Tuesday, July 21, 2009

GHWB: Going Home While Black


America's preeminent Black scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested last night. His crime was one count of GHWB: going home while Black. Gates, the director of Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research had just returned from a trip to China when he and his driver discovered his front door was wedged shut. Gates let himself in the back door, disarmed his alarm, then he and his driver pushed on the front door from the outside until it opened. The driver left and Gates called Harvard's property management company. The police arrived while he was on the phone and proceeded to question him.

According to Gates, he informed the officers that he lived at the address and produced both a driver's license and a Harvard photo ID, but officers continued to question him. Gates became upset at the repeated questioning after he had proven his residence and requested the officer's name and badge number. When the officer repeatedly refused, he followed him onto the porch where he was arrested and handcuffed in front of other officers.

The police report tells another story. According to officers, Gates was arested on a disorderly conduct charge after exhibiting "loud and tumultuous behavior." Police Sgt. James Crowley wrote in his police report Gates said, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" and kept yelling the responding officers were racially biased.
Gates' attorney, Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree simply said, "I think the incident speaks for itself."

Text: Wild Safari
Source: CNN


UPDATE: The Middlesex County D.A. "has agreed to enter a nolle prosequi in this matter;" they will not pursue charges.

9 comments:

  1. man, i'll eff somebody up for effing with brother gates.

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  2. they REALLY fu*ked up this time....

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  3. THEY PICKED THA WRONG NIGGA TA MESS WITH...

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  4. Brother Gates sounds like he'll eff someone up. He has the money and the clout to do it. Academia LOVES him. Some cops are going to lost their jobs in the next few months.

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  5. It seems the police and the media are getting more brazen in their bias. They don't hesitate to mess over a black person now whereas they might have thought twice 15 years ago. We are slowly losing power and cohesiveness as a community and they know it.

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  6. charges dropped and apology issued before noon y'all, they know wuzz up!

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  7. Harvard was about to get all up in that ass!

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  8. his "house" is actually a home owned by Harvard on university grounds...his driveway has YELLOW (in/out) ARROWS in it gotdamn!!

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  9. Racially motivated arrest from the police perspective.

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