Authority has a Price Mr. Gates

July 24, 2009 by ItheConsumer.

Why both Professor Gates and the Cambridge Police Officer should be charged with being stupid in my opinion. The fact that I doubt if Mr. Gates would have tolerated such outburst in his classroom from a student, as well as the arresting officer did not allow one of the other officers to defuse the situation before things got out of hand demonstrates to me why both parties were wrong. For whether it was a Battle of Male Ego or the Ignorance of the Individuals that lead to this event becoming a national issue, Authority has a price.

For a good example of two wrongs do not make a right. I do believe the media pundits are missing the point since a review should point out that why the police officer acted well within the established guidelines and procedures to determine if Mr. Gates was the proper owner of the home and not breaking into the home. However, the fact that Mr. Gates refused to allow the officer to do a walkthrough of the house does open the door of reasonable cause that he had something to hide. Because what would have happened if Mr. Gates had his house broke into while he was out of town, but did not notice anything was missing due to the confusion. Since I doubt Mr. Gates would believe one of his students left their homework at home if the student refused to let him follow him home and insure the homework was done.

Now, I’m not going to say Officer Crawley was wrong to try and defuse the rant of Mr. Gates based on his training and years on the force especially if the professor attempted to exploit his standing in the community to try to check the police officer. For why that move may work on a Rookie Cop (one with less than six months of the force) and send him running for the cover of his superior. I can see where Officer Crawley may have thought that his was the best one at the scene to handle Mr. Gates concerns about racial profiling seeing that Officer Crawley teaches the class to cadets. However, with Officer Crawley being of the New School and Professor Gates being of the Old School, I can relate to the idea that the Old Man is not going to listen to no Young Whippersnapper about an issue he has no knowledge of. However, the bottom line is a Police Officer caught in that situation should have called his first line supervisor to remove all doubt about the Authority of his Actions.

And why I was just impressed at President Obama coming out and say that all parties could have chosen better words to express their personal view point. I do hope the two will accept the offer of the Whitehouse to discuss the incident. For if not for the enlightenment of the Individuals involved, teaching the Media and the American Public that why both Academia and Law Enforcement may disagree on about everything in my point of view. The fact that this is the 21^st Century and not the 1950’s and 60’s I do believe that it would make, to use the Presidents’ own words, a Teachable Moment for the Nation.

For why there is more than enough blame to go around and unfortunately racism is still prominent in society today. Knowing that the Academia World and Law Enforcement are equal partners in trying to solve the issue through education and political means I do believe as an Unlearned Unbridled Anti-Authoritarian Child of the 70’s by Freewill and Self-Nature that this is one of those examples of Generational Stupidity. For if Authority is going to stay in charge than both men are going to have to learn that being right is not the same thing as being Unalienable Right Regardless.   

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