wrongly because he didn't show enough deference to the police officer facing him. He won't be the last.
What annoys me is all the discussion about what Gates should have done that basically focuses on what he should have done to avoid getting arrested. People, it's not necessarily his goal to avoid getting arrested.
I'm sure he knows exactly what to do to stay out of jail. He chose not to do that. And he chose a way that was not only perfectly legal, it actually was a risk to himself physically. Lots of people go to jail and don't come back, or come back hurt.
If he didn't want to get arrested then he shouldn't have acted uppity? Maybe, in the short run. But he shouldn't get arrested for acting uppity. Period. Not acting uppity is expedient, but it denies Gates his agency as a citizen to be cranky and unpleasant and suggest the police officer is acting out of racism.
This has also been cast as "stupid Gates didn't know how dangerous this was." Really? I don't think a man who has studied the history of Blacks in America, who wrote the following in The Future of the Race, is so ignorant of class and race and danger:
He also writes about Albert Murray's The Omni-Americans in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man:
All these suppositions about Gates' motivations and assumptions about his ignorance are pretty easy to refute if you actually read what the man wrote. I imagine asking him why he did what he did might elicit even more information.
But I guess it's easier to just assume that he's an egotistical eggheaded moron.
Links to a couple of other good discussions:
What annoys me is all the discussion about what Gates should have done that basically focuses on what he should have done to avoid getting arrested. People, it's not necessarily his goal to avoid getting arrested.
I'm sure he knows exactly what to do to stay out of jail. He chose not to do that. And he chose a way that was not only perfectly legal, it actually was a risk to himself physically. Lots of people go to jail and don't come back, or come back hurt.
If he didn't want to get arrested then he shouldn't have acted uppity? Maybe, in the short run. But he shouldn't get arrested for acting uppity. Period. Not acting uppity is expedient, but it denies Gates his agency as a citizen to be cranky and unpleasant and suggest the police officer is acting out of racism.
This has also been cast as "stupid Gates didn't know how dangerous this was." Really? I don't think a man who has studied the history of Blacks in America, who wrote the following in The Future of the Race, is so ignorant of class and race and danger:
If your name is Auchincloss, say, you do not worry overmuch about those impoverished Appalachians who share your Scottish descent; few blacks have the luxury of such detachment.Or this from Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars:
The dream of the university as a haven of racial equity, as an ultimate realm beyond the veil, has not been realized. Racism on our college campuses has become a palpable, ugly thing.Even I — despite a highly visible presence as a faculty member at Cornell — have found it necessary to cross the street, hum a tune, or smile when confronting a lone white woman in a camput suilding or on the Commons late at night....Nor can I help but feel some humiliation as I try to put a white person at ease in a dark place on campus at night, coming from nowhere, confronting that certain look of panic in his or her eyes, trying to think grand thoughts like Du Bois but — for the life of me — looking to him or her like Willie Horton. Grinning, singing, scratching my head, I have felt like Steppin Fetchit with a Ph.D. So much for Yale; so much for Cambridge.He seems keenly aware that racial equality isn't here yet, and that a Black man is still frightening to many White people.
He also writes about Albert Murray's The Omni-Americans in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man:
not only is it the so-called middle class Negro who challenges the status quo in schools, housing, voting practices, and so on, he is also the one who is most likely to challenge total social structures and value systems.So he's written about a tradition of people of means, or people who have gotten at least somewhere, being the ones who can make a difference for those who haven't made it yet. The Black middle class isn't always just fleeing from Blackness, or pretending they've overcome it, but can equally be a force for bringing Blackness to parity with Whiteness.
All these suppositions about Gates' motivations and assumptions about his ignorance are pretty easy to refute if you actually read what the man wrote. I imagine asking him why he did what he did might elicit even more information.
But I guess it's easier to just assume that he's an egotistical eggheaded moron.
Links to a couple of other good discussions:
- sharkfu on Feministing, pondering the privilege of anger...
- alias Bruce has three posts, The Henry Louis Gates Story [Annotated], Henry Louis Gates [2], Henry Louis Gates [3]
Posted by oldfeminist at 7/25/2009 2:56 AM 
Categories: school, Media, class, race
Tags: school race media class
Categories: school, Media, class, race
Tags: school race media class
Your piece here is interesting and provocative and thoughtful.
However, I think you're attributing too much rationality to Mr. Gates in this situation. Perhaps a different way to look at it might be:
~~~The Prof had just come back from a long trip, and we know how tiring that can be.
~~~He was not feeling well.
~~~He was frustrated at not being able to get into his house easily after the trip.
~~~And suddenly on his doorstep is this nosy, officious police officer asking him to step outside and
~~~implying (at least in Gates' mind) that he broke into his own house.
~~~I believe that Dr. Gates had what's called an amygdala hijacking, whereby he reacted to the situation extremely emotionally, bringing to bear all the anger, fear, frustration and humiliation of an African American male in America: all those coeds afraid of him, all those white people he had to reassure, all what he read and studied and experienced.
No, it wasn't, as it turned out, expedient, but I don't think this was a planned, deliberate agent of free speech and 4th amendment in progress. He would have picked a better time or place. I could be wrong, and you could be right, but that's just my thoughts.
Buz
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Buz, I think it's possible we could both be right to some extent.
I'm responding mostly to people who charge that Gates believed he was no longer really Black because he was a high and mighty college professor -- that he never knew he was supposed to "behave" around the police, or forgot it.
While his reaction may not have been fully rational, he will have thought about this kind of situation often, since he's been in it more than a few times.
He might have thought about what he'd have to say to someone the next time he was pushed this far. He probably has said it when the person was no longer there. He has probably said it to someone without a gun and the power of arrest, with lesser repercussions. He has said as much in writing about other Black people, if not himself (sadly I haven't read enough of his work to be definitive here).
So when the situation comes up, the already-formed words and feelings came out. How much was controlled is unknowable, probably even to Gates himself.
But I think there's room to think that he was ready to stand up against racist treatment by the police, even though it might be dangerous to him, and when he believes he's in the middle of it, he acts according to that principle.
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HMMMMMM. I think you have a point there, Old Feminist. You make a good case for a "pre-determined response", infused with some or all of those factors I mentioned.
I've often thought, for example, how I would be inclined to react if someone tried to rob me--knowing full well the potential risks. However, the risks would be judged a bit by my experience. But I already know: I am going to resist somehow. Perhaps i might go along with it briefly, or even "give it up", but he's not going to easily get away with it: I've already programmed it in my mind, all the while realizing it will be situational.
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This is more of what i think what was going :on.http://chronicle.com/article/The-Profiling-of-Sgt-Crowley/47508/
Regards,
Buz
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