Henry Gates, Jr.:humiliated and "emotionally devastated

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research disorderly conduct charge has been dropped. Raise your hand if you are not surprised. No hands?!!! A article reports that Gates, Jr. is "feeling humiliated and "emotionally devastated."

How often have members of the African Americans community have been exoosed to the authority to arrest? How many young African-Americans have lost their freedom based on the authority to arrest?

Some of these young folks did not have the privilege of high profile friends, like Attorney Charles Ogletree. These folks are still crying themselves to sleep declaring their innocence but no one is listening. Other young folks are taught the rule..the fifth. Clamp your lip, say nothing, when the officer is talking and ask for attorney when an answer is demanded. But what all these young folks and Gates share is the knowledge that failure to comply to the whims of an arresting officer can lead to arrest. It's a theme supported in Kolender v Lawson, "[t]he pedestrian will know that to assert his rights may subject him to arrest and all that goes with it: new acquaintances among jailers, lawyers, prisoners, and bail bondsmen, firsthand knowledge of local jail conditions, a "search incident to arrest," and the expense of defending against a possible prosecution. The only response to be expected is compliance with the officers' requests, whether or not they are based on reasonable suspicion, and without regard to the possibility of later vindication in court. Mere reasonable suspicion does not justify subjecting the innocent to such a dilemma."

Kolender had the audicity to think he could walk in a neighborhood without showing his ID upon request by a police officer. Kolender was arrested at least 15 times for this deed. Gates Jr. lived in the neighborhood and wasn't a pedestrian. What Kolender and Gaters, Jr. shared was their skin color that made them stick out like a sore thumb in neighborhood that did not have a strong African-American presence.


Gates, Jr. probably thought living amongst raced white privilege protected him from having to exercise the rule of the fifth as he exercised his 1st amendment right. Gates, Jr. probably won't have to use the rule of the fifth but he now knows the rule.