A Call for Sensitivity Training

Jules Crittenden calls for a different kind of sensitivity training regarding the (local) Cambridge brouhaha that went national when President Obama commented on it last night. It been quite the headline story here in the Boston area. Basically, Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr, returned from a trip abroad, couldn't get into his home and asked his cab driver to help him with the uncooperative door. A neighbor saw this and thought it was break in and called the cops. If I was Gates I would be happy that the police responded so quickly, thus knowing he lives in the safe town. Gates saw it differently. That's when things got tricky, it seems Gates was being rude to the cop which got him arrested. "Gates has called James Crowley a “rogue cop,” though it’s not clear whether he knows much about this cop or his history. Meanwhile, the president of the United States, while acknowledging that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, calls the Cambridge cop “stupid” on national TV. "

Gates has been demanding sensitivity training, and I’m beginning to think he’s right. Some sensitivity training might be called for in this situation. For the Harvard professors, 24-hour news network ministers and apparently presidents of the United States as well, on how destructive it is to individuals, to race relations and to society in general to level inflammatory accusations of racism or to call people “stupid” and “rogues” without knowing who they are, what they are about, or even what exactly happened.

Another take from Dr. Boyce Watkins:

Basically, this situation may have been a battle of two egos: One of them from a Harvard professor who seemed to feel that he should not be disrespected by a lowly police officer; the other from an officer who seemed to feel that a powerful Black professor could be treated differently from a powerful White professor. What is abundantly clear is that this is NOT the case of a poor Black male being exploited by the racist, classist power structure. Perhaps the next time there is another Jena Six incident, Dr. Gates will fight as diligently for poor Black men as he is fighting for himself, and his fight will go beyond writing papers for academic journals that hardly anyone ever reads. I also hope that Cambridge police officers will give the same credibility to wealthy African Americans as they do to their White counterparts. This situation should never have happened.