The Curious Case of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

This has been in the news. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor at Harvard University found he was unable to open the door to his own home after a lengthy excursion. With assistance, he tried prying the door open. However, someone believed his home was being broken into and called the police. One Sgt. James Crowley came to the scene to see what was going on.

Depending on whose version you listen to, either Gates was fairly calm and this was a rogue cop that didn't like black folk, or Gates was verbally abusive, claiming racism, refusing to cooperate, and the cop, being calm, finally decided he was a nuisance and had him brought downtown.

For most news organizations, this boiled down to African American professor who had made it in lily-white academia being harassed by cops who can't believe there are well-educated black men.

Whatever.

The point, to me, isn't who is right or wrong, but that these two became figureheads, representing the generic. I believe they call this synecdoche.

NPR, to its credit, did something so simple that it puts most news organizations to shame. And the reason it puts it to shame is because most news organizations are really editorial organizations. They peddle opinions, because actual investigation was too much work. NPR wondered "who is this cop" and just found some background information.

It turns out that he has been involved in racial sensitivity training and had a brush with "fame". He was the guy that unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate Reggie Lewis, a Celtics player that died of sudden cardiac arrest, back in 1993.

Much like Rashomon, which does not really postulate that truth is unknowable, but suggests that people bend truth to make themselves look good, there are good reasons for both Gates and Crowley to take their stances, and therefore good reason that both may have bent the truth to make themselves look good. In particular, if Gates had been wailing like a mad-man, he'd ironically reinforce every stereotype that says African Americans have anger issues and believes the man is against him, and therefore, it's best to peg the nameless cop as the crazy guy, and similarly, many a cop has excused their bad behavior by outright lying and claiming they didn't do anything.

The point is, people form opinions, especially news organizations, and use it as a launching pad to all sorts of race relation rhetoric, but little to actually trying to determine the "truth". The truth, of course, may not matter that much, because it is framed in the context of race relations. Were this a quarrel between two unknowns, we wouldn't care, but because it's Gates, and because the opinion doctors quickly put this out for public consumption, it becomes news.

And it's not really even news.