Black people can be racist too...right?

I’m sure a lot of people have heard about how Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested outside his home in Cambridge, Mass. earlier this week. His front door had apparently become jammed shut, and after entering with a key through the back door, Gates went around to the front to try to force the door open. A neighbor who saw him trying to wedge his own door open called police, alerting them to the fact that she believed a burglar was attempting break in.

Gates was able to get inside the home before police arrived, but that’s when it got interesting. Police, who were only doing their job to serve and protect the citizens of Cambridge, asked to see Gates’ ID, just to verify that he was, indeed, the owner of the home. Gates began ranting about racism in the justice system and accused the police officer questioning him of being racially biased. According to police reports, Gates became very loud and “tumultuous,” and, after being warned twice by the officer that he was becoming disorderly to no avail, Gates was arrested on disorderly conduct charges.

Of course, there are two sides to every story...Gates’ attorney has publicly stated that Gates complied with every request made by police in a subdued and timely manner, that the police officer harassed him by entering his home uninvited to continue an interrogation, and ignored the fact that Gates was lawfully in residence.

There has been a lot of brouhaha (I do LOVE that word) about this issue, and charges were dropped this morning. Still, people from all over the country have come to the defense of Gates, claiming extreme racism in this case.

Here’s the thing…

I just need to say something: just because you have a different color skin does NOT mean that every offense committed against you is committed because of prejudice.

I’m sorry. I know this is DEFINITELY not the case with a majority of African Americans in the United States. But those few who do believe that all white Americans are racist to the core, and that every thought and action is dominated by racial awareness, those are the ones who create this drama that seems to never end. They are the ones who give their groups bad names and bad reputations. They are the ones who are truly racist.

I know that this is a pretty controversial stance to espouse, but it is actually something I do (for the most part) believe. I’m not saying that there are not backward white Americans who believe that the “South will rise again” or some such nonsense. There are mean, hateful, ignorant people out there. But ignorance is not exclusive to one race or ethnicity. And for some radical African Americans to say that, hey, all white people are racists, that is ignorance.

Ultimately, people like that are the ones who are throwing the difference in skin color into sharp focus. And because their decisions are based on color, not character, they are the ones who can be deemed “racist,” even if not in the traditional sense of the word.

I don’t believe Gates’ attorney when he says that the police officer harassed his client based on skin color. I think that if there was an inquiry made, or even an interrogation, it was more because the police department RECEIVED A CALL FROM A NEIGHBOR saying that there was a possible burglary in process. This officer was not strolling down a street thinking, “hmm, what is that black guy doing?”

Regardless of skin color, I think that the officer was just doing his job. Had it been my house I would have been happy to comply with the police department, because honestly, what if it wasn’t me? I mean, what if some random person had broken in to my home, and when the officers arrived to make sure everything was copacetic (another fabulous word), the burglar announced that he lived there, and when someone started questioning that fact he flipped his lid about how the police officers were unfairly targeting him because of his race? Do you think I would want those police officers to be so worried about the politics of race and political correctness and hurt feelings resulting in job loss that they don’t fully investigate any threat to my property?

No! I would want those police officers to make damn sure that the person who was in the house had a right to be there. And that is what I think the police officers in Cambridge were doing. Rather than be agitated about being a “black man in America,” as Gates so vocally was, I would be thrilled to see my tax dollars at work towards something useful.

Ultimately, this is the bottom line: the racism here was on the part of Henry Louis Gates Jr. By being so sure that the only reason for his questioning and detainment was because of the color of his skin, Gates made the inference that the police officer was ignorant, and that inference wasn’t made because the officer was a public servant or a man, but because he was WHITE. And that is racism, plain and simple.