Henry Louis Gates Needs A Shrink

I hadn’t planned to blog about this Henry Louis Gates mess. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. A so-called intelligent man, Harvard professor, respected scholar and all that, shouting at police and invoking racism where there was none. In that moment, he embodied the stereotype of the loud and ignorant-sounding black person shouting racism whenever something negative happens to him, even if the whole thing is his fault.

What convinced me to blog about Gates was this piece of news: Lucia Whalen, a white woman who reported what she thought was a break-in and who should be commended for giving a rat’s butt in the first place, did not mention the race of the two men she saw trying to pry open Gates’s door. (Source)

Whalen was accused of calling the cops because the men were black, not because they appeared to breaking into a neighbor’s house. The lack of racial reference on the 911 tape tends to refute that. Unfortunately, the lack of racist behavior on the cops’ or Whalen’s part will not change the minds of people who believe that Gates, who should know better, is some sort of oppressed martyr. Idiotic.

Going off on the police, no matter how angry you are, is an ignorant thing to do. And anyone who, at this point, given all that’s come out about this incident, still believes Gates was the victim of racism is willfully ignorant.

Gates has some issues to work out. Perhaps he needs a vacation. At any rate, he definitely needs a shrink.