Let President
Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick,
Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge
Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano,
the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders
and members of the media know you stand against racism with Professor
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and you want the Obama administration to
launch a national investigation into racial profiling and police
brutality NOW!
The arrest
of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by a Cambridge police officer
after showing two forms of identification after he, along with
a Black limo driver, had unjammed the lock to the front door of
Gates' own house in a predominantly white, upscale neighborhood
known as "Harvard Square" has brought the struggle against
racism to the front pages of newspapers throughout the US and
around the world.
The Cambridge
Police Department and their racist allies have worked overtime
to slander and vilify Prof. Gates. But his only crime was in fact
to resist the racist arrogance of the Cambridge Police and not
acquiesce to their racist and unjust treatment of him. The torrent
of racist vitriol targeting Prof. Gates as well as the absolute
racist arrogance displayed by the Cambridge Police Department
in demanding that Pres. Obama and Gov. Patrick apologize for expressing
support for Prof. Gates, cannot go unanswered! It is time for
all poor and working people, and particularly whites, to come
out against these racist attacks and stand foursquare in 100%
solidarity with Professor Gates and against racial profiling and
police brutality.
Cambridge,
Harvard University and Boston are seen around the world as bastions
of liberalism, hotbeds of progressive ideas and prestigious places
from which cutting-edge research emanates. But the racial profiling
and arrest of Prof. Gates have re-raised the question of how much
has changed since the 1970s when, in the wake of court-ordered
busing for desegregation, white racist mobs were stoning buses
carrying Black school children and attacking Black people on the
streets and in their homes.
Gates was
Right! The Cambridge Police Department was Wrong!
Racial profiling
is another expression of institutionalized racism. In the U.S.,
racial profiling and police brutality have become an unfortunate
reality of life for people of color, especially youth. It doesn't
matter whether it occurs in the inner city, a small town, or an
upper-middle class suburb.
In a 2004
report entitled "Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling,
Domestic Security and Human Rights in the United States,"
Amnesty International documented that in a year-long investigation,
an estimated 32 million people had been racially profiled--the
vast majority of them from nationally oppressed groups. One can
only imagine how much these numbers have increased over the last
five years, not only for those born in the U.S. but also for immigrants.
Since 9/11 there has been a corresponding increase in racial profiling
targeting the Arab and Muslim communities.
The police
have been, by far, the most feared perpetrators of racial profiling,
and understandably so. Police harassment and brutality is an epidemic.
According to a 2008 report by the Washington, D.C. based Campaign
for Youth Justice entitled ”Critical Condition: African American
Youth in the Justice System” African American youth make up 30
percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent
of the overall youth population. Additionally, African American
youth are 62 percent of the total number of youth prosecuted in
the adult criminal system and are nine times more likely than
white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.
One only
needs to remember how the Somerville 5 (5 Black youth from Somerville
who were arrested on racist frame up charges by the Medford Police)
or the Jena 6 were treated. Not to mention the racism that followed
the devastation of the 9th Ward in New Orleans as a result of
hurricane Katrina.
As the economic
crisis deepens the ruling class will use all means at its disposal
to foster artificial divisions between white workers and Black,
Latina/o, and immigrant workers. It is our responsibility to build
a movement based on anti-racist, class-wide solidarity--as workers
of all nationalities are losing their jobs, homes, health care
and pensions in rapid numbers; and as the economic crisis becomes
even m
Text of online
petition:
To: President
Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick,
Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge
Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano,
the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders
and members of the media
I deplore
the racist treatment of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
by the Cambridge police on July 16. Professor Gates was arrested
simply for being in his own home and insisting on his right to
have the name and badge number of the arresting officer, rather
than standing silent in the face of blatant racist injustice inside
his own home. I demand an immediate apology to Professor Gates
from the Cambridge Police.
The Gates
affair throws a bright national spotlight on the reality of racial
profiling and police brutality in the United States, as Professor
Gates himself said at the time of the incident. President Obama
acknowledged this in his comments on it at his national press
conference.
I call on
all justice-loving people to stand in 100% solidarity with Professor
Gates and against racial profiling and police brutality, and to
stand up against the barrage of right-wing hate spewing forth
from law enforcement and police unions and fanned by news media
outlets and commentators, having the arrogance to demand that
President Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick apologize
for supporting Prof. Gates and speaking the truth.
I further
demand that the Justice Department take up an immediate robust
investigation of racial profiling and police brutality nationwide,
and bring perpetrating police officers to justice and withdraw
funds from police departments which practice racial profiling
and police brutality. What happened to Professor Gates is not
an individual incident. Racial profiling and police brutality
must be dealt with in a serious and systematic way.
