[Marxism] ... and more on profiling of Gates: Black Commentator: Living While Black in Cambridge

[Michael Friedman]

<http://www.blackcommentator.com/334/334_i_living_black_cambridge.html>

None of us African-American residents of Cambridge are surprised or
shocked by the humiliation and harassment Professor Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., 58, of Harvard University encountered at the hands of Cambridge
police.

My partner, Dr.Thea James, an Emergency Room physician who would drive
from home to work was stopped all the time for “driving while black.”
And when the Cambridge cops realized she’s a woman, and a lesbian one
at that, their unbridled homophobia surfaces. Thea now takes the bus.

My girlfriend’s kids and their friends hang out at the Cambridge’s
Galleria Mall like kids do. The Cambridge police in the mall stop my
girlfriend’s kids and their friends; one white and two Asians are not,
because “shopping while black” is always mistaken as shoplifting.

These constant shakedowns of us have been deliberately on the down low
to the public because Cambridge, proudly dubbed as “The People’s
Republic of Cambridge, is ranked as one of the most liberal cities in
America. And with two of the country’s premier institutions of higher
learning - Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology- that
draw students and scholars from around the world, Cambridge’s showcase
of diversity and multiculturalism rivals that of the U.N.

Cambridge is also proudly known for a lot of firsts in this country.
For example, it was the first city in Massachusetts to issue a legal
application for same-sex marriage. It’s the first major city in the
country to elect an African American openly gay mayor - Ken Reeves.
And Cambridge elected its first African American openly lesbian mayor
in the country this year with E. Denise Simmons. Deval Patrick is the
first African American governor of Massachusetts.

Cambridge is no doubt a progressive city. However, when you scratch
below Cambridge’s surface there is also a liberal racism that is as
pernicious, vile, and intolerant as Southern racism. But unlike
Southern racism that sees race and tries to keep blacks in their
place, liberal racism claims it does not. Ironically, however,
Cambridge’s liberal ruling class maintains its racial boundaries not
by designated “colored” water fountains, toilets or restaurants, but
rather by its zip codes, major street intersections known as squares,
like the renown Harvard Square; and residential border areas that are
designated numbers, like the notorious Area 4, a predominately black
poor and working-class enclave.

It did not matter that the call to police by a white woman, who
doesn’t live on the block let alone the area, stating that two
African-American men were breaking and entering into one of the
expensive homes on a tree-lined street was not only false but actually
Gates’s home. The woman’s call was her civic duty in preserving the
neighborhood’s integrity. because after, all this was happening in the
zip code area of 02138, which is Harvard Square.

And it did not matter that once Gates validated his residency to the
cop with a legitimate Harvard I.D., that the whole incident should
have, at that very moment, ended. But instead, the arresting officer
called the Harvard University police to once again verify Gates
occupancy in his own home.

Also, it did not matter that the suspected robber is a Harvard
professor, public intellectual and recipient of the MacArthur
Foundation “genius” award. (Some say this incident serves as a
cautionary tale to those who want to now define America as being
post-racial with the election of Obama.)

What was of great concern for both the white woman who called the
police and the arresting officer who eventually had to handcuff Gates?
Was it the shock and perhaps outrage they experienced seeing this
unknown black man in this well-known, high income, and professional
area of Cambridge, breaking and entering into someone home’s and not
in the city’s known and expected troubled spot - Area 4?

Segregation in this city is not only along race lines but also class.
And poor working-class whites and white immigrants do not experience
the fullness their white skin privilege would abundantly afford them
if they, too, were part of Cambridge’s professional and/or moneyed
class.

Area 4 has been labeled a troubled area of Cambridge, an area plagued
with all the problems of urban blight and very little resources to
ameliorate them. As a densely populated area, its average household
income was $34,306 according the 2005 city census. Harvard Square, on
the other hand, in the same year its average household income was
$79,533.

Area 4 use to house the city’s police station. And white Cambridge
police officers assigned to this area unabashedly target and
harassingly patrol neighborhood blocks and activities of black male
residents - young and old. And their reasons for doing so can easily
be attributed to the Cambridge Police Department’s lack of funds in
its budget to do cultural sensitivity trainings. But their reason is
just as much about this country’s horrific racial legacy between the
two groups as it is also about Cambridge’s liberal ruling elite
exploiting these tension by their claims to not see race, until of
course, an unknown black man appears in their neighborhood.

The tension escalated between Gates and Sgt. James Crowley when Gates
flipped the script on him. As the person-in-question, Gates exercised
his legal right to also question:

    “Is this happening because you’re a white cop and I’m a black man?
Is this why this interaction is still taking place?”

The charges against Gates have been dropped. But many white
Cantabrigians chiming in on this incident felt that Gates was being
uppity, feeling entitled, and exploiting the race card.

And who would know better about this than them.