Skip Gates: Exercising His Privilege

So I was just sent this link to yet another article about Skip Gates from one of my many unnamed sources. Apparently she, like me, thinks that the media’s attention on the whole fiasco is a bit overblown. Come on now, it’s not like this is the first time a brotha has been racially profiled in Cambridge. Of course it doesn’t help that President Obama made a half-assed statement the other night.

But despite Obama’s best attempts to try to back away from his earlier “cops acting stupidly” statement, the story just won’t die. Especially since Professor Gates is on a mission to pour gasoline on the fire. Check the Harvard professor’s latest statement found over at Ben Smith’s blog at Politico.

“Often we’re chosen for events for larger reasons, and I think I was chosen to be arrested in my own home so that I would start to devote my considerable resources toward a problem that plagues American society and plagues the criminal justice system –

Now I am all for Professor Gates using his influence to shape the nation’s discourse on race relations. I just hope that he takes a moment to chill out before he goes full throttle. Not only are there dozens of great organizations doing amazing work on this issue, but I am pretty sure he is not the best spokesperson for the racial profiling cause. After all, it’s not like he is the typical person getting harassed by the cops on a daily basis. I mean, the fact that he is so pissed about getting smacked by the gloves of racism highlights that he is a tad bit disconnected from the realities of urban America.

I mean, just last week hip-hop legend Paradise Gray was arrested while filming a nonviolent protest for a local community group in Pittsburgh. Long story short, this stuff happens every day.

So Professor Gates, if you are going to use your incredible privilege to influence the discussion about police brutality and racial profiling, please link up with the grassroots experts working on this issue. You aren’t the first brotha that’s been harassed and word to Frank Jude, you definitely won’t be the last.

Posted by:

Biko Baker