by Henry RoseDr. Gates told the Cambridge cop he didn't know who he was messing with. But some of us Black folks know Dr. Gates only too well. “Over the last 15 years Gates has often been enlisted by America’s most prestigious media venues to knock down radical Black initiatives, the Black poor, Black Nationalist leaders, and Afrocentricity.” Gates is, for the moment, whistling a different tune, having gained a sudden insight into Black life in America.
“Skip” Gates Slapped So Hard, the Red, White and Blue Pom-Poms Dropped from His Eyes
by Henry Rose
“No sane, adult Black man in America would go running after the police questioning them without a witness in sight.”
Dr. Henry Louis (Skip) Gates, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Harvard Professor was arrested for disorderly conduct outside his own home in Cambridge Mass. on July 16, 2009. Gates is known as an affable, donnish, brilliant, and astute man, with a keen sense of political and personal positioning in the racial debate. The arrest stemmed from Gates being unable to enter his home from the front door. Gates entered the home from the back. A person on the block thought Gates was breaking into the home (with a limo driver and suitcases in hand) and called the police. When the police responded to the call Gates was already in the home. Gates produced 2 forms of ID to demonstrate that he lived in the home and taught at Harvard, the officer insisted that Gates step outside; Gates refused but followed the officer out of the house in an attempt to get the officer’s badge number and name. Gates was cuffed, arrested, and booked for disorderly conduct, the charges were subsequently dropped. The story drips with a certain irony, for there has been no more enthusiastic booster of the neoliberal racial agenda in the last 15 years than Skip Gates.
Over the last 15 years Gates has often been enlisted by America’s most prestigious media venues to knock down radical Black initiatives, the Black poor, Black Nationalist leaders, and Afrocentricity. He displayed a neo-liberal relish for the work and went about it gleefully, while building a hugely successful if apolitical Black Studies Department at Harvard. Gates, in debate with Manning Marable, argued eloquently about the need for a dispassionate and disconnected scholarship for Black Studies to reach its highest potential. Gates claimed the idea of intellectual production working for the benefit of the African-American people (the original mission of Black Studies) was wrong and somehow quoted W.E.B. Du Bois, the most prominent scholar/activist in African-American history, to argue against what Du Bois did his entire life. Gates wrote the lead piece in Newsweek about the race of Cleopatra. His argument was framed in a way that the larger question of whether the Ancient Egyptian people were Black was ignored. Gates also did a multi-part PBS TV piece on Africa, “The Wonders of the African World” that many felt mocked the history, religion, and cultures of the continent.
“Gates has often been enlisted to knock down radical Black initiatives, the Black poor, Black Nationalist leaders, and Afrocentricity.”
Gates, in his “The Two Nations of Black America,” argued that a sharp class division had taken place within the African-American people and that the division was so great that there was no longer an African-American people in the USA. He appeared to advocate different treatment for the “higher class” of Blacks. Never a conservative but not quite liberal, much less radical, Gates has been known to admonish Blacks to “stop blaming white people for their problems.” As if white America’s 40-year political sharp turn to the right (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, plus Carter and Clinton running to the right) is not rooted in the reaction to Black challenges about wealth and power, and as if this rightward turn has not affected the lives of Blacks in America. In many important ways Gates served as a cosigner and lead broker to the promissory notes that America had put out about the depth and level of social transformation that had taken place. Not just did he cosign, Gates picked up the red, white, and blue pom-poms for the new multi-racial America that didn’t challenge wealth and power arrangements and kicked like a Rockette to promote it, a cheerleader for the dream so to speak. On July 16th Gates was given a rude awakening to the “new” America.
“Gates has been known to admonish Blacks to 'stop blaming white people for their problems.'”
It left Gates with handcuffs on, asking “is this how you treat a Black man in America.” Uh yeah, of course it is, Skip. African-Americans are the most incarcerated people in human history, a people that came to America in and very much remain in chains. Now Skip Gates was one of the chained. The things that must have run through Gates' mind as he saw the events unfolding. What if his daughters were home and the cop got nervous? What if he moved wrong and was shot down to die on his own Persian rug? What if his daughter had a young male friend or relative with her, would that person have been killed in that situation? Did the personal responsibility questions start to formulate in Gates’ mind about himself, did his tasseled loafers have bootstraps to pull up by? Gates was clearly disconnected from any semblance of Black reality, because no sane, adult Black man in America would go running after the police questioning them without a witness in sight.But Gates lived in a dream world that he helped construct - one that had little basis in the lives of the majority of Black people in America.
The entire incident has served to galvanize the Black elite. They have appeared on TV, radio, print, and the internet denouncing the acts of Cambridge Police and raising issues of racial injustice in the criminal justice system. Some of the most ambivalent and timid Blacks in media/politics have made statements regarding Skip Gates. Harold Ford Jr. and even President Barack Obama have come out to question the police officer’s choice. Bill Cosby had a conversation that, for once, wasn’t focused on demonizing the Black poor.And Gates himself has gained a sudden level of energy and commitment that he never has demonstrated in the past, at least not in defense of Black people.
“Bill Cosby had a conversation that, for once, wasn’t focused on demonizing the Black poor.”
Gates says he now realizes how vulnerable Black people without his elite connections (direct line to the President) are to police misbehavior and power. As expected, the white media have taken Dr. Gates and President Obama to task for daring to question the police. They transformed the story from a scholar being arrested in his own home to how police officers deal with verbal abuse. They maintain it is Gates who needs to take personal responsibility for boorish behavior that subjected an upholder of the law to ridicule and abuse.
For African-Americans on the radical end of the Black political spectrum the entire episode serves as a lesson in struggle. And for those who have strayed far from their roots, getting slapped by the police (or any major white force in America) metaphorically or physically is usually enough to snap them out of their white dream and back into Black reality. Welcome back Skip.
Postscript: President Obama slid away from his earlier, stronger position and promised to try to get Gates and the arresting officer together for a beer. This was a tacit admission that white power is, ultimately, too much for the president to handle, and that racial discourse in America is still shaped by and beholden to white power.
Henry D. Rose has more than twenty years of experience working in various aspects of human services and human rights. He is currently the statewide coordinator for the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. Mr. Rose was lead organizer for SEIU 1199 New Jersey. In that capacity he ran union recognition elections, developed political and community based campaigns, and negotiated contracts. For more than ten years, Mr. Rose worked with T.R.A.C.E.S Institute, a training, research, and community educational services. Mr. Rose is chair and founder of Blacks for Social Justice, the publisher of Chin Check newsletter, and a member of People’s Organization for Progress. Mr. Rose cofounded Genesis Shule ( a community school in Newark). He has lectured on a variety of civil rights, human rights, and community based issues.
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