Confessions of a 20 Something: Pandora's Box At Its Finest
August 3, 2009 • By Ana Guthrie
The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. versus Cambridge Police debacle strikes a personal chord.
I majored in African-American Literature in undergrad. Gates wrote or edited most of my required textbooks and was behind one of my favorite documentaries, Finding Oprah's Roots. He is to my line of work what Magic Johnson is to basketball. At the writing of this column, Gates' latest endeavor-the African-American National Biography volume set-is shelved a few feet away.
But…this isn't about me or my Gates enthusiasm. Back to the point.
A normal night in charming Cambridge wound up as pure horror for Professor Gates, Sergeant Crowley and the ivy league community.
For those who haven't seen the news flashes, email forwards, mass texts, notes in bottles, or Native American smoke signals, the story starts with Dr. Gates returning from a trip to China on July 16th. Unable to open his front door, he and his driver unjammed it for several minutes. Gates' neighbor rightly called the police.
Subsequently, Sgt. Crowley came on "the scene." Gates answered the sergeant's knocks but felt as though the investigation was intrusive. It appears that Gates, an African-American sociology scholar, grew defensive and accused Crowley of racial profiling. An annoyed Gates, however, complied with the procedure and presented identification.
As anyone of notoriety as Crowley would be, the current police academy instructor on diversity and racial profiling, was offended by the accusation of prejudice.
So suddenly there's a role model versus a role model, an expert pitted against an expert.
Words were exchanged. Crowley and back-up officers arrested Gates, charging him with disorderly conduct. The charges were later dropped.
The bitterness, however, was just sprouting. News of Professor Gates' arrest spread like the swine flu-and with just as much calamity. Americans began to debate at home, work, lecture halls and coffee shops. "Who is wrong in this situation?... Who's to blame?" folks pondered. Even weeks later, the chatter continues.
The blogosphere is glutted with comments like, "Just because you teach wanna-be cops on how to avoid profiling, doesn't mean you practice it," or "I'll respect Gates when he teaches a real college subject," or "Why do we even have Black Studies? I don't see any colleges teaching White Studies?"
America is bleeding, in a way. And, to add salt to the wound, President Obama stirred even more vexation with his comment that Crowley "acted stupidly." Crowley's police union demanded an apology from the president. There are many racists in America but Crowley isn't one of them, his police comraderes argued.
To me, the story has tremendous gaps, particularly between the exchanged words and Gates' arrest. No one really knows what happened. People are filling the space with their own perceptions. Depending on who you are, Gates is a hypersensitive, militant Black pseudo-intellectual, or a progressive, harmless brother. Conversely, folks consider Crowley to be either an arrogant bully who hides behind the badge or an exemplary public servant.
It's simply unclear, to me, whether or not Gates was paranoid or if Crowley threw his weight around. If you ask me, the culprit is clear: pride. Both men had a lot of it, thus, they overreacted. Both men knew better; neither one was an angel.
Perhaps President Obama put it best when he met with both parties and stated, "My sense is you have got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved."
Right on, Mr. President.
Gates and Crowley equally failed to diffuse the situation so it exploded onto the national stage. During this year when we are celebrating the NAACP's 100th year in existence; this month when the nation's first Black president marks his sixth month in office; this week when CNN is launching a second installment of its Black in America series, we are still falling for Satan's trap of racial divide. I speculate that Satan is relaxing beside some pool, stroking his precious Pandora's box and celebrating all the ills that have scattered on account of this saga...vain babblings or useless chatter, in particular. (2 Tim. 2:16)
Yes, we need to talk about how real racism still is in the U.S., but not like this and not in this way.
Ana Guthrie is a super cool chick with a heart for God and love for youth culture. She doubles as a not-so-naughty librarian and instructor at Florida Memorial University in Miami, Florida. 
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