One lesson I learned early in life (have a bit of a temper, I do) is, a soft answer turns away wrath. The cop is on edge, Mr. Gates is on edge. Things can escalate to the point where stuff happens. Mr. Gates gets hurt. The cop gets hurt. Mr. Gates gets killed. The cop gets killed. None of these are acceptable outcomes, and it's the cop's job to see that they do not come about. Remember, neither of us were there.
Properly trained the police have the job of getting matters in hand, and getting upset civilians calmed down. Again, I wasn't there, so I don't know how matters proceeded once Gates' ID was established. I can understand his getting upset and acting out. I can also understand the cop getting riled himself and cutting short a possible violent incident by taking preemptive action. Could the officer have been conciliatory? Yes. Could Henry Louis Gates have chilled a bit himself? Of course. But, it could have been worse.
We tend to treat people the way they treat us. When someone smiles and acts nice we reciprocate. When someone is snarly and mean, we get snarly and mean. It's the way we are. It takes a good deal of self-control to respond differently, to act in a manner opposite to how the other is behaving. Here you had a civilian on edge, and a cop on edge. It could've ended up a lot worse than it did.
Now, you and I weren't there when the incident occurred. Can you be sure that Henry Gates wasn't the one who greeted a reasonable request to establish his bonafides with some misplaced rage, because he was pissed at the trouble he was having getting in his own house? Don't be surprised at what is relevant to an incident.
You make some cogent points about the responsibility of police officers in keeping their own emotions out of these situations, and de-escalating those of the civilians involved. I don't think you go far enough, however--the officer and his colleagues entirely failed to live up to this part of their job. Gates was upset, by his own admission; however, the officer failed to give him any space to cool down, and according to Gates's account there were about half a dozen officers on hand by the time the actual arrest occurred. There can't have been any reason to believe that any of the officers were in danger. Sure, I wasn't there, but I can read between the lines; they had decided that this guy didn't belong there, so they removed him.
I also think your response doesn't take into account the fact that the incident was race-based before the officer was even on site; the 911 caller reported that two big black men were trying to break in with backpacks on. I don't know what the caller's vantage point was, but both men were wearing suits and neither was wearing a backpack. She saw what she was afraid of--big black men committing a crime in her neighborhood. The police responded in kind--two black criminals are in this nice upscale neighborhood. Assumptions were made before Gates and the officer exchanged a single word. For that reason alone, the incident went forward with the taint of racism at work.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-21 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-21 08:52 pm (UTC)Properly trained the police have the job of getting matters in hand, and getting upset civilians calmed down. Again, I wasn't there, so I don't know how matters proceeded once Gates' ID was established. I can understand his getting upset and acting out. I can also understand the cop getting riled himself and cutting short a possible violent incident by taking preemptive action. Could the officer have been conciliatory? Yes. Could Henry Louis Gates have chilled a bit himself? Of course. But, it could have been worse.
We tend to treat people the way they treat us. When someone smiles and acts nice we reciprocate. When someone is snarly and mean, we get snarly and mean. It's the way we are. It takes a good deal of self-control to respond differently, to act in a manner opposite to how the other is behaving. Here you had a civilian on edge, and a cop on edge. It could've ended up a lot worse than it did.
Now, you and I weren't there when the incident occurred. Can you be sure that Henry Gates wasn't the one who greeted a reasonable request to establish his bonafides with some misplaced rage, because he was pissed at the trouble he was having getting in his own house? Don't be surprised at what is relevant to an incident.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-21 09:45 pm (UTC)I also think your response doesn't take into account the fact that the incident was race-based before the officer was even on site; the 911 caller reported that two big black men were trying to break in with backpacks on. I don't know what the caller's vantage point was, but both men were wearing suits and neither was wearing a backpack. She saw what she was afraid of--big black men committing a crime in her neighborhood. The police responded in kind--two black criminals are in this nice upscale neighborhood. Assumptions were made before Gates and the officer exchanged a single word. For that reason alone, the incident went forward with the taint of racism at work.