DanLin O.
\”Harvard Professor Jailed; Officer Is Accused of Bias (NY Times)\”
In my previous blog post, I wrote about Tim Wise’s essay “Selling the Police.” Wise gives his opinions about the police and racial profiling in his essay. He finds the police unjust for targeting blacks for crimes that are more often committed by whites. Wise supports his reasons with statistics and facts. A current event about the arrest of an Harvard professor is just one of many examples of racial profiling by the police. Police officers would not hesitate to arrest blacks, even if they teach at Harvard University.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. taught at Harvard for almost twenty years. He was arrested for “being disorderly” and for lawfully residing in his home by Sergent James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department. Crowley was notified of two black men who looked like they were trying to break into Gate’s house. What really happened was that Gates returned from a trip to find that his door was jammed, and he had to force the door open with the aid of his cab driver. Although Gates proved his residency by showing his identification cards, Crowley seemed dubious still and proceeded with his investigation. Gates became enraged and yelled Crowley for being racist. As a result, Gates was handcuffed and jailed.
Now, was arresting Gates really necessary? Gates was not doing anything illegal. In fact, he was hardly doing anything wrong! All Gates did was yell at Crowley–he did not physically attack or do anything to harm the officer. People scream at other people all the time, but that does not mean they should be jailed. This event brings up the issue of racial profiling. Maybe it was because Gates was black that he got arrested. Tim Wise did say in his essay that blacks were more prone to be linked to a crime. However, any way you look at this situation, Gates did not deserve to be arrested.
Political cartoon about police officers
