Category: General July 24, 2009
Message to Prof. Gates: Guess What you are Black in America Too!
Posted: 11:35 AM ET Campbell Brown Blog – Staff Filed under: Uncategorized
By James L. Walker, Jr.
Entertainment lawyer, adjunct professor, author and businessman
When I was 18, I was stopped on a moped by white police officers and rudely arrested, booked, finger printed and locked up as I tried to explain they had the wrong guy for the alleged stolen moped I was driving.
The police dropped all charges. But, I got the message quickly: I’m a black man in America and this is the reality of my life when it comes to dealing with police, so be quiet, shut my mouth and obey law and order.
Fast forward 25 years later, and some white cops often escort me via police cruiser to any of my properties or home or even the office building on occasion.
While I cannot make any excuses or justifications for the wrongful and ridiculous conduct of Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested the 58-year-old highly-respected professor, I can only say I am a bit taken aback that Professor Gates says that he now realizes “if this could happen to me in Harvard Square, it could happen to anyone in America?”
This statement has a duality that alarms me: Is he suggesting that because he was at Harvard, somehow he is exempt from the basic pains and struggles of folks in Harlem, USA vs. Harvard square?
Or, is he saying that it took this arrest and fiasco to get him in touch with the real struggles of the Black Community with regards to racial profiling?
For example, when interviewed by CNN, Prof. Gates, a middle-aged black man of incredible brilliance, was still surprisingly reeling in shock for what many Black men experience on the regular, stating, as if it was a big announcement, “What it made me realize was how vulnerable all black men are, how vulnerable all people of color are and (how vulnerable) all poor people are to capricious forces like a rogue policeman…and this man clearly was a rogue policeman,” referring to Sgt. Crowley, who disputes the characterization with no apology.
Where have you been brother Gates? Come down to Bridgeport, CT, and Camden, NJ, or Cleveland, Ohio, Houston’s 4th Ward, Compton, or Jackson, Mississippi and talk to the brethren and hear the Souls of Black Folks or at least Black Men.
Please relax on the thoughts of “using this as an educational opportunity” unless it is needed in the Harvard Square circle, because most of Black America, and those whites who’ll admit it, know we have these kinds of policemen.
Specifically, millions of blacks and Latinos are already educated on this sad issue in our society. And, whites have heard it often enough to know that it is real. The question is do people care, which is another whole discussion.
I don’t think we need Prof. Gates to “educate” us, I think we need you to get in touch with us.
Harvard has a number of black issues that are more important than a well-paid, white-collar professor being mistakenly arrested, unharmed and later having all charges dropped.
Harvard has the largest endowment of any university at hitting $30 billion dollars at one time (We know it took an $8 billion dollar drop, but can we put a few billions into the minority community?)
While Harvard had a record 11% of the admitted students come from African-American background, according to its school paper, we need to look at the surrounding struggles of Blacks in the Greater Boston area and put our outrage there on how Harvard can do more with these billions.
Again, I am so sad about the experience that Prof. Gates endured and I have the utmost of respect for him personally and his great scholarship, but to spend months rehashing how rude the officer obviously was to you and how appalled you are as one of our esteemed scholars, is useless.
We love your work as an academic, but keep working there and don’t state the obvious: for once in your life, of public record, you experienced what it is like for everyday African-Americans whose address is not in Cambridge, Mass. or Harvard Square.
Just maybe, we should spend time looking at the bigger issue of this exclusive Ivy league club that makes many of us with Ivy League degrees think we are in some way shielded with a false sense of security and a failure to realize that yet and still, you are still Black In America too! |
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