It took less than a day for the arrest of Henry Louis Gates to become racial lore. When one of America’s most prominent Black intellectuals winds up in handcuffs, it’s not just another episode of profiling; it’s a signpost on the nation’s bumpy road to equality.
The news was parsed and tweeted, rued and debated. This was, after all, Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates: summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, acclaimed historian, Harvard professor, and PBS documentarian. He was named one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997 and holds 50 honorary degrees.
If this man can be taken away by police officers from the porch of his own home, what does it say about the treatment that average Blacks can expect in 2009?
Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.
