An alternate scenario to put the Gates case in perspective:

[hedgehog]

A white Harvard professor arrives home from a trip to China. He is driven home by an young African-American male. The front door is stuck, so the professor goes around back to use the back door. He comes back to the front, and he pulls the door from the inside as the young African American male puts his shoulder against it from the outside. (They want to get the door open so the suitcases can be brought in the front door.) A neighbor sees a man she doesn't recognize seemingly forcing open the door of her neighbor who is away on a trip and calls the police.

What happens when the officer comes to the door and is met by a white man?

[timeforpeace]

1. This is about that Sidney Poitier movie, isn't it?

[hedgehog]

2. ? You mean

vs

[hedgehog]

3. Or

vs

[EFerrari]

4. He asks him if everything is all right and inspects the front door

for signs of attempted forced entry while the professor was overseas.

What do I win? :)

[JonQ]

5. I imagine a lot would depend on their reactions

when the police showed up.

[MADem]

6. Here's a link you might want to read.

The white guy isn't coming from the same place, like it, or not: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106860000

Also, Gates is disputing the officer's version of events: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html

The bottom line is this. The police knew that the house belonged to Professor Gates, and that the irritated man before them was Professor Gates. The correct response in this case was "We had a report of a burglary. Sorry to have troubled you." Instead, a "small-minded man" employed as a cop arrested the guy because he didn't like his "tone."

[hedgehog]

8. I think you and I are in agreement. I was trying to get people to see that

regardless of how Gates may or may not have reacted, the odds that a white professor in the same situation would have been treated the same way are just about nil. In theory, the officer was in control of the situation. It never should have ended in Gate's arrest.

[monmouth]

7. A couple of years ago a black man was sitting in his car here in

Palm Beach waiting for his wife to get off work. She worked for a condo owner and he came to pick her up. Police notice a black man sitting in a car, alone, shone the light in his face and you know the drill. Wife comes out of condo, turned around and ran in to get her boss. Boss comes out, introduces the black man to all officers on the scene, told them to remember his face and to write down his license plate. "If you ever stop him or question him I will have your asses fired." He was a mucky muck with the police department and did not suffer fools. It made the local PB paper and the police treaded lightly afterwards...

[AspenRose]

9. Excellent

:applause:

[hedgehog]

10. Remember this story from a few weeks ago?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/032609dnmetcopstop.3e9c080.html

The video is scary as hell. It's a wonder someone didn't get knocked around or worse.

[nosmokes]

11. There is NO acceptable "perspective"

In less than sixty seconds any idiot should have been able to tell he was dealing w/ the homeowner (much less a fucking Harvard prof) than some dude pulling a dumb-assed forced B&E on the front door in broad daylight. The fact a supposed trained law enforcement 'professional' couldn't ascertain the same shows a pathetic lack of social skills and awareness on the part of the Cambridge PD. I hope Dr Gates gets a substantial award and the chowder headed pig gets relegated to another career where the power happy SOB is removed from being a danger to the public before he causes real harm to an innocent.

[hedgehog]

12. Hey, I'm with you. I've just heard too many people put the blame on Gates

for not cooperating with the police. The officer tried to punish Gates for being an uppity black man. He would never have arrested a white man in the same situation. That's the point I was trying to get across by substituting a white man in the scenario.