I can already envision the hate mail this column will generate. Every time I write about anything involving race, my inbox fills with invective -- racial slurs, rants about the "welfare crowd," suggestions that I stop whining, go back to Africa and turn my "affirmative action job" over to some slighted white person.
So I know a bit about how Cambridge, Mass., Police Sgt. James Crowley must have felt when he was insulted by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after showing up to investigate a possible break-in at the professor's home.
Being accused of racism hurts, makes you want to fight back. My job requires that I not be goaded into incivility, because it's not my personal honor hanging on my response, but the reputation of my newspaper and the dignity of my profession.
I wish Crowley had thought of that during his public face-off with Professor Gates.
We don't know all the details of their encounter, but what began with Gates trying to dislodge his jammed front door ended with the 58-year-old African American scholar in handcuffs, under arrest for being -- according to Crowley's police report -- "loud and tumultuous."
The disorderly conduct charge was dropped, but the stain it left seems destined to spread. The incident has reignited a national debate over racial profiling, and even drawn the president into the back-and-forth.
But this is not as simple as black suspect, white cop. And race might not be the bottom line.
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I was angry when I first heard the news. If "Skip" Gates -- prominent scholar, author and friend of Barack Obama -- can be arrested on his own front porch simply for mouthing off to a cop, then the rest of us "loud and tumultuous" black folks surely better stay inside.
Then I cringed when I read the officer's account of Gates' alleged tirade, riddled with the kind of "yo' momma" insults we used to trade on the school playground. I could feel Gates' fury, and imagine Crowley feeling bound to flex his power.
According to the police report, Crowley had been summoned by someone who thought Gates was breaking into the home. Gates seemed incensed by the presumption and was initially uncooperative.
But once Gates produced his driver's license and Harvard ID, it seems to me the officer's job was done. No crime, no suspect, no need to hang around.
