According to the Associated Press, an arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts of a prominent Harvard professor has prompted charges of racial profiling.
According to the article, Henry Louis Gates Jr., described as the nation's pre-eminent black scholar:
... had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling
More details of the arrest are contained in the article, but he was ultimately charged with disorderly conduct after police say he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior."
I'll say this. If police showed up to investigate a possible break-in at my house and continued to pursue the matter after I proved my identiity, I would exhibit "loud and tumultuous behavior" too.
The difference is I would not be arrested, Can you guess why?
Per Harvard's faculty bio:
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
Professor Gates is Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies, and of The Root, an online news magazine dedicated to coverage of African American news, culture, and genealogy....
That's just a small sample. His list of accomplishments is very long.
Hattip to awesumtenor: Here is Professor Gates's version of events.
Hattip to futurebird, who did a diary on this last night: http://www.dailykos.com/...