We at USDemocrazy are constantly perplexed. (Don’t worry — that’s not our news for the day.)

What’s perplexing us today is the controversial arrest of eminent African American scholar, professor, author (and the list goes on…), Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr.

Dr. Gates was apparently struggling to get into his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts (home to Harvard University), as his front door was jammed. According to the story in the New York Times,

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home after a woman reported seeing ”two black males with backpacks on the porch,” with one ”wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.”

When the police arrived, Gates was in his home. What happened next is the point of contention.

Professor Gates says he produced a drivers license and a Harvard ID to the dispatched officer.  The white policeman on call had a different take:

”Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him,” the arresting officer wrote.

Gates’ colleagues and peers spoke out immediately, loudly crying “racial profiling” to anyone who would listen  - which, it turns out, was everyone.

Since his arrest, the charge of disorderly conduct against him has been dropped, but the race debate goes on. Blackpoliticsontheweb.com wrote:

The charge was dropped Tuesday, with a statement from the city of Cambridge calling the incident last Thursday “regrettable and unfortunate.” Police offered no apology, nor did the officer accept blame.

So, though the charges have been dissolved, the mug shot remains, the news stories are still circulating, and the implications of the arrest of the head of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research remain, and no apology means no closure.

After the incident, all eyes turned toward President Obama, who has addressed the topic of race numerous times — and most recently at the meeting of the N.A.A.C.P. last week. During this speech, Obama stated,

Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America.

No kidding.

He went on:

We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not.  But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands and don’t you forget that.

Obama was asked in his press conference on Wednesday night for his take on the arrest, to which he responded:

But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.

(Someone just got called stupid by the president of the United States!!)

And though outraged, Dr. Gates has been honorably tolerant of the situation, as the website Gawker points out.

He also granted an interview to his daughter, Elizabeth Gates, a contributor to the Daily Beast, in which he said:

If I had been white this incident never would have happened. He would have asked at the door, “Excuse me, are you okay? Because there are two black men around here try’na rob you [laughter] and I think he also violated the rules by not giving his name and badge number, and I think he would have given that to one of my white colleagues or one of my white neighbors. So race definitely played a role. Whether he’s an individual racist? I don’t know—I don’t know him. But I think he stereotyped me.

Gates’ take on the incident is insightful (we would expect nothing less), and we recommend reading the entire thing for a better understanding of the role of racism in his arrest.

So, what does everyone think? Is anyone outraged? Let’s hear it.