"Do you know who I am?" Prof. Henry Louis Gates reportedly asked the Cambridge police officers who responded to a break-in call.
Whether they did or not, the ensuing conversation escalated to Gates being cuffed and booked and the arresting officer, who doubles as an anti-profiling expert, being called "stupid" by an uncharacteristically frank president.
Gates is a full professor and head of the African American Studies Dept at Harvard University, one of the premier universities in this country and the world. Please keep that mouthful of class credentials in mind the next time you grovel or quake when Harvard or any other of the Ivy Leagues are mentioned.
Reportedly, the arresting officer did not quake enough when Gates threw that mouthful of nonsense at him. Head of the department is an empty title, and the old, colonial building that is Harvard a relic.
During my 10-year tenure as a public school teacher I witnessed the shock and awe many held for these Ivy League schools and how they were embarrassed by our community colleges and smaller, four-year colleges. Why would a school instituted to perpetuate gender, class, religious, and race superiority deserve such reverence? They only yesterday admitted women, blacks, Jews; and we hold them in such esteem.
Where has Gates been all his professional life, not least of which he was heading a department ostensibly devoted to knowing about Black people? With this confrontation he's become a sort of spokesman for Black men, minorities, the poor and their problems with the police powers.
Is the head of the Harvard University African American Studies Department ready to wage class war, or is this a fad to excuse his meltdown?
Gates alone can't be indicted for the hollow ring of his protests. Harvard University is his employer and is equally responsible for creating both this creature and this institution of disdain for the high rates of unemployment in the Black community, the high propensity of young Black men caught up in the criminal justice system (which, by the way, Angela Davis* has some very cogent things to say about in her writings, like Abolition Democracy), the lower pay scale of Blacks, lowest among Black women.
I could go on an on. And I could go even further since Gates drew in other minorities in his protest, and the poor. The state of those statistics is shamble after shamble. Gates seeks to associate his cause with those of the wage-slaves.
Given Harvard's history, I can understand their mandate for such an unlearned academic department and confines they will impose on its head.
Recall what happened to Cornell West when Harvard's president gunned for him for his political work. West is co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
"Do you know who I am?" Yes, Professor Gates, many of us know exactly who you are. Do you hear the drums yet?
[*Article/interview with Angela Davis on the publication of her book]
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