The American Freedom Network

The Gates Arrest: Playing the Victim?

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, called the most prominent black scholar in America, was arrested for disorderly conduct in Cambridge, MA recently. Is there a poor history of police-minority relations in this country? Yes. Did/do police officers sometimes arrest minorities for flimsy reasons? I personally know of such incidents, including one in the Detroit suburb whee I grew up. Did Gates have a chip on his shoulder? Possibly. was he looking for a fight? Possibly. Is Gates prejudiced against white men, especially working-class ones? Quite possibly. Not having been there, I won’t judge, but I do see it as rather ironic that the blue-collar cop is portrayed as the bad guy and the millionaire Harvard prof is styling himself as the victim. People like Gates make a living off of victimhood, and I suspect that he was only to happy to play the self-anointed victim-hero once again.

Gates is a ‘Professor’ of some sort of victim-studies program, not a scholar in a legitimate discipline like or history. He makes a living off of racial conflict. he allegedly shouted at the cop, and followed him out the door to continue the argument. He also allegedly claimed that he was being hassled because he ‘was a black man in America.’ He definitely has The Chip, and I’ve met his kind before. Such people are racist, and use charges of racism as their bread and butter. I’d feel differently if he were a genuine scholar, but given that playing on white guilt has been his career M.O., I’m more than a little suspicious of his motives.

Gates is a Friend of Barak, as the President informed us yesterday. It is disturbing that his pastor of 20 years is Jerimiah Wright, that his wife didn’t feel ‘proud’ of this country until her husband ran for President, and that his first Supreme Court nominee authored the infamous Ricci decision, which justified discrimination against while, working-class men. As one of those working-class men, I resent Harvard rads playing the victim, and I doubly resent their rigging the system to favor themselves on the grounds of their alleged victimhood.