Perceptions and Calculations

The recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a white police officer is reminiscent of an experience my wife and I had on January 1, 2007.

Mr. Gates, with his driver, were seen attempting to force their way into his home. This prompted a call to the police, who responded. They arrived after Mr. Gates was already in his home, but still proceeded to treat him as if he was not welcome. This was an affront to Mr. Gates. In my opinion, the officer should have been more aware of the residents in this neighborhood and have had a better awareness of the context within which the actions of Mr. Gates and the driver occurred.

In our situation, my wife, who is African, and I were starting on a walk in front of our home. We had woken up late since we were up past midnight the night before and it was a very mild day for January 1st in Chicagoland. We had started just a few steps when my wife asked me to retrieve her glasses from our car parked in the driveway. As I did this, a police car was passing on the other side of the street. Something caused the officer to suspect something, and he did a quick u-turn and pulled up along our side of the street near me with his car lights flashing. He asked me if I lived there and what I was doing. I told him it was our house and we were going for a walk. He pulled his car forward to near where my wife was standing and got out of his car. He asked for my identification and said he thought we may have been trying to steal a car. After seeing my identification, he got in his car and left.

I thought about what the officer must have seen: a black woman standing on the sidewalk and another person stepping away from a car in a driveway. In some situations, such as late at night or in a neighborhood in which there had been recent car thefts or break-ins, his behavior would have been understandable or even justified. However, for this to occur in broad daylight on a national holiday in a neighborhood in which random crimes are not common, I could only surmise that the color of my wife's skin was a factor that helped trigger the officer's behavior.

We were sure this was the same officer we had seen two days earlier. We were also walking that day, and he was in his car at a street corner checking the speed of passing cars. In this case, we passed directly in front of his car and made eye contact with him.

Our situation on January 1 did not escalate the way it happened with Mr. Gates. But to me there is some similarity with the point where it was decided the situation could potentially be a crime. That is, there is some span of time in which someone's perception of the circumstances triggers the need for a role of the police in the matter. In my estimation, this span is probably a very short interval of time. In our case, certainly less than a second.

My belief is that for the most part, the sanctioned discrimination of a person based on the color of their skin is gone from our society. People are just not illogical enough to have this attitude. This is a long term, entrenched belief that is now gone in our society. But now, our struggle is with the shorter term calculations that lead us to the decisions we make. The work needed to cure our miscalculations - to remove the biases we may have grown up with - is the work for each individual. But it is also the responsibility of our institutions, including the police, to make sure their members have also done this work.

This is not easy work to do, but incumbent upon us all.