Black man forces entry into own home, is arrested

[ailbhe]

This is about Obama's reaction to it.

The president also considered for a moment what would happen if he, like Gates, were unable to enter his home — the White House — and decided to force the door open. He concluded: “I’d get shot.” The audience of news reporters burst into laughter.

The audience of news reporters burst into laughter.

Comments

[sierra-le-oli.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it would be nice if he didn't have to use humour in this message but surely, if the President cracks a funny, you laugh?

[ailbhe]

It's only funny because it's true. Which makes it not funny at all.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Unidentified person breaking into the White House? Yeah, quite likely to get shot. I imagine the same would go for 10 Downing Street.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Except Prof Gates *wasn't* breaking into his own house. He was struggling with the door, something we've all done on damp days.

The *only* reason what he was doing was deemed suspicious was because he is black. This is a blatant case of skin colour serving as the definition of criminality.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

To be clear, "skin colour being the definition of criminality" is the bit that's only funny because it's true.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Obama wasn't joking about Gates, he was joking about the security differences between his old place and his new one.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Maybe so, but he was also drawing a certain parallel between himself and Gates, and what culd that have been based on other than race?

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Yes, and that wasn't the part people were laughing about. Obama was saying that, in Gate's position, he'd probably have been given the exact same treatment. And he wasn't making that part of a joke.

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

This.

[songster.livejournal.com]

I have no comment on the Gates story since I haven't had the time to chase up factual evidence rather than third-hand. I was just commenting that Obama's joke doesn't hinge on the colour of anyone's skin and that it's not racist to laugh at it!

[songster.livejournal.com]

Having now looked it up I'd have to say this assessment doesn't seem quite right.

The professor had just come back from a foreign trip, ended up struggling with his front door. Concerned citizen from down the road sees somebody trying to get in the door of a house where the owner is known to be away, calls the cops. Cops come and investigate. So far, everything's going exactly as it should.

The problem comes when the cops arrive. They successfully ID the professor as the resident, however there's some verbal aggro between them. Not actually having a CCTV camera there, I don't know who started it, but that's irrelevant anyway. At that point the police should have fucked off, but instead the copper decided to stand on his dignity and arrest the professor for disorderly conduct.

So yeah - stupid policeman, as Obama said. Copper deserves a reprimand, professor deserves an apology. Nobody got shot, nobody was ever likely to have been shot. The initial callout for suspected burglary was justified in my opinion, and doesn't look to me to be racially motivated.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yep, the initial callout for suspected burglary was reasonable -- and Obama made that point in his answer -- although, in a better world, people would recognize their own neighbors.

Copper deserves more than a reprimand. Copper 1) entered a dwelling without a warrant -- which, when he thought there was a burglar, was reasonable, but, as soon as he knew there wasn't, it became trespassing, and 2) falsely arrested a citizen when he KNEW there were no grounds for it. Copper committed two criminal actions.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Fair does though - according to the report I read, the prof was inside the house trying to pull the door and the (also black) taxi-driver was outside pushing. That was the point at which the police were called.

After that, though, the police should have backed off. They had proof that the prof was in his own house.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Not sure about (1) - the cop did leave the house after verifying the guy's identity.

(2) is almost certainly true, though let's be clear that he was arrested for creating a disturbance, not for burglary, and that he was arrested outside his home, having followed the cop out shouting at him. In a hypothetical scenario where the professor had decked the cop, then the cop would be justified in arresting him for assault, say. Breach of the peace is much more nebulous though, and probably comes down to "insulting a cop" - which of course it shouldn't.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The cop taunted Professor Gates in order to get him to come out of the house in order to be able to arrest him.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Ew, very much not good. Cite?

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

The version I heard is, in fact, that the cop told Gates he *had* to go out onto his porch because he, the cop, couldn't see the ID properly inside. I got most of my information by following links around from Shakesville (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/07/lol-your-post-racist-america.html).

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

(Oh, and from Shapely Prose (http://kateharding.net/2009/07/21/this-is-what-happens-to-black-men-in-america).)

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

It's in the realm of speculation, but my gut feeling is that people in Harvard in general are not such curtain twitchers that they would call the cops on every random guy pushing at a door *as long as he was white*.

That the cops behaved criminally is indubitable; that their behavious was motivated by racism is likely; and that the while incident simply wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for race, is likely.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

well, no. What he was doing was deemed suspicious because he was trying to break into a house, according to the person who phoned it in. I once phoned in a possible break-in to my neighbor's house. Turned out to be a (WHITE!) cleaning lady who was using the wrong key, but I'd hope my neighbors would do the same if they saw someone trying to get into my home.

That said, sounds like these cops were out of line b/c they shouldn't have arrested him after he showed ID!

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you acted for the best, and it sounds from your story as if it wa a no harm, no foul situaiton; but your experience alone can't exonerate all the actors in this particular drama.

Racial profiling doesn't work in the easily recognisable, bludgeon to the head way of "hang, on, aren't I forgetting something? Oh yeah, I'm a racist! D'uh, must call cops, brown person on loose!". It's such a complicated and painful issue exactly because it's usually an aggregate of a lot of subtle reactions from people: the neighbour's reaction to seeing two black men in a predominantly white neighbourhood; the cops' reaction to same; Gates's own reaction to the cops; their reaction to his anger (the least defensible bit of the story, since they knew his anger was in fact justified).

[webhill.livejournal.com]

What confused me most about the story was that the NEIGHBOR didn't recognize her NEIGHBOR. I mean, it does seem from the surface that she must have thought "some random black guy entering house = danger" or something. I still think, though, that when in doubt, it's best to have law enforcement check out a situation that you have a reasonable suspicion might be criminal. I'm actually now remembering the Berkeley City Police once coming over to me as I stood next to my parked car trying to jimmy open the door and asking me what was going on, and they stayed with me and checked the registration after the car was open so I could prove that it was in fact my car and not someone else's that I was breaking into. I imagine that if I had started yelling about how I should be left alone with my own damn car they might have gotten upset and arrested me.

Don't get me wrong - I still think that from the publicly available information, this particular case of the professor and the police comes down WAY in favor of the professor. I just ALSO think that a some of the things that went down were appropriate, but then they got out of control.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I think there is no substantive or moral disagreement between us; it just twists my knickers to think though, that in the sort of neighbourhood where a daylight car boost is in fact a realistic prospect, it's highly unlikely that there will be cops around to politely wait until you jimmy your car open and then tip their hats and leave you alone.

There seems to be this extreme divide between policing of the absent/brutal variety (typically in areas where their active engagement with the community would come with the most lives saved) or policing that is a servant of middle and upper class prejudice (which this case, with all its subtelties, is nevertheless emblematic of).

It's not that different in the UK, although potentially less polarised along racial lines (then again, I'm definitely not in a position to give informed opinion about race relations in Britain). On the one hand you've got cops harassing teenagers for wearing hooded sweatshirts and killing protesters and bistanders during legal demonstrations, on the other you've got the complete inability and unwillingness of the police to investigate and respond to actual crimes like rape, where we have one of the lowest rates in the west of complaints that result in prosecution.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

*Anyone* breaking into the White House is likely to get shot. The humor was, Obama was thinking of his old Chicago place, which didn't have the insane amounts of security that the White House does. He was joking that he's not used to being President, and thinking of his home as a place that has so much security.

It wasn't hilarious, but it wasn't a bad thing to say.

[ailbhe]

I am a bit creeped out by a lot of people laughing about people getting shot. Not as creeped out as I was this morning, but still a bit.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Obama's comment about being shot was specifically about someone breaking into the White House. He then continued his example about what would have happened if he was doing this back at his old house in Chicago.

The "shooting" thing was not about him being black, but was intended to be a comment about White House security. And it was intended to be funny, and was funny.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

Well, Obama was smiling broadly and chuckling when he said it, and it was humorous to imagine a sitting president trying to break into the White House because he forgot his keys, and the possible security reaction to that, so why wouldn't the reporters laugh?