Much Ado About Something at Schema : more than ethnic

Much Ado About Something

This week the most heated conversation in America is about race.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a Harvard University professor, public intellectual and arguably the pre-eminent African-American studies scholar in the world was arrested and briefly detained after being mistaken for an intruder in his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Gates contends that the incident, in which all charges against him were quickly dropped, was a clear case of racial profiling by the Cambridge police. The arresting officer, Sergeant James Crowley, and the law enforcement community in general, contend he acted in an appropriate and justified manner.

President Obama entered into the fray, saying the police "acted stupidly" and the point was lost on no one that these words were coming from the first black man ever to inhabit the White House. Obama publicly expressed regret two days over his rather candid comments in a bid to cool down the controversy.

When the reality of an African-American First Family collides with the Gates police incident, what does that say about the complexities of race in America?

More: nytimes.com, Harvard Scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Arrested in His Own Home by Latoya Peterson on racialicious.com