Gates incident shows some haven’t learned

Regarding the arrest of professor Henry Gates - two rules of white supremacy were broken: Uppitiness, disrespectfulness.

Gates addressed Sgt. James Crowley as if they were on equal footing by such things as asking for his name and badge number. He also had the gall to believe that every man's home is his castle. (Apparently not true for black men).

On one side, you have a noted professor with more than 50 honorary degrees, a black mayor, black governor and black president. The other side had “only” a police officer, but a white male, who was shown disrespect by being called racist and stupid. Of course, the so-called liberal media, and an overwhelming majority of Americans, would side with the white male. Was there any doubt?

While Crowley may well be a good officer, and teaches a class on how not to racially profile, I'm troubled by the fact that he had to realize Gates' comments strongly suggested he believed racial profiling was taking place - at that point, anyone who knew their subject matter would have just left the house, but Crowley still took it to the extreme and arrested him in his own house.

Sure, Americans elected a black man, but this episode only goes to show that while we have progressed we have a ways to go. We have had “teachable” moments before but some never learn.

Thomas Sass

Iowa City