Gates is perceived as "respectable" for another reason, too: He prefers sportcoats to baggy pants. On that day in 2009, he was wearing a red polo and dark slacks, and still he was cuffed and thrown in jail. No amount of grooming changed the fact that he was a black man in America.
Wasn't Gates without his wallet, and wasn't he apprehended trying to break into his own house?
And it was a neighbor of Gates who called the police. If the neighbor didn’t know him why would the cop?
“I was bothered by this conclusion:
Gates is perceived as “respectable” for another reason, too: He prefers sportcoats to baggy pants. On that day in 2009, he was wearing a red polo and dark slacks, and still he was cuffed and thrown in jail. No amount of grooming changed the fact that he was a black man in America.”
Gates was not thrown in jail.
.
If Gates had been a white man breaking into some house and had no ID to prove it was his own house, the police certainly wouldn’t have questioned that. They would have gone away and left him to go about his business. Clearly they only arrested him because he was black. There’s no other explanation possible. /s
He was in a house belonging to the university that he was receiving use of under the table if I recall correctly. After the beer summit he wound up having to pay taxes on that perk.
Cops didn’t know he was authorized to be there.
“I don’t have all the facts,................
......the Cambridge Police acted stupidly.”
That is the definition of “prejudice”.