HENRY GATES IS A SHOW-OFF

LIVING AMONG THE BROKEN GLASS and junkyard battlegrounds of ordinary American life for ample portions of my fifty plus years I've come across many a hustler, thief, or druggie who can deport themselves as if scripted by a charm school mistress. I agree with the others above that Henry Louis Gates is wrong in this case. I have followed the career of Prof. Gates with some interest over the past decade or so.

Seems he often desires to approach the racial issue with detachment and intelligence, but he often tends to slip under pressure, thus proving he still labors under the racialist spell, and he just can't shake loose of it. This incident is just more proof. Doesn't make him Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, or less a human being than I am, or the Harvard professor that he is, but it does show just how incredibly difficult it is to shed a grievance we as Americans, black and white, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, revolutionary or saint, individuals all, have been indoctrinated by society great or small to embrace.

Gates is not being reasonable in his post-arrest comportment either, because this incident was not racial profiling. His self-regarding notions of "how he comported himself" were almost immediately betrayed when he began to yell and scream in succumbing to disorderly conduct when faced with procedural requests for ID which he didn't present.

He did present a Harvard ID, but the record apparently shows that he offered nothing with his address on it. Thus, this appears like he was spoiling for a scene—some fresh data for his class or this documentary he has already announced.

Had he just quietly and politely provided his proper identification and answered all the questions the police officers had every right to ask, chances are damn good this Harvard professor would not have been arrested.

Class warfare in America? Yes, and Henry Louis Gates showed he had no class.