ATLANTA AND FORT WAYNE, IND. — Like Henry Louis Gates Jr., they are professionals, men of status and achievement who have excelled in a nation that once shunned black men.
And for many of them, their only shock -- upon learning of the celebrated scholar's recent run-in with police -- was the moment of recognition.
They know too well the pivotal moment Gates faced at his Massachusetts home. It was that moment of suspicion when confronted by police, the moment one wonders, in a flash of panic, anger or confusion: Maybe I am being treated this way because I'm black.
Next comes the pivotal question: Do I protest or just take it?
Kwame Dunston says he has made the calculated choice to take it -- repeatedly. The public school administrator says he has been pulled over more than 20 times in the last decade, but has rarely been issued a ticket. What factor other than race, he wondered, would account for all of those stops?
"It's more important for me to make it home than to fight for a cause I'm not going to win," he said.
Dunston, 36, a New York resident who was in Atlanta this week, pointed to the interior of his 2006 Toyota Camry. It was showroom-clean. He doesn't want police to think he has something to hide.
"My job," Dunston said, "is to make sure they don't have any question about what's inside the car."
Such anxiety, deeply rooted in the African American experience, has endured into the era of the first black president.
For many black men, the feeling of remaining inherently suspect never goes away, no matter their wealth and status and the efforts by police forces to avoid abuses in profiling.
Lawrence Otis Graham, author of a book on affluent African Americans, said wealthy blacks may, in fact, be subjected to more racial profiling than others.
In upscale white neighborhoods, they sometimes stand out. In fancy restaurants, they're sometimes mistaken for help. "We become almost numbed by the constant presumptions," said Graham.
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New attention
Those issues came crashing back into the spotlight with the arrest of Gates, a 58-year-old Harvard University professor, on July 16.
Early that afternoon, Cambridge police showed up at Gates' home, responding to a tip on a possible break-in. Gates was inside the house, after reportedly forcing open a stuck door.
According to his police report, Sgt. James Crowley asked Gates to step outside to talk, and Gates began screaming, accusing Crowley of being a "racist police officer."
