Racial Tension in America

With the arrest and recently announced dropped charges against renowned black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the world seems to be once again entrenched in the subject of racial prejudice.  Actually that’s a bit of a stretch.  I seem to recall another semi-important event that may have helped bring the spotlight back on race before this whole Gates debacle.

However, unlike the election of our new black president, the disorderly conduct charge levied by the Cambridge Police Department against the distinguished director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Studies probably wouldn’t demonstrate to most people how much our country has evolved since the Civil Rights Movement.  If anything it seems to show how stunted this country can still be in matters of racial tolerance.

The exact details of the case are still subject to debate.  The only fact corroborated by both sides is that Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct outside of his home after Cambridge police responded to a 911 call from a woman stating she saw two black males attempting to break into Gates’ house.  The men were Gates and his driver, and they were attempting to push the front door open because it was stuck in its frame.  Gates eventually got in through the back door when he was confronted by a Cambridge officer.  Gates claims he repeatedly asked for the arresting officer’s name and badge number, and when he followed the officer outside of his home, he was arrested.  The officer claims Gates accused him of racism and refused to calm down after several warnings that his conduct was becoming disorderly.

Well, it’s all moot now because the charge has been dropped.  So we’ll never get to know the juicy details or witness the spectacle of a public trial.

In this humble blogger’s opinion (because I’m sure you’re all waiting with bated breath to hear it), I suspect both sides decided not to pursue the case because it probably would’ve ended up making both parties look pretty bad.  As great as our country’s adversarial court system is, in cases of “he said, she said” it becomes the job of the prosecution and defense to put down the other side.  So in the end, no matter who wins, everyone ends up getting dragged through the mud.

So what’s the point of this post?  Well, aside from giving me yet another chance to hear myself talk, reading this case got me thinking.  Regardless of who was the one actually responsible for escalating the situation, ultimately this case was started because of race and was given the amount of attention it has received because it involved the presumption of wrongdoing due to the race of a prominent scholar.  It really made me wonder, if someone with Gates’ level of achievement can still face such prejudices, how’s the rest of the country faring?  According to the latest statistics from LegalMatch, apparently not so well.

In the last quarter alone, the number of race discrimination cases received by LegalMatch has increased by nearly 50 percent over the previous quarter.  Approximately 30 percent of these cases stem from being fired due to race and over half of them come from employees in the food service and retail industries.  Even more shocking is that the next highest instances of discrimination originate from those employed in the education field.  Stranger still, the statistics regarding gender discrimination almost exactly mirror those regarding race.

It’s a little disconcerting to see these trends.  Perhaps America isn’t exactly the melting pot it’s cracked up to be.  Either that or maybe someone just needs to turn down the burner a little…