Professor is down-to-earth, friends say

Professor is down-to-earth, friends say
Acquaintances challenge police picture
By Tracy Jan
Globe Staff / July 23, 2009




Henry Louis Gates Jr. was walking with friends through Oak Bluffs on Tuesday evening, late for a dinner reservation. One after another, tourists on the busy street stopped the noted African-American scholar, seeking to shake his hand or snap his picture.

Gates repeatedly obliged, acknowledging the reason behind his suddenly spiking popularity: His mugshot from his arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct outside his Cambridge home last week has been broadcast around the world.

“Yeah, you want a picture with a convict,’’ Gates joked, one of his dinner companions recalled.

The encounters on Martha’s Vineyard were a telling glimpse of the real “Skip’’ Gates, friends and colleagues said yesterday, his affable manner and witty charm at sharp odds with the image that surfaced after his arrest last week.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/23/friends_say_skip_gates_rides_no_high_horse/?page=1

:rofl:

he sues. Set a precedent, make a point, whatever.

The funny thing is, his success is likely due, in part, to his not having either because he's had to learn to tap a lot of resources and pull them together.

that cop did Gates a great big favor, giving him a first-hand experience that he'd only heard or read about, and, given the power of his intellect as well as his splendid reputation, he'll set out to make lemonade out of this in the biggest possible way.

That cop, however he handled this, whatever was going through his mind, made history. Not the kind he had in mind, no doubt, but, nevertheless, he is now a very significant footnote in an episode that could be pivotal in our world today.

Gates has the chops to do this.

What I can't understand is that Cambridge is such a hip place, so completely blue, that something like this happening - something that sounds like it took place in Southie, South Boston - is just 'way out of whack with everything I've ever known about the place.

Racism creeps in even when you think you're safe. If you're black in America, nothing has changed, and you're never safe.

That absolutely sucks.......................

first paragraph..there will be lemonade.

but hopefully, not predictive of our country. :(

who I quickly pulled up from Harvard's website, and who look about the same age as Prof. Gates, have even been questioned by the police in the first place?







For some reason, I don't think it would have even registered if one of them were seen trying to get the jammed front door of his house open.

which might be an indication of an attempted break in while he was gone.

;)

:crazy:

He looks like a good guy to me.

But what do I know?

He's the opposite of a stuffed shirt.

He's got video all over, here's one of his interviews with Charlie Rose:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/37

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/10221/Lincoln+on+Race+and+Slavery.aspx

He's hilarious. :)

article, thank you!

And in a way, I get that because they are a lot alike. Gates is a little older but they both are a little in their heads, they both like a bunch of different things and they both really enjoy people. They're both small and big picture guys and that doesn't happen very often. lol

Since when is it illegal to yell at cops when they're on your property? They violated his Constitutional Rights for chrissake. What person in their right mind wouldn't get mad?

a case study - not just in a law school, it should be taught in a meeting room of a school or community center or even in a park.

Step outside - no warrant.
Come inside without on assumption of burglary in progress - still no warrant.
Attempt to prove legality.
Attempt to affirm.
Dealing with simple verbal resistance - part of the job, as stated. .

What are the citizen's rights. Everyone should know.

Same for being stopped in the car.

There are probably some differences by State.

This should be a cooperative project between the police and the citizens. It should be voluntary, but highly attended - for all people of color or so-called non-color.

Do people have to have videos running in their own home? And what good does that do when your are a kid complying with an order to lie on the ground with some others and the police bashes your head into the ground or shoots you in the back?

Enough for the macho or ill trained or ill supervised or ill managed police-person treating people like dirt.

It is possible that the fear we have been fed for nine years is the same fear the police have been fed - everyone is a terrorist (while the terrorists are given Lear jet rides out of the country on the day of and after the terror).

The same type of program should be conducted for attempts to peacefully protest. We need improvements in this country - this country that is always bragging about how superior we are to every other country on the earth.

:kick:

When one lives as an adult in the Cambridge area it's fairly common to run into the renowned professors walking through Harvard square, shopping in the same stores, or noshing in the same restaurants. Every time I saw Gates he was smiling and acknowledging passers-by like a regular Joe. The same was true of the late Stephen Jay Gould. In contrast, Alan Dershowitz seemed to have a *ahem* very high opinion of himself -- pompous is the word I'd use. If the Gates story featured Dersh instead I'd understand why the cop became peeved-- and the cop would still be wrong.