As a writer, I know that one of the worst sins a writer can commit is plaigarism. That said, let me give credit for part of the title of this essay to the great David E. Kelly and his team of writers of one of my all-time favorite telvision show "Boston Legal." It was from the title of one of (I think) the better episodes of the show that I took part of my title. In law there is term "res ispa loquitur" which loosely translated mean "the thing speaks for itself." The play on words, with the substituion of the word "RACE" is therefore self-evident, as it was to anyone viewing the episode. The plot from that episode is eerily similar to the incident in Cambridge, Massachussetts involving the Harvard professor and the Cambridge police department.
In the "Boston Legal" episode, a young African-American man was accosted by a Boston police officer while standing on a sidewalk in an affluent neighborhood staring at a house. When asked by the officer for identification, the man protested that he was doing nothing wrong and refused to comply with the officer's instruction. The officer then attempted to place the man under arrest and he fought against the officer garnering himself charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. To wrap this up without re-writing the script, the liberal champion fictional lawyer Alan Shore, together wtih a young, black, and very attractive public defender make the case all about race and get the man acquitted on all charges, because as it turned out the man was just doing what he'd read in a self-help book about visualizing success so he could someday afford a home like the one he was looking at for himself which is clearly NOT a crime, and in fact, a pro-active and positive step to achieving what we all acknowledge to be the great American dream. This fictional story ends with hugs, handshakes, and smiles all around.
Before the officer had finished testifying, I knew two things. First was that the writers of the show were liberal. Second, that they had not interviewed a real police officer before writing the testimony script, or if they had, they chose to utterly DISREGARD what he or she actually TOLD them. I know this because of the way the "officer" answered the counsel's question, "is standing on a public sidewalk staring at a house a crime in Boston?" The "officer" answered "no," but any REAL police officer would have said something to the effect that while merely looking at a house is not illegal, being a lookout for a burglary or home invasion in progress is." There is also another act that often precedes a burglary or home invasion, and in the vernacular of law enforcement, it is often referred to as "casing" a place, that is watching it to determine the best time and circumstance in which to commit either burglary with no one home, or home invasion, when the presence of the home's owner is desirable to the criminals.
In a strange twist of life imitating art, we find ourselves in present-day Cambridge, Massachussetts with an incident eerily similar to the fictional episode of Boston Legal in some ways, and distinctively different in others. Similarities can be found in the venue, the nonexistence of an actual CRIME (albeit strong circumstantial evidence and therefore the need to investigate), the cynical use of the racial profiling charge by disingnuous individuals with ulterior motives, and the proverbial "happy ending" in which the conflict is resolved and everybody goes home as happily as they can under the circumstances. The most notable DIFFERENCE between the fictional story and the Cambridge incident is the sociological "stature" of the minority "actor."
In the fiction, the "actor" was a lower income minority who was looking to avail himself of the "Great American Dream" by personal initiative, such as reading self-help success books, and practicing the "visualization/actualization" technique by going to the nicer neighborhood and looking at the kind of house he hoped to one day own. Contrast this with Professor Gates, an academician at the pinnacle as his career as a member of the Harvard faculty. He's not staring longingly at a house from the sidewalk, he's choosing to break into his OWN house and, unfortunately for him, his neighbor did not recognize him. FORTUNATELY for him, he had a neighbor who was willing to do what she thought was PROTECTING his property in his absence, something many neighborhoods organize neighborhood watches to do. Also fortunate for the Professor, the police responded quickly to protect his property, something many minorities complain does NOT happen in their neighborhoods.
In her closing argument in the trial on Boston Legal, the pretty female, African-American public defender who was assisting the rich and liberal silk stocking lawyer Alan Shore, raised the argument that the defendant in that case was a victim of abuse by law enforcement known as DWB - Driving While Black. This is a racially incendiary term which is used to accuse law enforcement of targeting innocent black motorists for harassment in the hopes of finding evidence of some misconduct. It hearkens to the days in the deep south during the civil rights movment when civil rights leaders were detained on the roadside by law enforcement to give other members the Ku Klux Klan (of which most of the local officers were members) time to get some people on the scene to kidnap the hapless black motorist for some "reorientation." This could mean a whipping, a lynching, or any of the other horrors for which the Klan of that era was infamous. In the years following the civil rights movement, the police have frequently stopped black motorists and in doing so have effected numerous arrests for everything from possession and sale of controlled substances to catching parole violators or people in possession of burglary tools, illegal weapons, etc. Notwithstanding their successes, law enforcement officers have been discouraged from the use of their instincts under the pressure from the politically correct crowd and the label "racial profiling."
In the Boston Legal episode, as in the Cambridge incident, there was no racial profiling. I've already covered what happened in the fictional story, so let me address the events that occurred at the home of Professor Gates when Sergeant Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department responded to a dispatch call to investigate a possible break-in. What occurred can best be summed up as a clash between two strong-willed men with full heads of steam. Race played no discernable part in Sergeant Crowley's mindset as neither the 911 call that reported the break-in, not the dispatch transcripts reveal any suggestion of an African -American perpetrator. What he did know as he approached the door is that there was likely someon e in the house that did not belong there. What he did NOT know was who it was, how many, whether they were armed and if so, how heavily, whether there were hostages, or anything else that might affect the way he handled hinself in the situation. What he DID know is that whoever was inside had the proverbial "high ground," and that the second he went in the door, he could be a target from someone positioned to ambush him.
Sergeant Crowley likely went into the home after announcing himself. He most likely had his weapon drawn and levelled, and was probably holding himself in a classic dueling stance with his shoulders turned sideways to present as narrow a target as possible. When he gets into the living room, he encounters an older African-American man who was probably instructed to show his hands and possbly to assume a position against the wall. Upon ascertaining that there was no further danger to himself, Sergeant Crowley would have holstered his weapon, possibly frisked the man, and began to question him. At this point, Professor Gates likely informs him that he's the owner of the house and that it was he who forced the door either because he'd forgotten his key, or for whatever reason it didn't work. Proper procedure would require Sergeant Crowley to ask Professor Gates for identification both to ascertain his identity, and to confirm that he did in fact reside at that residence. Sinple enough when you think about it calmly and cooly and in hindsight, but if you consider that the sergeant was being verbally harangued by Professor Gates the entire time he was doing his duty, and add the fact that his adrenaline had been pumping mere moments earlier, you can understand how a routine situation could get out of control
Now that we've covered Sergeant Crowley and exp;ained some of what was going through HIS mind, let's look at Professor Gates for a moment. He's an older man who walks with a cane, which likely indicates some stiffness and discomfort in his leg, if not actual pain when he walks. He's been travelling all day, which means he's had to negotiate the hassles of two different aorports during the days travels and travails. Anyone who has been to an airport post 9-11 knows that the experience can test the patience of a saint. By the time the good professor gets to his door he's been through TWO airports, long lines, delays, inconveniences, etc. Imagine how he might be feeling when he's at his front door and all he wants to do is get inside, lose the luggage, change into something comfortable, pop open a cold Red Stripe, plop into his favorite chair, and forget the whole day. Imagine his fustration when he realizes he can't get IN to his own house, so he goes around back, decides to force the door, gets in, and in his own living room he's confronted by a police officer pointing a gun at him and ordering him up against the wall. That has be the straw that broke the camel's back for him.
Given that it was Professor Gates' temperment and his frustrations with the days experiences that caused him to harangue Sergeant Crowley, and given that neither of those two things would have been affected in the least by the presence of another officer, as all police officers are trained to follow certain procedures in a given situation. Professor Gates would likely have been just as belligerant to an African-American officer as he was to Sergeant Crowley. Any officer responding to that situation would likely have behaved in the same manner towards Professor Gates, and would have had the same heightened sense of awareness and adrenaline rushing that Sergeant Crowley had experienced. Professor Gates' race had NOTHING to do with Sergeant Crowley's reaction, as he would have most likely done the same thing had Professor Gates been of the caucasion persuasion. While I DO take issue with the decision to arrest the professor, I do NOT question the Sergeant's right to charge him for disturbing the peace under the circumstances. However, that complaint is usually presented in the form of a summons, NOT an arrest. Still, I have the luxury of hindsight, time, distance, and SAFETY from the situation to make my analysis, which was clearly shared by Sergeant Crowley's superiors in the Cambridge Police Department, as all charges against Professor Gates were dropped. All's well that end's well.
So where then is the "res" or "race" in all this? The answer is, like in many cases we hear about these days, it's either a non-entity or insignificant to the story as a whole. More and more, we are finding racial issues manufactured into the fabric of ordinary events, or even extraordinary ones. Most recently, it's been in levelling the racism charge against American citizens protesting government policies at tea parties and townhall meetings. The TRUTH of the matter is that the tea party I attended in St. Louis was a very integrated one. In fact, one of the speakers was Kevin Jackson, a black man and author of the best-selling book "The Big Black Lie," which talks about the negative effect liberal social policies have had on the African-American population since the 1960s. I've personally observed several large tea parties across the country since April 15 and most if not ALL of them have been thoroughly integrated not only by race but by political affiliation as well, meaning there were as many DEMOCRATS and Indpendents that supported and voted for Barak Obama as there were Republican and McCain supporters. But why let a little thing like the TRUTH interfere with liberal spin?
The simple truth is that there are now TWO generations in this country that have grown up in the "integrated" America following the landmark Supreme Court decisions of Brown v. Board of Education and Plessie v. Washington. My generation was the first, and second generation, or the hip-hop generation is the very personification of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. This is not to say there are not still racists in this country, because there are. But the mainstream, insitutionalized racism of Selma, AL in the 196os is no more. There is no one alive today that has owned or whipped a slave. There is almost no one alive today or in any position of authority, with the exception of Senator Robert Byrd, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Ironically, Sen. Byrd is a DEMOCRAT! Why then is racism still the prevalent social issue that is seems to be?
The answer to that question is both simple, and sinister. It's simple because there is a contingent of our society whose enire reason for being is contingent upon keeping the racial struggle, real or imagined, alive and well. It is sinister, because their motivations for doing so are selfish and they have no regard for the pain and suffering their actions prolong. Their political, social, or economic interests depend on fanning these flames whenever possible, and since the number of white on black racicial incidents is, and has been, steadily declining, they have to resort to manufacturing these claims to jusify their own purposes. Those who do this for political, social, or worst of all, ECONOMIC reasons deserve to have reserved for them a place in the hottest part of hell, for it is on THEIR accounts that we can't seem to heal the racial wounds in this country. My grandmother used to admonish me not to pick at the scabs when I skinned my knee because in her words "if you keep pickin' at it, it will NEVER heal." So to it is with the wounds of racism. If they're left alone, they will heal, but if they're continuously ripped apart by self-serving indiviuals who do NOT have our welfare in mind, those wounds will NEVER heal and we will never get past racial divides.
The other reason we can't get past racism in this country is that there is a contingent of our own population that believes that racisim and descrimination are perfectly acceptable behaviors as long as they're directed against the MAJORITY of our population. This is yet another steaming pile of the horse manure that passes for wisdom on the left. If racism and descrimination are wrong, then they are ALWAYS wrong, regardless of which way the "greater than" or "less than" arrow is pointing. Following the liberal's logic, Apartheid in South Africa or Sunni domination of Iraq would be perfectly acceptable, yet I doubt any self-confessed liberal would agree with those statements. Of course liberals don't consider themselves "racist" or "discriminatory" because they soften those harsh words in politically correct euphamisms like "affirmative action," "levelling the playing field," and "social and economic justice." What they FAIL to take into consideration is that the term "minority" is neither racial, nor pejorative, but DEMOGRAPHIC, and that blacks and hispanics are called "minorities" for a reason. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" To answer that, I will quote then presidential candidate Barak Obama, "Yes we Can," with the caveat "if you'll LET us."
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