Break into a house....get arrested

Based on the article I read, seems like "Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar" has a chip on his shoulder.

He locked himself out of his house, and so broke into it.

A neighbor, who apparenlty didn't know him by sight, called the cops. She saw two black males breaking into a house, and so that's what she told the police. Now, I'm sure if it had been two white males breaking into a house, she'd have told the police it was two white males. But since it was two blacks, she had no choice but to tell the cops it was two blacks breaking into a house.

So the cops arrive. They ask Gates for ID, but he refuses to come out of the house. So, what? THese cops are supposed to recognize that Gates is "the pre-eminent black scholar in the US"?

Had he not had a chip on his shoulder, and simply come outdoors and showed the guys his ID and explained what happened, I seriously doubt if he would have been arrested. But he refused to show the cops his ID, so what choice did they have?

And of course, now Al Sharpton is going to get into the act.

So, here's the lesson. Next time two blacks look like they are breaking into a house, don't call the cops. Let them steal whatever they want. It's all you can do, these days.

Black scholar's arrest raises profiling questions
BOSTON – Police responding to a call about "two black males" breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives there — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar.

Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates — the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research — initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.
See article for the rest of it