Prof. Gates and Sgt. Crowley: Is Your Home Your Castle?
While many (not all) white Americans are pointing out that Gates was arrested for exhibiting “loud and tumultuous behavior” and while many black Americans are calling Gates an Uncle Tom, there is a more important issue. While others point out similar incidents with Latinos and while others point out the pitfalls of racial profiling, there is a more important issue. While working class people say we should all be treated alike, they miss the point. And skip (pardon the pun), the old joke about what do you call a black man in America with a PhD.
The important issue is: Can police come into your home without a warrant, arrest you, and take mug shots? Well, yes they can. Under the Patriot Act, under no-knock, under the guise of a drug bust, under almost any excuse if you are polygamists and now because a neighbor who lives next door doesn’t know you?
Does this set the precedent that there is no place that is private? No place where you can get away from the world? Professor Gates had just arrived home after a trip to China. How many hours of jet lag is that? Would you like to come late, tired, hungry, and sleepy (meaning you want to go to bed) and be accused of breaking into your own home, showing identification, and then the questions continue? In my town and in many towns I’ve lived in, the police officer would have said: “We can bring in the CSI people to check for the fingerprints of burglars left on your doorway or I can just leave my card (police officers have business cards) and you can call us in the morning after you’ve had a night of sleep.”
Officer Crowley was male. I wonder if a female officer would have picked up the cues that Gates was dog tired and possibly missing his insulin injection?
It may come as a shock to many: Being angry at a cop is not against the law. Unwise yes. Rude yes. But not against the law. In fact, it’s the First Amendment. That’s why the prosecutor dropped the case. The Cambridge Police did not have a legal leg to stand on.
Then I flinched at the idea of a beer summit. Appeals to Joe Six-pack I suppose. But I had nightmares about a drunken cop waving a gun and going down in a hail of gunfire. No wait, that was a movie on TV. Life imitates art and art imitates life.
