The Gates Arrest: Shakespearean Tragedy or Comedy of Errors?

What a perfect storm this Gates arrest turned out to be... Keep in mind that this kind of call could have been made on anyone, but it was made on a distinguished Harvard professor--the head of the Black History Department, no less, and very well respected in his field. The police come to check him out--it could have been a robbery, conceivably--two men were seen forcing open a door in a home that had not been occupied for some time (apparently, Gates had been travelling in China). Sgt. James Crowley, a white police officer, asks Gates for identification and cooperation. Gates feels pushed around, and tries to stand up for himself, assuming it is racial bias that motivates the cops.

We can see this through two lenses, now. There's a tired professor who returns home with an illness/infection he contracted abroad (he was walking with a cane), only to find a stuck door. He's probably tired. He just wants to rest. Then the cops show up. That's all he needs. He feels they're giving him more trouble than necessary, and suspects racial profiling. He hears about it all the time. Reads about it. His life work is the study of the history of black oppression in the US, for crying out loud. That's Gates' lens.

The other lens: a policeman gets a very routine call. He gets this kind of thing a lot. He knows the protocol. He sees the individual involved is agitated, resisting. The procedure is to make an arrest if suspect's behavior is disturbing the peace, and in this officer's mind, the suspect is making a big hairy deal out of nothing. The cop is just doing his job. Maybe he's tired, too. That's Sgt. Crowley's lens.

I may be far off on what these two were thinking and feeling at the time, but on the surface it seems such a shame--another case of racial profiling--America should be past this, right? There seems here to be a parallel to Shakepeare's Othello, where we get the idea that Iago's hatred for Othello would not be so bitter if Othello weren't black. At least, that's one interpretation--Shakespeare never spells this out, of course. Either way, there is the resulting calamity. It just makes the tragedy worse when you think it was only due to Othello's color that he became a victim, and many victims in America have committed no other crime than this, to be sure. So sad.

But then you read the rest of the news on the Gates arrest, and what reads at first as racial profiling is soon revealed to be a true comedy of errors: Prof. Gates and Pres. Obama errors.

(AP) — "The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

'I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,' Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The course, called 'Racial Profiling,' teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community 'and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from,' Fleming said. The academy trains cadets for cities across the region." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_disorderly)

Professor Gates just happened to get arrested by an officer who teaches a class about racial profiling, and who was hand-picked for this job by a black police commissioner. Crowley is also well-respected and the policemen with him at Gates' arrest all stand behind him and confirm he was following protocol.

We're also talking about an arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is not some ignorant corner of humanity, here. If you're going to find an enlightened police force, I'm guessing it's in Cambridge Massachusetts. Could it be that Gates overreacted just a little bit?

It's just too funny--what are the odds that Gates would get this particular police officer on his doorstep and then accuse him of racial bias? No wonder Obama ate his words so fast. In my opinion, Sgt. Crowley deserves a real apology--it speaks to his character that he's not demanding one.