If Gates Was “Profiled,” So Was I

David C. Stolinsky, MD
July 27, 2009

The media report the brief arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor of black studies at Harvard. A neighbor saw two men with backpacks forcing the front door of a house. She called police and reported a possible burglary. The two men happened to be black.

It turned out that Gates had returned from a trip and found that the door was stuck, so he asked his driver to help him gain entry. The police arrived. One happened to be a white sergeant, the other a Hispanic patrolman. According to the police report, the sergeant asked to see Gates’ identification, and Gates initially refused. At some point, Gates referred to the officer’s “mama” and called him a “racist.”

Gates claims he showed his ID, although it is unclear whether the ID had the current address, since the house is rented. My university ID shows my photo and faculty status, but not my home address. Is this what Gates showed the police?

Other officers arrived, at least one of whom is black. One thing led to another. Gates emerged from the house, began shouting and attracted a crowd. He was arrested for disorderly conduct. The charges were soon dropped after Harvard officials contacted the district attorney.

Nevertheless, Gates claims racial profiling, and President Obama declared on national TV that the police acted “stupidly.” Obama referred to “Skip” Gates as his friend. Obama accumulated 17 parking tickets during his three years at Harvard Law School, and they remained unpaid until 2007 − after the presidential campaign began. Whether this reflected Obama’s attitude toward the Cambridge Police remains a question.

Gates’ complaints seem related to (1) the officers’ failure to treat him as obsequiously as an exalted professor deserved; (2) the officers’ insistence on seeing his ID despite the fact that he was in his own (rented) home; and (3) the officers’ reaction to his shouting at them in public, calling them “racist” and referring to one officer’s “mama.”

But if Gates was “profiled,” so was I.

The knock on the door.

Late one evening, I answered a loud knock on the door to find three uniformed Los Angeles Police officers. They explained that a 16-year-old attempted murderer had escaped from a work detail that had been clearing brush from the hillsides.

They entered and asked to see our ID. My wife and I had been living in that house, which we own, for 30 years. No one would mistake me for a 16-year-old. Nevertheless, we were asked for our ID to prove we belonged there. But I showed my driver’s license, which lists my home address, not my faculty ID. My object was to move things along, not to bolster my ego.

The officers looked through the house and yard, exchanged a few jokes with us, and went on to the next house. I was grateful to them for protecting us from an attempted murderer, not angry at them for disturbing us in our own home. They were polite and cheerful with us, because we were that way with them.

I knew that if I treated people well, they would usually treat me well. I learned that without attending an Ivy-League university. I learned it in early childhood. And as an older child, I learned that if I went looking for trouble, I would probably find it.

My mother’s family had come to America to escape pogroms in Russia. And my father’s eldest brother had been murdered in the Holocaust. But my parents never taught me to think of myself as a perpetual victim. So I didn’t.

The hand on the pistol.

The house next door was being remodeled, and construction trucks often blocked our driveway. Every day I had to pick up large nails before I could drive out of our garage. One day I complained to the contractor, saying, “How would you like it if I put nails in front of your car?”

The contractor responded, “If you touch my car I’ll kill you!” I thought this was probably bluster, or the result of too much alcohol or cocaine, but I called the police to be safe. I told the operator it was not an emergency. When the police arrived, a male officer stayed in the car, and a female officer got out to take the report.

I thought I was calm, but my voice may have betrayed anger. Thoughtlessly, I suddenly reached into my pocket to get my wallet and prove I lived there.

At once the officer took a half step back with her right foot, started raising her left hand in front of her, and placed her right hand just above the butt of her pistol. I recognized that she was preparing to draw her weapon and assume the Weaver stance.

Note that this was midday in an upscale neighborhood. I am of medium height, fair skinned, gray haired and wear glasses. I hardly look threatening. But my pocket could just as well have contained a small handgun as a wallet.

I apologized for my sudden movement. The officer did not apologize, nor did I expect her to. She was doing as she had been trained, to protect herself, her partner and the public. We completed our business and the police drove away. They had learned of a non-incident, and I had learned that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.

I had learned something from the officer. I didn’t expect her to learn something from me. Regardless of how much I knew about a number of things, I recognized that she knew more about police work than I did. As Dirty Harry said, a man’s got to know his limitations.

Driving while white.

My car was in the shop, so I drove a rental car to work. On the way, I was pulled over by a police officer. He told me the tags on my license plate had expired. I showed him the rental papers and jokingly remarked that the company might be going broke if it couldn’t afford to register its cars. The officer greeted my good humor with a smile. He told me to remind the rental agency when I returned the car.

On the way home, I was hot and tired. Another officer pulled me over for the same reason. I held the rental papers out of the window and said in an irritated voice, “I know, I know, it’s a rental car.” The officer greeted my ill humor with a frown, asked for my license, and wrote a “fix it” ticket in my name. That way, if the rental agency didn’t renew the registration promptly, I would be fined.

Even more irritated, I asked how I could register a car that didn’t belong to me. The officer kept me waiting for perhaps five minutes, while he lectured me on my responsibilities as the driver of a rental car. None of this made any sense, but − as I realized later − it did serve to punish me for contempt of cop.

Survival training.

In the Stone Age, parents taught their children to keep away from saber-toothed tigers and avoid irritating cave bears. If they had not done so, the human species would not have survived.

In modern times, parents and other adults should do something similar. They should teach kids to act politely in order to be treated politely. They should teach kids to smile in order to be greeted with a smile. They should teach kids to avoid irritating people who carry guns. They should teach kids not to go around looking for trouble.

Most important, they should teach kids not to think of themselves as perpetual victims. There is nothing that predisposes to unhappiness, bitterness and antisocial behavior so much as thinking of oneself as a victim.

Military personnel aren’t the only ones who need survival training. So do all young people. Otherwise, we wind up with teenagers in juvenile hall or the morgue, and adults − even Harvard professors − who unthinkingly turn an attempt to be helpful into an angry, bitter confrontation.

Gates may be an Ivy-League professor, but he could profit from a few lessons usually learned by primary-school children.

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. He can be contacted at dstol@prodigy.net.

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