Author: Dan Kennedy

A couple of Gates-related odds and ends

I want to make it clear right up front that I know neither of these tidbits speaks directly to the matter of Professor Henry Louis Gates versus Sgt. James Crowley. But I’ve been thinking about both of them, and have decided they’re worth passing on as being indicative of a certain cultural mindset.

First, can we agree that 1999 wasn’t that long ago? Good. Because it was during that year that the Cambridge Chronicle discovered the Cambridge Police Department was training its officers to believe Mexicans and members of other ethnic groups who routinely eat spicy foods were immune to pepper spray. Apologies ensued.

Second, why on earth would Crowley give his first major interview to John Dennis and Gerry Callahan on WEEI Radio (AM 850)? The officer was trying to make the case that he’s not a racist — and yet he talked with two guys who were once suspended for comparing black kids to “gorillas.”

I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Crowley is a racist. On the other hand, the evidence that he’s “clueless,” as Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker put it yesterday, continues to build.

As for President Obama, his week was like the Red Sox’ — really bad, ending on an upbeat note, but leaving you wondering whether he can shore up some fundamental flaws (lack of message discipline, combined with a disconcerting habit of having to revise his remarks) that weren’t evident when he was winning.

Payback time for Couric

“CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric rips New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley for her error-riddled tribute to Walter Cronkite. As the Huffington Post observes, Couric must have enjoyed herself, as Stanley has been one of her tormenters. (Thanks to WBUR’s Steve Brown.)

Stanley’s butchery led me to make an error in my Guardian piece this week, as I relied her piece in asserting that Cronkite did not overcome NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report” in the ratings until Chet Huntley retired, in 1970. We’re supposed to run a correction, but it hasn’t been posted yet.

Gates comments now closed

I have changed Blogger’s settings so that any comment made to a post more than a day old will be moderated. That will allow me to delete any further comments to posts on the Henry Louis Gates arrest. This will not apply to any new posts I might write on the Gates matter. But we’re now up to well over 200 comments, mostly from the same small group of people. Enough.

Obama, Gates and racism

President Obama stepped on his health-care message last night when he said more about the Henry Louis Gates arrest than he should have — especially since, as he himself admitted, he didn’t know the facts.

But critics who tut-tut whenever Obama reminds us that he is indeed an African-American who has experienced his share of racism might want to consider the debilitating effects of crap like this and this.

White House blocks visitor logs

The Obama administration is continuing George W. Bush’s policy of arguing that logs of visitors to the White House — health-care executives, of all people — are not public, Bill Dedman reports for MSNBC.com.

David Kurtz has a withering take on the news at Talking Points Memo: “Cheney Obama refuses to release visitor logs showing which energy health care company executives visited the White House.”

OK, we get it that we’re not suffering through Barack Obama’s economy or his war in Iraq — at least not yet. But governmental openness is not only something the president promised, but it’s also under his direct control. Enough already.

Globe may charge for some online content

Boston Globe editor Marty Baron tells “Greater Boston” that the Globe may start charging for some online content. No surprise. It’s pretty clear that the Globe and a number of other papers are going to try paid-content experiments of one sort or another. I don’t think they’re likely to work, but that’s another matter.

Whatever the Globe tries, it should make sure that there are no extra charges for its best customers — its print subscribers. And it should stay away from charging for its daily newspaper content. In other words, create a new product that people who don’t currently subscribe to the Globe would be willing to pay for.

Not easily done, I realize.

Update: Just watched the segment. Baron says the Globe is looking into charging for “premium” or “specialized” content of some sort. Not sure what that means, but directionally it sounds like the right move.

What the Gates story says about race and culture

One thing that has struck me in the endless discussion over Henry Louis Gates’ arrest is the difference in cultural attitudes between those who are defending Gates versus those siding with the Cambridge police.

Specifically, I’m startled by the notion put forth by some that Gates was in the wrong by not showing extreme deference toward the police. If you put race aside for a moment (but only for a moment), I think that, more than anything, accounts for the split. We’re talking about a clash of worldviews that we’re not going to resolve here.

I’ve been sitting on the fence but leaning toward Gates. I now think we know enough that I can come out firmly on Gates’ side. We may never know exactly what happened. But the only important difference between the police report and Gates’ own account is the question of whether Gates pulled a nutty. I don’t care if he did or not.

I’m going link-free; I’ve linked to everything relevant over the past few days, so just click here.

Here are some facts that we know beyond any doubt:

  • A woman who works but does not live in the neighborhood called police to report that two black men appeared to be breaking into a home. Perhaps she would have called even if Gates and his driver had been white. I don’t know what she was thinking. But if their race played a role in her decision to dial “911,” that would hardly be the first time police have been summoned because black people had been seen in a place they weren’t supposed to be.
  • The police responded and questioned Gates, as they should have, given the woman’s call and her report that the two men were trying to force their way in.
  • A short time later, Sgt. James Crowley and his fellow officers knew for a fact that Gates, in fact, lived in the home to which they had responded. Gates — 58 years old and disabled — may or may not have been ranting and raving at them. But surely the officers knew that, through no fault of their own, they had stumbled into a racially explosive situation.
  • Rather than find a way to extricate themselves and let everyone cool off, the police decided to arrest Gates at his own home and charge him with disturbing the peace. Even if you rely solely on the police report, it’s clear that Gates’ offense was mouthing off to the officers, who were on his property and who no longer had any reason to be there.
  • The arrest took place last Thursday. No one knew about it until Monday, when the police report leaked out. (It appears that the Boston Globe broke the story.) Even though the report was a public record that the police were withholding on flimsy grounds (The investigation was continuing? Really?), a police spokesman said as recently as yesterday that the department was trying to ferret out the leaker.
  • As soon as Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone got involved, the charges were dropped and the Cambridge Police Department issued a conciliatory statement. It is telling, I think, that it took an outsider to see the arrest for the fiasco it was.

Am I missing anything? I don’t think so. I also don’t think anyone can dispute the facts as I’ve laid them out. Given that, we come back to our competing mindsets.

Could Gates have handled this differently? Well, sure. He could — as many have suggested — have thanked the officers for keeping such a close eye on his house and sent them on their way with a smile and a handshake. Maybe that would have even been a better response.

And you know what? It’s definitely how I would have responded. But I’m white, and that fact predisposes me to have a very different attitude toward police officers. At a minimum, I would never suspect I was being hassled because I didn’t look like I belonged in my own home or in a particular neighborhood.

Gates responded as someone whose dignity had been assaulted because of his race. And whether that was literally true or not, the officers should have understood immediately that that was a perfectly understandable, reasonable response on Gates’ part.

Either the police didn’t recognize the situation for what it was, or they did and made a macho decision to show Gates who was in charge. Either way, it was a mistake, and one we’ll be hearing about for some time to come.