Police Protocol For Harvard Professor Dummies by Frank Agostinelli
Question: When a police officer asks for your ID, what do you do?
a) Give it to him/her.
b) Ask, “Do you know who I am?”
c) Call them a racist.
If you answered C, you are most likely an idiot or Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. A situation that would have been easily alleviated by obliging the request of Sgt. James Crowley made two prominent individuals look like jackasses. And if you have truly paid attention to this debacle, you know one of the jackasses is not Sgt. Crowley.
Play by play is unnecessary. We know the these facts. There was a 911 call on a possible B & E. Crowley confronts Gates and ask for identification. Gates insults Crowley and continues to do so after being warned of his aberrant behavior. Gates is arrested for disorderly conduct. Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. claimed he was racially profiled. He evidently is an expert of some sorts on the subject but I cannot confirm it. On the other hand, Sgt. James Crowley is an authority on racial profiling because he is a profiler. I am not a huge proponent of racial profiling by the police but I know it is important and necessary. You will always have pros and cons with everything. Everything. What is important is there are more pros than cons. Such things can be validated by taking personal responsibility by researching these subjects in their entirety. As much as Professor Gates wants to state he was racially profiled and Sgt. Crowley was racist, his ego leaves out the fact he had an opportunity to hand over his ID and to diffuse a situation that should have never transpired. The “because I’m Black in America” comment alone delivered by Professor Gates shows who the racist is. In addition to the racial profiling angle some individuals attempted to place a class profiling spin on it. You know? Blue collar White cop. White collar Black Ivy League professor. In the words of Dennis Green, “It’s bullshit!” While there are those who say Professor Gates should have never been arrested, I look at it this way. He got a slap on the wrist (Please note the charge of disorderly conduct was dropped). Not surprisingly, this was not the first time he had a run in with the law.
President Obama, a friend of Professor Gates, put his two cents in and appeared to look like someone who has never seen or used chopsticks in his life. He screwed up by not taking personal responsibility to know all the facts. This is a point he admitted but still spoke disrespectfully of the Cambridge Police Department. And yes, saying a group of people acted stupidly is disrespectful. Could one state that paying your parking tickets 17 years late as acting stupidly?
Most police departments across America take great pride in the services they provide. It is a thankless job. All one can ever ask of anybody in this world is to do one’s best. There are many police officers who do that. Yes, there are police officers you would like to beat the crap out of but the one bad apple (or few) spoils the whole bunch does not work here. What the President should have said was, “I am aware my colleague and my friend Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been arrested. I don’t know all the details at this time but when I find out what happened, only then will I elaborate. Thank you.” But of course, this did not happen. Instead the opportunity was used to speak about racial profiling of Blacks and Latinos and widen the ever growing gap between the races. Boy, was that stupid. In the veil that is a post racial America it is evident post racial means throwing outrageous nonsense in everybody’s face in an attempt to say “It’s our America now!” Tell me when in your lifetime when it wasn’t your America. Exactly. Go to your room and stand in the corner.
While many may think I am beating a dead horse and wonder why I am bringing this incident up, it’s pretty simple. I dealt with cops regularly in my younger days meaning I have true life experiences for those supra intelligentsia who have zero in the tank when it comes to Voltaire’s second greatest quote. And no I have never been arrested. I know as well as others unspoken rule number one. It should never be broken and is the question I posed at the beginning of this article. Unspoken rule number two is to be polite. Have I gotten into it with police officers? Oh yes and I never had a problem because I knew how to speak to them without screaming at them. Now the closet I’ve ever been to an Ivy League school are the days I used to drive by Brown University and laugh at the whine bags on the corner with their “Honk to stop the war in Iraq” signs. Here we have a Harvard professor and he has no idea and no etiquette on how to present himself to a police officer who is responding to a call about a possible break-in at his home? Some will say, “it’s house he can do what he wants!” Right, but not until a situation is deemed all clear by the officer or officers on the scene. This means identifying and clearing all possible threats. Handing over the Massachusetts drivers license would of quelled everything. With all his credentials and all of his stroke, Gates didn’t know these 2 unspoken rules? Poppycock! Can we say high maka maka? I’m better than you? Elitist? I have stated my point concisely and clearly.
As far as this being deemed a teaching moment, teach everyone when asked for identification from a police officer, give it to them immediately. Being polite is always a plus.
