"I’m saying ‘You need to send someone to fix my lock.’ All of a sudden, there was a policeman on my porch. And I thought, ‘This is strange.’ So I went over to the front porch still holding the phone, and I said ‘Officer, can I help you?’ And he said, ‘Would you step outside onto the porch.’ And the way he said it, I knew he wasn’t canvassing for the police benevolent association. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger. And I said to him no, out of instinct. I said, ‘No, I will not.’

My lawyers later told me that that was a good move and had I walked out onto the porch he could have arrested me for breaking and entering. He said ‘I’m here to investigate a 911 call for breaking and entering into this house.’ And I said ‘That’s ridiculous because this happens to be my house. And I’m a Harvard professor.’ He says ‘Can you prove that you’re a Harvard professor?’ I said yes, I turned and closed the front door to the kitchen where I’d left my wallet, and I got out my Harvard ID and my Massachusetts driver’s license which includes my address and I handed them to him. And he’s sitting there looking at them.

Now it’s clear that he had a narrative in his head: A black man was inside someone’s house, probably a white person’s house, and this black man had broken and entered, and this black man was me.

So he’s looking at my ID, he asked me another question, which I refused to answer. And I said I want your name and your badge number because I want to file a complaint because of the way he had treated me at the front door. He didn’t say, ‘Excuse me, sir, is there a disturbance here, is this your house?’—he demanded that I step out on the porch, and I don’t think he would have done that if I was a white person.

But at that point, I realized that I was in danger. And so I said to him that I want your name, and I want your badge number and I said it repeatedly."
Skip Gates Speaks

By now you have heard about the case of Henry Louis Gates Jr, who was arrested in his house not under the original suspicion of breaking and entering his own home but because he dared to ask the white police officer for his ID and police badge.

I can't tell you how many times, even when I was pregnant, I was harassed by a cop who wouldn't identify himself nor show me his badge. When did this happen? When did it become OK for police officers to cover their badges and refuse to identify themselves when they come into any contact with a civilian? Especially when a person of color asked them to identify themselves? When the WHITE MAN who happens to be the father of my children has asked the same, the police officers have obliged.

And people who tell me that if we will things, they will become true are shocked when call it all a crock of shit; especially when the "power of positive thinking" involves describing the United States as a "post-racial" America.

It didn't matter that Cambridge has a black mayor. It didn't matter Massachusets has a black governor. It didn't even matter that we have a black man in the white house. We haven't willed a post-racial America by thinking about "Hope" and "Change".

A senior police officer who had a Latino as his rookie, made the decision to arrest a black man in his own home because he asked him for his ID and badge after said policeman not only invaded the man's home but refused to accept as true the Harvard ID he gave him to prove he was Henry Louis Gates Jr.

I have tons to say about what happened between Skip and the white officer (a James Crowley, if you need to know). Yet am more interested in the power dynamics created by the report of the Latino officer, Carlos Figueroa.
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On the issue of privilege vs. fear, b-serious knocks it out of the park over at Jack and Jill Politics. Here's a taste of a very long yet lucid post :

“Shame on you Barack Obama”?!?!?! Who the hell is she to talk to him like he’s some 4 year old? This ain’t pre-school and her condescending attitude is getting real tired, real fast.

Senator Obama is a grown a*s man. He’s just as accomplished as she is, yet she wants to go around the country and call him some naive rookie??? She dismisses his supporters and ignores the impact that he has had.

It’s never good enough. He can win 11 straight states by an average of 33%, but it’s still NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can expand the Democratic party by bringing in Independents, cross-over Republicans and first-time voters, but it’s NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can draw crowds of 20,000 but it’s NEVER GOOD ENOUGH! He can win more states (24 to 11), have a commanding lead in Pledged delegates, have a strong lead in the popular vote . . . but it’s still NEVER GOOD ENOUGH!

No. We still have to hear the media talk about a Clinton comeback, even when the MATH says it’s highly unlikely.

She needs to stop making excuses. She needs to recognize that (beleive it or not) this brotha is just doing a better job at reaching the voters than she is. Plain and simple.

Her stunts are going to backfire on her. It has nothing to do with being a man or woman. Democratic primary voters don’t like negative politics . . . it’s as simple as that.

You know, I’d love to see the press give Obama as much room to be a stereotypical black man as they give Clinton to be a stereotypical woman. I’d love to see Obama get the opportunity to go straight up gangsta and show his a*s! But we all know that would never happen. The second he shows ANY aggression whatsoever, is the moment people see him as the “angry black man.”

This goes to show that there are differences in how the media treats race and gender. I’m not saying that they’re better or worse, just different. I’m just gonna say it. This country has an instinct to protect white women. It can be a burden at times (i.e., Cult of True Womanhood) but it's still there. Hillary gets her feelings hurt and voters rush to her aide. She throws a fit and we make excuses because, after all, we can’t forget those double standards, right?

Yet, at the same time, we have an instinct to FEAR black men.

Tell me, what would happen if Obama went on a tirade against Hillary, like she’s done over the weekend??? What would happen if he (gasp) raised his voice to this white woman? What would happen if he spent all of his time talking about the “white man,” the way Hillary talks about the “boys club?”

Rick Lazio, a white man, found out when he “invaded her personal space.” If he took the fall, you can imagine what would happen to Obama’s black a*s the second he steps out of line.

Go read the whole thing, NOW.
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THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is now training firefighters to inspect your home and your behavior when you are visited by them, even for emergency purposes! According to FOX "News," aside from blueprints, chemicals, flight manuals, and bomb-making books, one of the things they are going to be on the lookout for is "hostility to Americans."

So! Word to the wise. Make sure you are only nasty to fireman without green cards. Maybe you can suss this out with some small talk at the hydrant. But even if not, if one day your kitchen explodes and your roof is on fire and you happen to be talking, yelling, or otherwise communicating with the brave men who are lugging their hoses into your driveway, it's probably best to sprinkle a few pleasant words about the country and the government in there while you're at it. You know, like right after you scream "my cousin is trapped in the attic!" just drop in a "God bless America!' or something. Just slide it right in there. "HELP! We want to keep on living in the USA! Help us!" Something casual. Something that clears you right away. Because the last thing your cousin needs is for the firemen to get caught up rooting through your junk drawer on their way upstairs.
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Location

I shouldn't be writing tonight. My neck hurts. My neck or arms or back almost always hurt, the result of a computer over-use injury that first popped up in 1996. It doesn't help to write long-hand. The nerves and wiring in me is fucked up, and when I get like this, I'm supposed to rest. Sometimes, I do that. I stop writing for a while. But for me, stopping writing is like stopping breathing. I begin to feel choked, overwhelmed, clogged up. I begin to drown in my own life, the pent-up sensations of taking the world in and then having nothing to "do" with that knowledge.

Outside, it is cold. It has sleeted much of the day. Sleet is ambivalent snow. Neither one nor the other, it just makes a mess. I wonder sometimes if my ambivalence creates the same affect in my own life. Neither here nor there, one nor the other. Happiness, when it comes, is not a long-term visitor, but when she arrives, I sometimes feel as if I overwhelm her, make too much of her being around. Perhaps if I gave her time to settle in, she wouldn't feel the need to leave so quickly. Sort of like the way I used to scare off lovers when I was younger. Sometimes, I just overwhelmed them with my need for their company, for their … love. And they would leave, hurriedly, sometimes cruelly.

Now, I spend a lot of time alone. My children split their time between their dad and me, and I no longer expect the men in my life to be permanent fixtures. I have learned, finally, to be alone, to like my own company, even on nights such as this when I am full of longing and wanderlust and not entirely sure of what it is that I want.
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