A modern day idiot. His story is splashed across CNN, and has been for the past two days.
A neighbor saw him breaking into the front door of a very nice house. That neighbor called police and said she saw someone breaking into a house.
Police arrived, saw the black man inside the front door, and asked him to step outside and identify himself.
Instead of cooperating, he ranted and raved about racial profiling and demanded to know the officer's name and badge number.
If the same story applied to me, a white woman in a predominately white community, the cop would have gladly hauled me away for disorderly conduct.
After arguing and yelling, the officer managed to get Henry Louis Gates to show his identification, proving that he lived in the home.
But since he was being such an ass about it all, the officer arrested him for disorderly conduct.
And he ranted and raved about racism and racial profiling.
He managed to get the charges dropped the next day, because the police dept knew they'd have nothing but problems from the NAACP about this horrible heinous act of racism.
So, if my neighbor sees me breaking into my house and I'm mistaken by the police for a suspect-- what terrible things can I yell to get those charges dropped? I am not black, so I can't yell about racial profiling.
Truthfully, though, I'd never be in that situation. I would never raise my voice at an officer who was called to investigate a break-in at my house. I'd be embarassed for causing such a problem.
Henry Louis Gates, you get the award for being an ignorant jerk. Oh by the way, he's a Harvard Professor.
