Trust: Handle with care

Who do you trust?

The black guy or the police officer? The eminent scholar or the white guy? Yes, we are juggling another racial firecracker. They come along quite regularly because over the centuries we have failed to get past race as a defining line.

The fuse this time was lit by the July 16 arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, who said Gates badgered him about racism when the officer went to investigate a possible break-in at Gates' home. Gates was charged with disorderly conduct, but the charges were quickly dropped.

The incident had barely been reported before lengthy comment strands were attached to it, mostly about race, though ego, class and other attributes were likely involved as well.

No need for information specific to the incident, since most commentators just wanted to say what was already on their minds.

It's a given that most people will try to fit the facts together to support the narratives we already have in our heads.

That's what I did, but I tried not to force pieces to fit where they didn't belong.

I've interviewed Skip Gates a few times, and I had no trouble imagining that he might react badly to being arrested at his own home.

Being black, he would be alert to how the officer was treating him; being a high-powered person, he would not tolerate poor treatment. Imagine how the celebrity, politician, CEO of your choice might react.

Gates probably wasn't in a good mood anyway since he'd just gotten home from a trip to China, and he had to force his own door open.

I don't know the officer. But I do know that he thought it a good idea to handcuff a small, 58-year-old academic in his own yard.

I don't know what his frame of mind was, but he was acting in his professional capacity, which, for most of us who have a job, means moderating our reaction to sour encounters.

Should Gates have yelled at him? No; we should all always be on our best behavior.

I wouldn't yell at an officer.

If I trusted the policeman were well-trained and that he was not mostly seeing a color and that he valued freedom the way Americans are supposed to, I'd speak up.

If I didn't, I'd shut up.

Most American institutions have a long history of mistreating black people, and most have also worked to change.

The police have a complicated job sorting people into different categories on the fly.

Listen to the police tapes in the Cambridge case and you hear the sorting.

Remember, Crowley said the person who called 911 told him at the scene that she saw two black men with backpacks trying to get into the house. The witness later denied mentioning race to him.

On the 911 tape, the woman says she saw two gentlemen with suitcases forcing open a door. She says it might be their home, but she didn't know.

The police dispatcher asks whether they are white, black or Hispanic. She says she doesn't know, though one might be Hispanic.

The dispatcher repeated that information to the officer.

Who do I trust? Why the difference?

And I wonder why, upon seeing Gates, did Crowley not say, "Hey, you don't look like a burglar to me, ha, ha. But since I had to come out, may I see your ID, sir?"

The protagonists in this story will be having a beer together in the White House today with Barack Obama, who was reminded that he might be president, but he'd better think carefully about criticizing the police, lest he lose the trust of a lot of white Americans, who, despite his mother, do not usually see him as one of their own.

Trust can be a fragile thing.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.