Advice From Parents: Talk Rudely To Cops And Be Defiant
July 26, 2009 / 2:36 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierAlso, it’s helpful to go into an interaction with a police officer acting superior and haughty.
Who would teach their kids such lessons? When my parents gave that talk in the context of a legal deposition my dad had to give, they said, “Answer the questions they ask. Nothing more. Do not make excuses. Be respectful. Keep a good attitude.” Because, well, police officers have the gun and the power to make a person’s life absolutely hell. But more than that, they hold an office of authority and one should respect the office.
Enter the Gates Affair.
A privileged black man breaks into his home, a neighbor calls out of concern for her neighbor, the police respond, the ID given after inside the home is not a driver’s license, the black man is belligerent and the police arrest him. The police, all of them, say the man is acting strangely. They write their report. The charges get dropped and the man shouts “racism!”
Donna Brazille and Juan Williams, both black, share that their parents teach them to be extra careful with police because black people can get into trouble. Well, it’s the same sort of trouble a white person can get into if the right attitude is not taken, or, you know, a white person is committing a crime. It’s kinda universal advice, or should be, don’t you think? Be respectful to those in authority. Sometimes its better to be more than respectful. Sometimes it’s good to be obsequious.
Word of the day: obsequious.
Go look it up. No one likes to be obsequious, but it’s a better road to go down with dealing with someone who can give you a hard time. But no. When you’re a Harvard snob, the little people should be obsequious with you. You’re special. You’re a well-known Harvard professor! How dare you! I can almost hear the British accent, “Unhand me young man!”
Meanwhile, the narrative gets shifted to all the black men in prison. Is the Harvard Professor Gates the symbol for racial profiling as he suggests? Or is Professor Gates a beneficiary of privilege and offended that it didn’t extend to this situation?
Did Professor Gates find his post at Harvard despite his gross lack of understanding of proper respect for authority? Was he intellectually stimulated but unwise in the ways of respectful interaction with authority? Can we assume that he had not been taught by his parents the proper way to interact when caught in a compromising situation by police officers?
Parents teach their children by word and deed to respect authority. If the young man, black or white, has been taught respect, he is unlikely to do disrespectful things like cheat, steal, lie, murder, do drugs, sell drugs, rape, assault, break into homes, etc.. Those behaviors are profoundly disrespectful. If the young man of any color does something stupid, say drag racing or getting drunk and disorderly with buddies or even accidental, such as breaking into ones own home, and the police enter the situation, the young man does not further endanger his plight by being disrespectful. He knows he’s caught, he cooperates. The young man does not make his bad situation worse by being rude and defiant to the police officers. He does not claim privilege.
The problem with Professor Gates is that he knows better. Or if he doesn’t, he wasn’t brought up well. It’s not about race. It’s about respect. He is not some victim of society’s racism and unfairness. It is not like he’s unaware of the rules of polite [police] society because he’s been untaught or uniformed. More than that, I’ll bet he brooks no disrespect when he’s in front of his classroom with his students. And I’ll bet they are properly obsequious lest they leave the class with a less than desired grade.
Now, there are bad cops. There are racist cops. There are even bad, racist professors. Still, a parent does not train the child for the exception, he trains the child for the principle: respect authority. It is not good for the child to doubt and wonder and be suspicious of every person who is meant to look out for his welfare. So parents teach general respect. On the rare occasions where someone is rogue, well that’s another situation entirely.
Are we to believe that Professor Gates didn’t know the rules of decorum when a police man entered the situation? Are observers supposed to excuse his disrespectful rantings at a guy who was just doing his job? I’m guessing that Professor Gates knew that authority was to be respected, he just figured that he should be the most important authority in that situation. He was wrong.
More from Just One Minute: Why no one wants to release the tapes.
Ann Althouse asks if Gates is an utter fool.
Mark Steyn talks of roses and race.
21 Responses to “Advice From Parents: Talk Rudely To Cops And Be Defiant”
July 26 2009 / 3:07 pm
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Didn’t we break away from Great Britain because snobs like that wanted us to follow their rules without any say in those rules?
Do as I say, not as I do?
I’ve been around for over four decades and lived all over from Florida to California to Michigan to Texas, and been in the Far East, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. I have NEVER seen as Racist of people as those who “claim” as LOUDLY as they can, that they aren’t Racists. Sadly most of those happen to be the self proclaimed “representatives” of whatever minority group they represent – Blacks, Hispanics etc.
You’re actions tell everyone when you’re not a racist or are a racist – not what you “proclaim” you are.
July 26 2009 / 4:26 pm
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Tom McGuire of Just One Minute is right on the money. From the beginning Gates screamed to high heaven how racist the cops were and the word “lawsuit” was even thrown in.
Then we learned that the Cambridge PD was thinking of releasing tapes of the officer’s radio contact with his dispatcher during the confrontation.
That’s when Gates does a 180 and all of a sudden he’s Mr Peacemaker, all sweetness and light, saying “Let us move on from this and learn.”
I believe absolutely that those tapes will show that Gates was the screaming obnoxious jerk playing the race card, and even, as the officer said, saying things about his, the officer’s, mother. I think we can all agree that means Gates was using the 12 letter MF word on the officer and the cops.
If the tapes showed the officer was in the wrong and that Gates was indeed a victim he would be demanding that they be released to the media. He’s not doing that, and what that means seems pretty clear to me. What a phony.
July 26 2009 / 5:38 pm
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Melissa, what does “a privileged black man” mean?
Was Gates born to great wealth or prominence?
July 26 2009 / 8:00 pm
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A while ago I worked with a programmer who had been a deputy sheriff in (I think) Lubbock, Texas. He said that one Saturday morning he and another deputy answered a domestic violence call at a garage apartment. When he got to the top of the stairs, the screen door cracked open and the business end of a 12-gauge shotgun slid out. He and his partner managed to calm the guy down, but my friend said that afterwards he went straight back to the office and laid his badge on the sheriff’s desk.
In my experience the police aren’t looking for obsequiousness, but a helpful attitude is usually appreciated.
July 26 2009 / 8:05 pm
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fuster, in this case “a privileged black man” is a member of the faux aristocracy formed at the nexus of leftist academe, racial preferences and boutique academic disciplines.
July 27 2009 / 9:08 pm
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Jack, don’t be a dope. Gates is a prime jackass, but he earned whatever he has through his scholarship, and not through any racial preferences.
Look through his academic record,
July 28 2009 / 2:13 pm
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Indeed, just like Pres. Obama. Look at his academic record.
July 29 2009 / 8:09 am
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So now Powell says Gates was wrong – ONLY because of the outburst, well…because most white people are racist???
Will this NEVER end (I ask rhetorically)?
July 29 2009 / 10:34 am
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Philo, that was quite witty and absolutely to the point.
Please post your academic record and let’s compare it with Gates’.
July 29 2009 / 10:54 am
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Way to miss the whole point Fuster (again).
It has nothing to do with anything IN in academic record. He “THINKS” he’s better than everyone else “because” he teaches at Hahvahd.
July 29 2009 / 12:37 pm
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Think not, Dave. Read the Okie’s comment again.
But anyway, Dave, Gates thought pretty highly of himself before harvard, back when he was hired to chair the English Dept. at Duke. Maybe even earlier.
July 29 2009 / 12:46 pm
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“…a member of the faux aristocracy formed at the nexus of leftist academe, racial preferences and boutique academic disciplines.”
Where does it go into his academic record fuster? So no, it’s not ME or Okie who brought up academic records, it was YOU.
July 29 2009 / 1:03 pm
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Tell me how his academic record reflects racial preference or how English is a boutique discipline?
How in any way is he “privileged” and not reaping the rewards of his studies?
July 29 2009 / 1:09 pm
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Again fuster – THEY DON’T and THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT!!!
He, and others like him – THINK it does! I mean really fuster, get a clue.
July 29 2009 / 1:28 pm
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Dave “He, and others like him…”
Sure, others like him, but what does that prove?
There’s no clue there.
Still, can’t understand how some silly twit can write that Gates is “privileged” rather than some old crackpot who’s earned his way through life without learning how to act well.
July 29 2009 / 1:49 pm
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Acting un-civil is a FAR cry from being a pompous jackass who thinks he’s better than everyone else – especially the police – because he THINKS he privileged, not that he “IS” privileged. /sigh
Again, fuster, you are still purposely missing the point. And yes you are doing it on purpose to try and cloud the point, you do it in every comment you post in.
I’ll explain it real simple for you – BECAUSE Gates went to all the “elite” schools and now teaches at an “elite” school – he “THINKS” he special – i.e. privileged.
Is that simple enough for you to understand? It has NOTHING to do with his academic record or the grades he got on a thesis. It’s his ATTITUDE, not his book learning, and that he’s “friends” with the current Pres. that makes us refer to his attitude of “privileged” – because he DOES think he himself IS.
July 29 2009 / 2:19 pm
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Gee, Dave, I thought that his accusation of the cop acting against him because of his race tends to show that Gates thinks that ultimately his work and attendant social status will never overcome the fact that his race debars him from ever being, or really feeling, privileged.
Too simple?
July 29 2009 / 2:37 pm
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Wrong fuster, HE’S the one that pulled the RACE card FIRST, not the cop. The Cop was doing his job, and from everything I’ve read, listened to and researched, he’s lucky the cop didn’t haul is ass off to jail SOONER. The Cop WAS giving him the benefit of doubt, but Gates “privileged” attitude couldn’t handle the cop “not knowing who he was”.
And that doesn’t give him the right, no MATTER what his education, job, skin color, religion or sexual preference – to “think” he’s better than ANYONE else, let alone a white cop.
July 29 2009 / 3:11 pm
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Dave, you’re fun. I agree that Gates initially and blindly invoked race.
That’s why I say that you’re all wet in saying that Gates feels privileged.
Now read my previous comment again and see if you can now understand it.
July 29 2009 / 3:35 pm
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And now your acting just like him. You can’t see yourself acting like the jerk he was, because you think you’re right and everyone else is wrong. All of us here almost can’t wait for the next piece of drivel and excuse you come up with when you post.
The STORY was about Gates “thinking” he’s privileged “because” of his college background and job, further enforced by the color of his skin. That’s it. Nothing more. And the funny catch of the story “wondering” if that’s what his parents taught him.
But you keep bring all sorts of other stuff that nobody else brings up but you, so you can then argue about it when you get called on it. Red Herring much? But then we don’t even have to ask that, because just going over everything you post here (and probably other sites you post on too), are filled with it.
July 29 2009 / 5:35 pm
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fuster,
I didn’t major or minor in English or History, nor did I subsequently devote my life to African American related matters. I am not a professor, and haven’t received 49 (or even one) honorary degrees. Were you assuming there would be something pertinent to compare? Perhaps you meant contrast? Either way, I don’t see the reason for your request, but thank you for asking.