Apparently police, responding to a report of breaking and entering in the affluent Cambridge neighborhood, arrested Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates, the pre-eminent black scholar in America. Turns out Gates put his shoulder to his front door, which was stuck, and was seen by a white woman who then called the cops.
As Gawker puts it:
So in case you were wondering: No, not even the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, in the sanctuary of his own home, which is itself practically in the middle of the most prestigious university in the world, which is Gates' employer and playground, is immune from getting hassled because he is black.
Oh, and the white lady who called the cops on him, Lucia Whalen? She's a fundraiser for Harvard Magazine.
That's rich.
Between this and the recent incident at the Philly pool, it's enough to make you wonder how far we still have to go. I mean, in an era of the first black president, the struggle for racial justice is hardly over.
Additional links:
- TheRoot.com's Editor-in-Chief Arrested
- Statement from Charles Ogletree, Gates' attorney
- Huffington Post coverage
