Beyond Race but Not Beyond Contempt

Here's what we know, or what we think we know. Well known Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr, ("Skip" to his friend, the President) was arrested in his Cambridge, MA home the other day. The lock was broken, so he had to break into his own home. Sucks, but sometimes that happens. Down the street, a woman working in the offices of a Harvard University magazine, sees Gates (not realizing who it is) breaking into a house and calls the cops. Cops show up, ask Gates for an ID. At some point there is unhappiness all around and Gates is arrested. This much we know, or think we know.

We can only speculate that Gates was in a bad mood, not only because he had to break into his own house, but now the police are here. We can only speculate that maybe the arresting officer didn't handle things as well as he could have. Both Gates and the arresting officer are, we can assume, human, and therefore not always perfect.

Cambridge police say that Gates did not produce an ID when requested and put up quite a stink before he finally did show some identification.

We have the word of Gates, who feels he was treated improperly, and the word of the arresting officer, who says he will not apologize as Gates as requested because he has done nothing wrong.

And now we have the words of President Obama, who said last night in a press conference that "the police acted stupidly." President Obama felt this way, even though he first admitted that "I don't have all the facts." I think that's an unfortunately perfect example of the contempt or the anger or something that Obama has for a large swath of the American population. It fits in with his comments during the presidential campaign about rural Americans "clinging to their guns and religion." There's just a lot of contempt emanating from this Obama guy and I'm not sure why. He seems to have had a pretty good life, so I'm not sure where all the anger is coming from.

Listen, here's the thing. I'm no friend of the police. They lurk around, hiding in the shadows, waiting for me to speed by in my car so the local community can make some money off of my lead foot. But I'm no enemy of the police, either, nor do I feel contempt for them. I understand they have a job to do.

In the case of Professor Skip, the Cambridge police were responding to a possible break-in. Now, I might recognize Professor Gates because I've seen his Lincoln documentary on PBS and his appearances on various talk programs, but I suspect the average cop doesn't watch a lot of PBS. And like I said before, Gates probably was not in the best of moods when the cops got there, having had to break into his house and all, and maybe the cops weren't using their Harvard voices when they were talking to Prof. Gates, but the bottom line is this: Cop asks for ID, Gates shows ID without an attitude, cops leave. That's how it should have happened and my hunch is the responsibility for it not happening like this lies with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

As for the charges against Gates being dropped, when you're a famous Harvard professor and a friend of the President of the United States, chances are good your disorderly conduct charges get dropped.

And as for President Obama, he should be ashamed of himself for saying the police acted stupidly when he himself admitted he didn't know all the facts.