July 21, 2009, 03:00 AM ET

The Logic of Racial Expectations

The folks I follow on Twitter (yeah, I’m still experimenting with that seemingly useless social networking tool) have been raging over the past day and a half about Skip Gates’s recent altercation with the Cambridge Police Department, an altercation that began in his own home, spilled out onto his front porch, and eventually landed the iconic Harvard professor in jail. Here’s how the Boston Globe tells the story.

Gina Barreca, one of my Brainstorm Blog colleagues, has already opened up the dialogue for us.

I’m hunkered down at home right now trying to finish a short “afterward” for the paperback edition of my most recent book, Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness, but I just wanted to take a quick break to weigh-in on the entire affair.

At this point, I’m sure that most interested parties have gotten the details: the phoned-in tip about two Black men apparently breaking into a Cambridge home, the cop who arrives to confront Gates, already safely in his living room despite a jammed front door, and then Gates allegedly lighting into said officer, chalking the indignity of being asked for ID in his own home up to the logic of racialized expectations, an officer being suspicious for no good reason. Because “I’m a black man in America’‘ is how Gates supposedly put it. Of course, the cop would probably maintain that race had nothing to do with it.

Two quick ironies before I get back to work.

First, the book for which I’m currently writing that aforementioned “afterward” tries to explain just how such a scenario could have gone down in the first place. It attempts to connect dots between Gatesian accusations (of race-thinking) and a cop’s defense (of colorblindness and racial neutrality).

The Gates exchange isn’t really all that very different (in some ways) from the cases I highlight in my book (for instance, comedian Dave Chappelle walking out on his successful TV show or Cynthia McKinney accusing a DC officer of cloaked racial bias).

So, I’m currently working on the paperback edition of a book that is an extended riff on just how such a blow-up between Gates and the officer could have happened in the first place. And I try to explain why Gates could have been angry enough to scream at the officer (as the police report claims) instead of just shrugging it off and going on about his business (or even being thankful to the cop for checking on his place). Gates’s response isn’t crazy or irrational. It is a direct byproduct of America’s relatively recent racial successes.

The second irony: Gates was generous enough to write a blurb for the dust-jacket of the hardcover version of Racial Paranoia, which only makes me feel that much more invested in getting the word out about its argument.

Readers don’t have to agree with my conclusions, but I do believe that my claims provide some useful terms for any potentially productive conversation about the reconfigured realities of race in a supposedly post-racial world.

As an aside, I remember my first day up in Cambridge, MA. Almost a decade ago now. I had defended my dissertation the morning before, rented a U-haul, and drove myself (along with all my earthly belongings) some four hours north from Harlem, New York, to Everett Street, just across from Harvard Law School. I was about to spend my next three years in Cambridge on a postdoctoral fellowship. But the truck had only been parked in front of the building for a couple of hours on moving day when a well-meaning pedestrian bounded up to it, a red-headed white woman in her twenties, and asked me how much I charged to move people. (She actually walked right past the person helping me, a friend of mine who happened to be white, and asked me her query. My assumption was that she thought he was moving in and that I was the hired help. Of course, that might not have been the case at all. But such ambiguities, I argue in the book, have very real existential value in questions about race in a politically corrected world. Looking for the iron-clad ground of certainty in contemporary discussions about race/racism sometimes means setting yourself up for failure.) I told the woman that I was moving myself into my own apartment and that I wasn’t actually a professional mover. She apologized and headed up the street, but a logic of racial expectations, similar to the one Gates negotiated yesterday, had probably overdetermined that little Cambridge exchange, too. (And, as my potential critics would add, from both sides.)

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Comments

1. 11333651 - July 23, 2009 at 04:40 pm

A couple supporting anecdotes: I spent the past weekend at a New England coastal resort/golf course for a work-related meeting. One of the attendees (a Black man, dressed casually in a sweatsuit with iPod ear buds in place) arrived late to the breakfast buffet line and couldn't find a plate. As he was looking, another member of our group who didn't know him approached and asked him to please get her a plate. He understood the request, and the context, and explained that they shared the same problem as he, too, was looking for a plate. She apologized profusely, and greeted him warmly at dinner that evening. When I lived in LA a few years ago, my partner (a light-skinned Puerto Rican) took care of our yard. Not uncommonly, people walking by the house praised his work and asked how much he charged. I'm white. I've not had experiences like these, but based on what I see and have heard they can be incredibly powerful, defining experiences. I don't know what Dr. Gates did or didn't do. Could he have been more gracious? Perhaps. Would I have reacted as he did, given the same context and circumstances? Almost certainly.

2. bowlesf - July 23, 2009 at 05:12 pm

I once went to the grocery store while wearing a tie. A fellow customer approached me and asked if I could let her know where to find a particular item. She obviously thought I worked there, since all of the male staff wore ties. I politely told her that I didn't work there, and couldn't answer her question. She apologized and moved on. I am white. She "profiled" me based on my attire (i.e. my appearance). I did not get upset because the mistake was completely benign, and it was clear why she made it. I was not insulted because someone thought I worked at the grocery store, even though I have a PhD and teach college courses. It was a non-issue because I didn't make it into one. Now, don't tell me that when the mistake is made because of race it's different and somehow bad. It's only bad if the "victim" of the mistake blows it out of proportion and makes it bad. Everyone makes assumptions based on their experiences, and quite frankly, the common experience in America is that, more often than not, if two guys are moving stuff out of a moving van, and one is black and one is white, the one who is most likely the hired help is the black one. If the assumption is wrong and quickly corrected without issue, what, then, is the real issue? The bad assumption? Or the reality that prompted the bad assumption? I say its the latter of the two. So, if as a society we want to get to a place where "profiling" isn't inherent in the way we deal with each other, then that group that feels it is being negatively profiled must change it's behavior and thus change it's reputation.

3. wwsword - July 23, 2009 at 08:09 pm

bowlesf, Basing behavior on a stereotype is not the same as basing behavior on experience. Moreover, while you can take off your tie, you can't take off your skin. Confusion based on attire is not analogous to mistaking a black man for a bus boy. You need to develop a better argument if you want to convince people that racial profiling doesn't matter. Andrew

4. chlaoraa - July 23, 2009 at 10:59 pm

One day upon arriving home, my neighbor called me and said that it was ok to take an old tub from her old back house now being repaired (facing a back street) since she would no longer be needing it. I said to my wife that I would keep my white work shirt and tie, and take my ID, in case the police came and might assume I was stealing the tub. As a male hispanic married to an Asian American woman living in a conservative neighborhood these type of comments and discussions happen often in our home. Being a small tub I only needed to move it a few yards to my back yard. Upon exiting the door and being on the curb a yard or two from my home, I was faced with sirens, 2 police cars, and 4 police officers with guns drawn yelling at me to drop the tub. They had received a call about a male hispanic stealing a tub. Honest mistake I thought until I was handcuffed and placed in the back seat of one of the vehicles (while continuing to ignore my pleas that I was standing in front of my home and that my next door neighbor was ok with me taking the tub). I kept thinking it was stupid of me to do this and it was my fault for trying to move a tub after dark. After a few minutes, I was finally allowed to show my wallet and ID to confirm it was my home. At this point, I was thinking that I would finally be allowed out of the vehicle, uncuffed, and would receive an apology. However I was kept in the vehicle for another 10 minutes waiting for the African-American Sergeant to cool things down since their white police officers had screw up. He then said that they regret what happened but that they were only following standard operating procedures. My white shirt and tie, and ID at all times, no longer felt safe.

5. jobescomforter - July 30, 2009 at 02:34 pm

It is a long time since I posted here but I simply had to come back to say a word about the Gates fiasco. Everyone seems to be asking "Who is to blame"? Some say it is the media "for blowing it up out of all proportion" some say it is the poor woman who as a concerned responsible citizen notified police after being informed that two men were trying to break into a house. Some say it is the police for acting rashly, some say it is Henry Gates himself. I fall into the latter camp. Henry Gates was tired after his trip back from China, he was frustrated that on returning to his home he could not readily gain access, he was angry that he had to deal with what he considered to be an unnecessary police presence and finally he was humiliated. All these emotions were a volatile combination. If Henry Gates had handled the situation in a gentlemanly fashion and actually THANKED the police for their diligence and then cooperated quietly while they followed police procedure, none of this hoo-ha would have occurred! This has nothing whatever to do with race, this would have happened whatever the skin color if two men had been seen trying to break into a property. Henry Gates took this opportunity to scream "Race" to further his cause and bring attention to himself. He was piqued that the police did not recognize such an important personage as himself and what with one thing and another was bent on revenge. It is a serious thing to hurt a man's pride especially someone who considers himself to be slightly above his fellow men. To be handcuffed and marched to jail was the last straw! Henry Gates brought the whole thing down on himself, he wanted to make a point and he has made it. Perhaps now he is secretly regretting it or perhaps like Al Sharpton he just enjoys stirring things up. One thing is certain in this mess, the poor woman who did the good deed should not be punished or have her life disrupted in this way. Henry Gates should write a letter of abject apology to her for the way she has been portrayed and treated. He should also apologize to the police for wasting their time.