On Being Black in America: Let’s Ask “Skip” Gates
http://www.aframnews.com/html/interspire/articles/696/1/On-Being-Black-in-America-Lets-Ask-Skip-Gates/Page1.html
Carmen Watkins
Carmen Watkins is president and CEO of the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston. By Carmen Watkins
Published on 07/27/2009
At the same moment that one of the nations celebrated cable news station’s prepared to launch Part II of the series “Black in America,” Prof. Henry “Skip” Gates was living the moment. A Harvard scholar noted American Literary critic and lecturer, Gates currently serves as the, Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research. Gates was the first African-American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship and studied English in Cambridge.
At the same moment that one of the nations celebrated cable news station’s prepared to launch Part II of the series “Black in America,” Prof. Henry “Skip” Gates was living the moment. A Harvard scholar noted American Literary critic and lecturer, Gates currently serves as the, Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research. Gates was the first African-American to be awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship and studied English in Cambridge.
He has been the recipient of nearly 50 honorary degrees and numerous academic and social action awards. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981 and was listed in Time among its “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997. That was the lead-in for his introduction until last week.
It is ironic that in some circles, Gates is also well known for his position that the western world must rid itself of intellectual racism, embracing in its acceptance and critical review the place of origin instead of the rigid Western European standards imposed on literary works. In the vernacular, it is the age old standard of learning to pivot or what many African-Americans call “code switching” the ability to carefully pivot between two worlds, one Black, one White. Gates once wrote, “Every Black American text must confess to a complex ancestry, one high and low (that is, literary and vernacular) but also one White and Black.”
But recently at his home, after finding his front door stuck, he and a driver (another Black man) became just two Black males, suspected in a neighborhood burglary. Gates was later arrested. July 16 was just another racial profiling moment in Black America.
Once again the discussion has moved to the forefront: “Is racial profiling real?” “Are officers just doing their job?” “Don’t you want officers to ask questions when suspicion is present?”
And once again the answers are most often determined by what side of the color line you stand behind. President Obama made it clear where he stood and even that has added fuel to the debate.
When asked about it by a reporter at the end of his press conference on healthcare, he stated, “Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in (his) own home ... What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,” Obama said. “That’s just a fact.”
Now critics are saying that Obama should not have gone quiet that far. But for the first time in America’s history, there is a president who understands in direct correlation to the issue, what it is like to be Black in America.
President Obama understands that on any given day, with just the right circumstances that he too is “Skip Gates.” He even joked that he “would get shot if he lost his keys and tried to break into the White House”.
That’s why millions of African-Americans turned out to vote. We have no expectation that either healthcare, the economy, jobs or the war will be resolved miraculously by his presence. But we knew that Obama got it.
There’s no need for another panel of experts, or an additional call for five-year studies and hearings. Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, President Barack Obama and the majority of African-Americans in this country, instantly get it. Now maybe we can have the discussion and not the introduction on racial profiling.
He has been the recipient of nearly 50 honorary degrees and numerous academic and social action awards. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981 and was listed in Time among its “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997. That was the lead-in for his introduction until last week.
It is ironic that in some circles, Gates is also well known for his position that the western world must rid itself of intellectual racism, embracing in its acceptance and critical review the place of origin instead of the rigid Western European standards imposed on literary works. In the vernacular, it is the age old standard of learning to pivot or what many African-Americans call “code switching” the ability to carefully pivot between two worlds, one Black, one White. Gates once wrote, “Every Black American text must confess to a complex ancestry, one high and low (that is, literary and vernacular) but also one White and Black.”
But recently at his home, after finding his front door stuck, he and a driver (another Black man) became just two Black males, suspected in a neighborhood burglary. Gates was later arrested. July 16 was just another racial profiling moment in Black America.
Once again the discussion has moved to the forefront: “Is racial profiling real?” “Are officers just doing their job?” “Don’t you want officers to ask questions when suspicion is present?”
And once again the answers are most often determined by what side of the color line you stand behind. President Obama made it clear where he stood and even that has added fuel to the debate.
When asked about it by a reporter at the end of his press conference on healthcare, he stated, “Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in (his) own home ... What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,” Obama said. “That’s just a fact.”
Now critics are saying that Obama should not have gone quiet that far. But for the first time in America’s history, there is a president who understands in direct correlation to the issue, what it is like to be Black in America.
President Obama understands that on any given day, with just the right circumstances that he too is “Skip Gates.” He even joked that he “would get shot if he lost his keys and tried to break into the White House”.
That’s why millions of African-Americans turned out to vote. We have no expectation that either healthcare, the economy, jobs or the war will be resolved miraculously by his presence. But we knew that Obama got it.
There’s no need for another panel of experts, or an additional call for five-year studies and hearings. Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, President Barack Obama and the majority of African-Americans in this country, instantly get it. Now maybe we can have the discussion and not the introduction on racial profiling.