Filed under: boston, racism | Tags: harvard, henry louis gates, racial profiling
Latest news: Cambridge police are dropping the charges against African American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for “disorderly conduct” after breaking in to his own home.
No doubt more analysis and articles about the repercussions of this event–racial profiling? lackadaisical police training?–will follow.
Filed under: boston, racism | Tags: cambridge, harvard, henry louis gates, police, racial profiling
You want to believe it doesn’t happen. You want to believe that it would happen to anyone, regardless of race. You hope it’s just an honest mistake.
Last Thursday, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested outside his own home in Cambridge. A neighbor called police after witnessing “two black males with backpacks on the porch,” with one “wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.”
Clearly, this could have happened to anyone. A person forgets his keys, climbs in through a back window. It would be neighborly and helpful for a neighbor to call the authorities to check it out.
What is troubling about this case is the extent to which the Cambridge Police officers continued their line of questioning. Once Gates produced his Harvard identification and driver’s license, the officer continued to question him. To a reasonable citizen, proof of identity–much less residence status–would be enough to back off.
Makes you go hmmm.
Filed under: boston, education, gay rights | Tags: chair, gay, harvard, larry kramer
News from the ivory tower: Harvard has endowed the nation’s first chair in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered studies. This will be the first of its kind, and was established by the school’s gay and lesbian caucus.
CUNY established the first gay and lesbian studies program in 1986. Activist Larry Kramer tried to endow a chair in gay studies at Yale in the late 90’s.
