Skip Gates' African-American Lives

so much so that I
forgot to be annoyed with
gates' chumsy manner

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates.

I'm still vaguely obsessed with this series. I think my favorite bit was the picture of Chris Tucker's 1920s relative who looked like ... well, it looked like a promo shot of a 20s period piece starring Chris Tucker. Also: Chris Tucker's family! His sisters!

This was really great.

In honor of squirrel police's post, I'm going to go to the bathroom now.

Gates was ARRESTED last week ...

... for "breaking in" to his own house after the lock jammed

(and "exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior" toward the police)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html

didnt this happen a couple years ago w/ another black harvard history prof?

just in time for black in america 2! black people fever...catch it! oh wait

boston comments section very much in character

it's depressing for a while and then suddenly it gets better and even, in a couple spots, funny!

oh wait, then it gets depressing again, never mind

reading the police report makes it clear that everybody involved was acting totally shitty, though in the case of gates it is more than a little justified.

still, it's unbelievably boneheaded idea to snark at a honky cambridge police 'Ya, I'll speak with your mama outside,' no matter who you are, or what your credentialing.

Sad story all around.

the real crime is gabbneb calling him "skip"

totally

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

this is an idiotic set of sentences. it wasn't 'racial profiling' it was racism

this is closer to racial profiling:

Counter, who had called Gates from the Nobel Institute in Sweden, where Counter is on sabbatical, said that Gates was “shaken” and “horrified” by his arrest.

Counter has faced a similar situation himself. The well-known neuroscience professor, who is also black, was stopped by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect as he crossed Harvard Yard. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.

the real crime is gabbneb calling him "skip"

I call him Skip all the time.

you talk about Gates all the time?

Yes. ALL THE TIME.

huh

someone is getting fired.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/21/us/AP-US-Harvard-Scholar-Disorderly.html?_r=1&hp

every single telling of this story I've read pisses me off so fucking much, they might as well be titled "Harvard Professor Gets Uppity, Arrested"

I'll never forget the disgust and horror on Gates' face
when genetic testing showed he was 50% white. Quite
revealing.

― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Monday, August 7, 2006 5:22 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i never knew squirrel police was skip gates' doctor

Squirrel_Doctor

every single telling of this story I've read pisses me off so fucking much, they might as well be titled "Harvard Professor Gets Uppity, Arrested"

^^

yea, it's fucked

wtg cambridge police!

It's kind of like, out of all the professors I would expect to escalate that type of situation, Gates is near the bottom of the list in terms of likeliness, so basically wtf mainstream press.

xp: in fairness anyone with any passing familiarity with Cambridge police shouldn't be surprised that they'd have someone on staff who would do this

He recounts being called Skip for a good portion of his life. So, gabbs was right - it was a self-applied nickname.

wait, was there actually any controversy about calling him "Skip"

http://www.demotix.com/news/arrest-h-louis-gates-jr

okay wau he looks so much like my great-uncle there it is terrifying

wow

that is so fucked up.

i can't imagine what that would feel like--i would be FURIOUS

HLG's statement made through his lawyer

This makes me fucking furious.

do not read the comments on that root article.

Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University.

the stupidity of cops is truly astonishing. like, would some alarm bells go off there and say gee maybe i should not go aggro on this guy?

He didn't go aggro, he went stealth!

very gabbnebian use of skip by mr. wilmore too

Are the Soviets going to launch a pre-emptive strike when they know the president will be good and drunk by 7pm est on Thursday?

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1187845

ftr as of when I posted this, the comments section wasn't frightmarish

also lol @ this dude, way to go

Judge Napolitano defends Gates on FOX News:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYo6dR0tf_I

haha the comments are golden if only for this:

why is some people still filled with hate that's the Devil in side them you need Jesus

sonofsam ? +1 Good Comment -2 Poor Comment

yeah I lolled at that

to be fair, maybe this guy's dad is just named Sam

Anyway, I don't know what planet y'all are living on but here on Earth, cops can spend a long time directing traffic/trapped behind desk if the right important person complains to the right police official at the right time, and if Gates would have been white or female, that's probably what Crowley would be doing right now.

Hahahahahaha oh suzy can you please find this Platonic right important person this young white female get even the female district atty in my county to think maybe some cops really fucked up how they handled sexual assault charges I made? btw I am Earthling.

sry to walk into thread and be like 'hey look at me guys' ;_;

Can't respond. Trying to diagram Abbot's first sentence.

i'm not sure that's the important part! sorry, abbs

put 'help' between 'important person' and 'this young'

Female upper middle class was the equivalency implied w/Gates BTW. I got what Abbott meant.

Abbott, former college suitemate is asst AG in CO, you are NM, yes? Don't know if M is licensed for yr state but depending on what you need I may be able to ask...

I'm in NM, yes.

okay this latest bit exposes seedy underbelly andcet andcet but is mostly just LOL. what is it with racists and clowning themselves in public?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/officer_suspend.html

comments droll as ever and you won't have to wait for it

Bigots and racists think that *everyone* thinks the way they do but "just won't admit it".

Every time I see below the line comments like these I wish news sites would apply the same standards as letters to the editor ie. toss it if they cannot spell etc.

suzy this only works for youtube but it's better than nothing.. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7115

I never, ever read the comments on YouTube. I was thinking that the one media career that could benefit all those subs rattling around looking for jobs would be 'comments section gatekeeper'

there is one particular irish ilxor who is doing just that!

Why doe the officer get fired, but Professor Gates doesn't get disciplined by Harvard for being a racist? Talk about a double standard.
Posted by will July 29, 09 05:23 PM

yeah!!!

the crickets are deafening
*leaves forum in disgust @ the obvious hypocrisy of it all*
Posted by courtney July 29, 09 05:24 PM

this is arguably the greatest comment in the history of the internet

about 90% of working white males probably used similar verbage to describe Gates The Moron in an email or in conversation when hearing the full details of the story. This is a non-issue.
Posted by FJ July 29, 09 05:52 PM

i think i speak for all of ilx's working white males when i say that FJ has a point here

Fooie Jagger

ok re: that officer story, i have to admit i found this hilarious:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/30/gates.police.apology/index.html

In Barrett's e-mail, which was posted on a Boston television station's Web site, he declared that if he had "been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."

Barrett used the "jungle monkey" phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to Abraham's writing as "jungle monkey gibberish."

He also declared that he was "not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers."

Barrett's comments were taken out of context, said his attorney, Peter Marano.

"Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey or malign him racially," Marano said. "He said his behavior was like that of one. It was a characterization of the actions of that man."

Oh lawyers.

wow

Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey

I could stare and stare at those words for days

1. It's appalling
2. It's hilarious bcz it's so wtf
3. It looks like a somewhat forced anagram of another sentence, the ones that rearrange a Lincoln quote to come up with 'I saw Grouch ram Oprah aside' or something.

//˘ ˘/ / / ˘ /// / ˘ // ˘˘

yvonne abraham is not black iirc

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Third_Party_Photo/2007/10/29/1193679375_0845.gif

The White House Beer Summit [Michael Warren]

Today’s racial-healing beerfest at the White House will have a patriotic flair to it. President Obama planned the bull session with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley for today on the White House lawn. Yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told some in the press pool that Gates will be drinking Red Stripe, Obama will have a Bud Light, and Crowley will have a Blue Moon. Their beers of choice are conveniently shortened to “Red, Light, and Blue.”

Blue Moon has an unwarranted reputation for being less manly than your average brew, but leave it to Crowley, the tough cop, to blast that stigma to pieces. Red Stripe is a Jamaican import, which sort of clashes with the patriotic theme of the beer summit. Obama’s decision to have a Bud Light reminds me of Clinton-era polling. Could the president have picked a more middle-of-the-road, poll-tested, non-controversial beer? All in the name of unity, I suppose.

In three sentences he's insinuated that Gates is unpatriotic, that Obama's a cynical poll watcher, and Crowley's got a big dick.

Obama's a SECRET MEXICAN.

That is my offensive Mexican stereotype, sry guys = they drink Bud Lite.

fwiw i think maybe barrett's choice of epithet was a distortion of the more common "jungle bunny"??

"jungle monkey" is a bit redundant imo, but maybe allows for a greater degree of deniability?

i should maybe stop trying to figure these ppl out, tho

It's becoming easier and easier to detect which people talk shit using words they don't know apart from hearing other bloviators use. It's the absolute reverse of people like my unce who read a word like 'decadent' and don't know how topronounce due to dearth of folks able to discuss it in Big Lake, MN.

riiight

I've just never been able to figure out how people fail to use correct spelling in day to day life WHEN MOST OF WHAT THEY READ IS SPELLED CORRECTLY.

'I saw Grouch ram Oprah aside'

This is a hilarious fake anagram!

http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/minutes-of-the-meeting-between-gates-and-crowley-at-the-white-house

Wow you really don't have to go far to get to the Biden gold!
Roughly the fourth thing said:

BIDEN: (Brightly) I used to be a lifeguard with some black fellas! Good, clean guys. Spoke well!

The Biden bits are pretty great!

sub-New Yorker.

Perhaps, but it still made me chuckle. I like the wizard-of-oz shtick.

Faces of America is the weirdest mix of pious multi-culturalism and celebrity gawking yet it's really, really good.

Just watched the season premiere of Finding Your Roots. I love that show.

I love it too. Wait until you get to the second episode. Michael K. Williams is such a particularly sensitive soul in the best way.