(NAME-MCE) If It Can Happen To Him ...

[Anselmo Villanueva]

If It Can Happen To Him ...

July 22, 2009

For black male academics, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates represented
their experiences and fears of profiling, no matter how many degrees
they have earned.

For related stories, go to:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/22/gates

If It Can Happen To Him ...

July 22, 2009

For many, it was a startling portrait: the normally reserved Harvard
University professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., standing on his front
porch in handcuffs, appearing to yell as police officers surrounded
him. Yet those were the images that circulated Tuesday, as news of
Gates’ controversial arrest – and the subsequent dropping of charges
against him – circulated on Web sites and television.

Stephen L. Carter, a Yale University law professor and novelist, felt
like he was watching a scene unfold from one of his own books. Carter
has written scholarly works along with bestsellers about the lives of
upper-class African Americans, including those in academe, and his
fiction often illustrates how wealthy blacks draw suspicion in posh
environs like private beaches or Ivy League campuses.

“If it can happen to Henry Louis Gates, possibly the most prominent
black scholar in the country, and in his home town, then it can indeed
happen to any of us,” Carter, author of The Emperor of Ocean Park,
wrote in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed.

“Odd, isn’t it? Here we are in the age of Obama, and some things
haven’t changed. Blackness is associated in the public mind with
wrongdoing; if we are spotted in an unexpected locale, we must be up
to something.”

Echoes of Carter’s words could be heard across academe Tuesday, as
professors discussed Gates’ assertion that he had been the victim of
racial profiling, and recalled their own similar experiences. The
story, which had drawn significant media attention by Monday, began
early Thursday afternoon when officers responded to a possible
break-in at Gates’ Cambridge, Mass. home. Gates had been spotted
trying to force open his own jammed door, and when confronted by
officers he accused them of racism, drawing a charge of disorderly
conduct, according to a police report.

Amid public outcry, however, the police dropped the charges, and all
those involved – including Gates – called the incident “regrettable
and unfortunate” in a joint statement.

“This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character
and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge
Police Department,” the statement reads. “All parties agree that this
is a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances."

For Gates, director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and
African American Studies, the incident was a bizarre case of life
imitating scholarship. The longtime academician readily drew parallels
between his interaction with police and larger issues of race
relations, yelling “This is what happens to black men in America” on
multiple occasions during the incident, according to the police
report.

“It’s one thing to write about it, but altogether another to
experience it,” Gates told The Washington Post Tuesday.

Stereotypes Still a Struggle

As news of Gates's arrest spread among college professors, the irony
was seldom lost on any of them. Gates has spent much of his life
writing and thinking about race, garnering the respect and attention
of fellow scholars and pop culture icons like Oprah Winfrey, whose
genealogy he helped explore in a PBS documentary and subsequent book.
Yet, here Gates was in handcuffs on a front porch.

Jerlando Jackson, an associate professor of higher and postsecondary
education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he found the
entire incident very troubling – and even thought the story wasn’t
true when he first heard about it. Gates’ arrest highlights, however,
the struggles even the most esteemed black professors can have
overcoming the perception of black males as criminals, Jackson said.
The work of a scholar and teacher is one that requires legitimacy,
something black men struggle to attain because others may impose
stereotypes upon them, he said.

“This incident confronts that challenge,” Jackson said. “Here is one
of the best scholars in his field – who happens to be an African
American male, who has studied and taught in the best institutions in
the world, and is largely known outside of the academy as well as
inside – experiencing an exchange with police officers and mistaken
identity that you often would not associate with a professor at a
world class institution.”

“We as African American males are very concerned about the images that
are imposed on us as professors,” he added.

Struggles with stereotyping are so common that some black males in the
professoriate sometimes make overt attempts to undermine those images.
Michael Cuyjet, acting associate provost for student life and
associate professor of education at the University of Louisville, said
he and his wife were just recently discussing how “she and I get
dressed up and go to the mall.”

“Our experience is if you go in [wearing] jeans or cutoffs you get
followed around by security people, or clerks don’t treat you well,”
said Cuyjet, who edited and co-wrote an essay collection called
African American Men in College.

When Cuyjet heard about Gates’ arrest, he said he was disappointed but
hardly shocked to learn Gates was an apparent victim of racial
profiling

“When incidents like this occur it lets the greater population become
aware of something that most black men are aware of simply by nature
of having been black in America,” Cuyjet said.

Juan Gilbert, president of a group of black male academics called
Brothers of the Academy, was similarly unsurprised.

“This isn’t anything new,” said Gilbert, who was recently named
professor and chair of Human-Centered Computing at Clemson University.
“ 'Skip' [Gates] has written about this; Skip knows about this.”

Jack Levin, a professor at Northeastern University who has written
extensively about race, said the main issue the incident highlights
actually has little to do with whether Gates was in fact a victim of
racial profiling. Levin, who is white, said the take-away from the
incident is that Gates and other black men live in a world where
racism is prevalent enough that Gates would reasonably conclude he was
targeted because he’s black.

“Even in liberal Cambridge, Massachusetts, the idea of racial
victimization has to be a part of the everyday thinking of black
professors,” said Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology. “I
mean that even where you’d least expect it – in a liberal environment
where there is tremendous tolerance for difference – black professors
still in the back of their minds have to think they might be the
victims of racism. Even here, because it’s part of our culture. It’s
part of the air we breathe.”

— Jack Stripling

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http://www.cambridgema.gov/cpd/News/NewsDetail.cfm?story_id=2250

Joint Press Release

News Detail

July 21, 2009

Press Release 7/21/09

JOINT PRESS RELEASE

The City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department have
recommended to the Middlesex County District Attorney that the
criminal charge against Professor Gates not proceed.  Therefore, in
the interests of justice, the Middlesex County District Attorney's
Office has agreed to enter a nolle prosequi in this matter.

The City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Police Department, and Professor
Gates acknowledge that the incident of July 16, 2009 was regrettable
and unfortunate.  This incident should not be viewed as one that
demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the
character of the Cambridge Police Department.  All parties agree that
this is a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances.

Contact Information:

Walter Prince, Prince Lobel Glovsky and Tye  617-456-8000
Professor Charles Ogletree, Harvard Law School  617-495-5097
Robert Haas, Commissioner  617-349-3235
Gerard Leone, DA  781-897-8325