Neighbors
Via Andrew Sullivan, I was lead to Adam Serwer’s post about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a professor at Harvard. This quote struck me:
What really disturbs me though, is the fact that Gates’ own neighbor didn’t recognize him. Regardless of who is ultimately at fault in the encounter between Gates and Sgt. Crowley, the most frightening thing is that a Harvard professor could be mistaken for a burglar by his own neighbor.
Before moving on to the next sentence, which follows below, I was struck by the use of the word “frightening.” My impression is that not knowing your neighbor is sad; and not knowing that your neighbor is a professor at Harvard is even more sad. Frightening, however, does not immediately leap to mind. Serwer goes on to say,
I’m not ascribing malice here — it’s the nature of race that people react to it without forethought — but the idea that a black man can be mistaken for a criminal trying to enter his own house in his own neighborhood should remind us all that we’re hardly living in a post-racial paradise.
Without knowing more about the neighbor and his relationship with Prof. Gates, I cannot say whether the neighbor’s judgment was or was not based on race. To me, it seems plausible that the failure of this neighbor to recognize Prof. Gates has something to do with the fact that some people just don’t know their neighbors that well.
This last sentence could just as likely have read:
I’m not ascribing malice here — it’s the nature of today’s society that neighbors often do not develop strong friendships — but the idea that a man can be mistaken for a criminal trying to enter his own house in his own neighborhood should remind us that it is important to get to know one’s neighbors.
I’m not trying to be flippant, or to claim that this story does not involve race. Perhaps I don’t have all the information and this neighbor is a known unrepentant racist. Absent such information, I think that it is unfair to ascribe the neighbor’s action in calling the police to a subconscious racial judgment.