The Gates Arrest

I've been arguing the ins and outs of this case with friends and acquaintances of all races live and via facebook since it first occurred. Let me first stipulate that I think it was probably not a bright idea for the officer to choose to arrest Dr. Gates. When you have a man who is bound and determined to find racism in your actions, arresting him on a dubious charge like disturbing the peace is probably not the smartest move. However, given that we now know that the officer in question has struggled to save the life of a black man in the past, there was at least one black cop on the scene when the arrest took place, that the officer's fellow police of all colors are standing by his actions, and that he LITERALLY teaches the class on racial profiling, maybe some of the people (including Gates) who jumped to the conclusion that any of this was racial should rethink their positions.

On top of that, when I'm being lectured on America's racial intolerance by the black president of a country whose population is only 12.8% black, the black governor of a state whose population is only 7.5% black, and the black mayor of a city whose population is 11.9% black on behalf of a tenured black professor at an Ivy League university whose specialty is sitting around writing about being black in America, I reserve the right to not feel very guilty.