Thank you for posting this link. I found the interview fascinating, especially in light of his more recent work. I have kept very quiet about Professor Gates and haven’t posted yet about him, but want to say a couple of things.
In the last few years I have followed his African American Lives series one and two with great interest, especially since genealogy is my passion. I learned quite a bit about him in the programs, and saw how absolutely astonished he himself was to find some of the family stories he grew up with were unfounded. He also discovered he was 50% white and 50% black—and was especially surprised to find he had maternal white blood.
I honestly believe that this whole incident has taken on a life of its own. He was jet lagged. He was tired. He probably wasn’t thinking too clearly, and he probably popped his mouth off. My disappointment, if this is what happened, is that he has continued to call the policeman racist, and this spread to his daughter. That’s where I’ve really lost respect for him.
I will await further developments, though, and not call him names. I do hope that the audio of whatever the police have is released, and I hope that some good will come from all of this.
I do look at him differently now than last week, but hope that we will have more clarity on what happened in the future.
As to our President...I am really disappointed in him.
Your welcome. I had heard about the esteemed professor, but when I started digging I was kind of shocked to read the things that he had been quoted as saying. He sure seems to be carrying around a lot of racial baggage. IMO.
“I do look at him differently now than last week, but hope that we will have more clarity on what happened in the future.”
I didn’t realize until this thread that this is the author of Colored People - A wonderful book, and I’m surprised the author has lowered himself to this type of thing.
I got the same impression after reading the 1994 interview. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, at that time anyway. He must have been having a bad day, or he's going through a late-life crisis - losing his esteem or something, taking it out on a convenient scapegoat, and trying to re-establish his declining credentials with his "you don't know who you're messing with" rant.