A Victory for Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., Harvard Professor

In a memorable moment in the movie, The Sting, two Depression-era grifters named Johnny Hooker and Luther Coleman con a passerby out of the contents of his wallet, and then discover they have managed to steal thousands of dollars in cash.

Johnny Hooker: Luther! Good God, we're millionaires!
Luther: Jesus! Did you know he was that loaded?
Johnny Hooker: Hell no. I just cut into him. I woulda settled for pawning one of them shoes.

Every time I visit Cambridge, Massachusetts, now known internationally as the home of Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, that scene pops into my mind. I find it impossible not to notice that there are few populations on the planet as well and fashionably shod (in a casual, environmentally conscious sort of way) as the people who inhabit the immediate vicinity of Harvard University. This phenomenon exists, no doubt, because Cambridge houses so many young, fashion-conscious heirs of wealth both old and new, domestic and foreign.

In the movie, Hooker and Luther wait in an alley for a likely mark to come walking by. But there is more than one kind of shoe, and more than one kind of mark.

Judging from my reading of the police report and published accounts by eyewitnesses, I'd say Professor Gates cut into Sergeant James Crowley because he was an irresistable mark: a White cop standing on Gates' very own front porch, asking Gates (a Black man!) for ID. As we all are taught, more or less incessantly, particularly by Gates and his kindred spirits, no one promotes racism better than White cops.

Let us not pretend that Gates doesn't have a dog in this hunt. Gates is not a chemist, economist, heart surgeon, or architect; his job at Harvard is Director of Harvard's Institute for African and African American Studies.

I suspect that, in Gates' mind, Sergeant Crowley instantly became a potential vehicle to Gates' next talk-show appearances, news articles about Gates that trumpet his achievements, and, certainly, future publications by Gates featuring the travesty of a man being asked for his ID minutes after a burglary report at his own home, the second in only three weeks.

With his reputation, network, some attention-getting shouting, not to mention help from a more-than-willing Progressive press, Gates could easily recruit sympathy for his "mistreatment" by a White cop, whether or not mistreatment occurred. (Look what happens if you don't go along with that view.) In the presence of many other officers, and considering Crowley's record and reputation, it is very difficult to imagine mistreatment unless you have a dog in the hunt.

Gates cut into Crowley for just one shoe, but he got much more.

First Gates got national talk-show coverage, then he scored a televised monologue of support for his victimhood by no less a Black powerhouse than the President of the United States, during which the president labeled Crowley "stupid" and even took the trouble to lock the officer into proverbial stocks with a sign around his neck proclaiming: "Oppressor of Black Men by Reason of History."

In the Gates' media and blog frenzy, many would leap to his defense against the terror of White cops answering burglary reports, and one emeritus academic from Chicago would publish remarks in the New York Times comparing Crowley's supposed ignorance to that of workmen who once didn't recognize Gates as the owner of one of his "grand" homes. The louts.

Most deliciously of all, now Gates' buddy, the Prez', has invited Gates to participate in the Harvard-style dressing down of Crowley over a beer at the White House. Why do I think footnotes on the history of oppression of Black men will be cited?

Oh yes, and Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., Harvard Professor, is now a household name.

What benefit could a genius type at Harvard garner from that little achievement, I wonder.
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