July 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 am
Houston Baker on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates
The following post is by Houston Baker, Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University and the author of many books, most recently Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era.
The surreal arrest of Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. in Cambridge, MA, this week highlights as well as any bizarre event might that we are not citizens of a “post-racial” America.
There is, to be sure, President Barack Obama and his family. But, there is only one Obama family, and the police live with them. The rest of us who are black (and especially black and male) are simply, in the vernacular of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, “running men” with eyes necessarily in the back of our heads and that heart throbbing and humorous plea: “feet don’t fail me now.”
Seeing the sweetly dressed Cambridge Police Department spokeswoman on television yesterday reminded me how much the police state has altered its image way beyond the flat-out brutalism of the L.A., Philadelphia, and Chicago models of old. I mean Frank Rizzo just said to those Black Panthers something on the order of “[N word] drop your pants and grab the wall!” The Cambridge spokeswoman said something on the order of: “It was not the department’s finest hour, nor was it Professor Gates’ finest hour.” Darn tooting it was not the Professor’s finest hour, being ousted from his own home after showing his Harvard University ID and enough outrage to suggest that it was, indeed, his home. And handcuffs and mug shots and hours in detention?
Ironically, no black public intellectual in the US has been more complicit in publicizing the myth of “post racialism” as an American reality than Professor Gates. The police spokeswoman from Cambridge said something like: “It is our position that the incident had nothing to do with race.” All I could hear were whisper tones of QVC: “And when you all buy into the Gates/Cambridge ‘race had nothing to do with it,’ we have some fine swamp land in Florida at a great discount. Or, maybe you’d like a bridge?” Remember Malcolm’s question: “Do you know what they call a Negro Ph.D.?” Malcolm’s answer: “The N Word!”
July 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
As usual, Houston Baker speaks with clarity and courage. When we ignore the truth of the very real problems around us, we do so at our own peril. Is it really possible for those of us who are white and in any position of power to ever say, “the incident had nothing to do with race?” Personally, I doubt that I could ever dismiss my sixty years of societal training so easily and with such certainty.
July 25th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
It appears Vanderbilt has been very good for the esteemed Professor.How refreshing it is to see his concern over surreal arrests.Oddly enough while in Durham the Professor didn’t have any qualms subscribing to the police version of the events concerning the Duke lacrosse team. It was after all the only evidence he needed to demand that all members of the team be dismissed, a mere sixteens days after the initial report. It’s nice to see the Professor has become more measured in his responses. One down 87 to go.
July 26th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Linda, Skippy Gates made sure that it was about race. That’s his job. I wonder if he’s called Madonna Constantine yet to see if he can borrow her noose.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
What happened to your outrage when 3 WHITE college students where maliciously prosecuted for POLITICAL purposes?
July 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
As long as there are professional race victims like Houston Baker and Henry Louis Gates we cannot have a “post-racial” America. If you want to see the problem go look in the mirror.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Given the racist tenor of his March 29 2006 letter about the Duke lacrosse case, decrying a culture of “white” brutishness, insensitivity, and drunkenness, etc., Mr. Gates’ sudden sensitivities regarding racism are beyond ridicule.