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The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, July 16, 2009, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., MacArthur Fellow and Harvard professor, was mistakenly arrested by Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley for attempting to break into his own home. The ensuing media firestorm ignited debate across the country. The Crowley-Gates incident was a clash of absolutes, underscoring the tension between black and white, police and civilians, and the privileged and less privileged in modern America. Charles Ogletree, one of the country€™s foremost experts on civil rights, uses this incident as a lens through which to explore issues of race, class, and crime, with the goal of creating a more just legal system for all. Working from years of research and based on his own classes and experiences with law enforcement, the author illuminates the steps needed to embark on the long journey toward racial and legal equality for all Americans.
- GenresNonfictionPoliticsLaw
256 pages, Hardcover
First published June 20, 2010
About the author
Charles J. Ogletree Jr.
12 books8 followersCharles James Ogletree Jr. was an American attorney, law professor and the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. He was also the author of books on legal topics.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 19, 2013
I would rate this book a 2.5 stars. It was a good reminder about why racial profilling should be a part of the national discussion. With all of the disrespect and harrassment happening to Louis Gates and all the other lawyers and distinguished people in this book, you can just imagine how horrific it is for less renown people of color. The examples definitely underscored how frequent this is happening, but after a while it became repetitive and many of the examples were too dated. (i.e. 1950's) I would have liked to have seen some acknowledgement of people who were not upper middle class. Also needed were at least one or two suggestions about what action can or should be taken.
June 11, 2011
The Loren Miller Bar Association gave a copy to my boss at the Racial Justice Taskforce meeting the Temple of Justice hosted, and I borrowed it because I like Charles Ogletree. Think I’ve cited him a time or two.
Those who watch Washington judicial races know that This Thing happened last fall. There were some . . . graceless comments on race made at a meeting at the Supreme Court about the continued need for the Minority and Justice Commission, and Someone (theories vary on who) told the press. Nice write up in the Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html.... And The Stranger. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/arch.... One justice lost his seat. Somewhat paradoxically, that justice wrote the opinion that found racial profiling violated the state constitution, State v. Ladson, 138 Wn.2d 343 (1999), which was a gutsy thing to do given that the feds say it’s just fine under the Constitution of the United States.
The book’s basically a bulleted list of times where mostly upper middle class African American men were detained by the police on laughably thin grounds. Which is cringeworthy; it’s deeply offensive that we use race as a proxy for suspicious behavior. Arguably, Justice Sanders lost his seat, and I have this book, because he suggested that the reason there is a disproportionate number of African Americans are in prison is because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes; a theory that is demonstrably false. What *is* true is that when you focus your attention on someone, you notice the crimes they commit. This book is basically a list of all these people who got police attention focused on them when they had done nothing, pointing out that is an offense against their dignity and a blow against the myth of the inclusive society.
What’s disappointing about this book, at least for me is – yeah, I know that. I suspect anyone who would read this book knows that. And Justice Sanders wrote Ladson. His comments were graceless, but not, I think, motivated by personal racial animus. I have no doubt that if Justice Sanders believed there was a man in prison because of his race, he’d have delivered the habeas writ demanding release in person. The comments did, I suspect, follow from his libertarian philosophy, which has no room for things like unconscious prejudices or historical traumas.
This book is disappointing because it doesn’t unpack any of this. It documents a particular aspect of racial profiling that is hugely offensive, but it doesn’t get underneath and probe the whys of it or the hows of how to stop it.
It does, however, have one great line. “As Professor Gates’ counsel, I encouraged him to attend the beer summit.” And it has some nicely satisfying moments where the police pulled over Men With Power and suffered for it. If this book is aimed at and reaches people who had a passing interest in the events that led up to the beer summit and don’t realize racial profiling happens, it is probably a triumph.
Those who watch Washington judicial races know that This Thing happened last fall. There were some . . . graceless comments on race made at a meeting at the Supreme Court about the continued need for the Minority and Justice Commission, and Someone (theories vary on who) told the press. Nice write up in the Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html.... And The Stranger. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/arch.... One justice lost his seat. Somewhat paradoxically, that justice wrote the opinion that found racial profiling violated the state constitution, State v. Ladson, 138 Wn.2d 343 (1999), which was a gutsy thing to do given that the feds say it’s just fine under the Constitution of the United States.
The book’s basically a bulleted list of times where mostly upper middle class African American men were detained by the police on laughably thin grounds. Which is cringeworthy; it’s deeply offensive that we use race as a proxy for suspicious behavior. Arguably, Justice Sanders lost his seat, and I have this book, because he suggested that the reason there is a disproportionate number of African Americans are in prison is because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes; a theory that is demonstrably false. What *is* true is that when you focus your attention on someone, you notice the crimes they commit. This book is basically a list of all these people who got police attention focused on them when they had done nothing, pointing out that is an offense against their dignity and a blow against the myth of the inclusive society.
What’s disappointing about this book, at least for me is – yeah, I know that. I suspect anyone who would read this book knows that. And Justice Sanders wrote Ladson. His comments were graceless, but not, I think, motivated by personal racial animus. I have no doubt that if Justice Sanders believed there was a man in prison because of his race, he’d have delivered the habeas writ demanding release in person. The comments did, I suspect, follow from his libertarian philosophy, which has no room for things like unconscious prejudices or historical traumas.
This book is disappointing because it doesn’t unpack any of this. It documents a particular aspect of racial profiling that is hugely offensive, but it doesn’t get underneath and probe the whys of it or the hows of how to stop it.
It does, however, have one great line. “As Professor Gates’ counsel, I encouraged him to attend the beer summit.” And it has some nicely satisfying moments where the police pulled over Men With Power and suffered for it. If this book is aimed at and reaches people who had a passing interest in the events that led up to the beer summit and don’t realize racial profiling happens, it is probably a triumph.
March 12, 2016
This is important subject matter, and I am glad to get a detailed account of what happened to Professor Gates, and to read all the other anecdotes in this book about prominent and distinguished African American men treated in racist ways. But it is not a well written book. It is repetitive and oddly organized. The prose is awkwardly phrased, with poorly chosen adjectives. The author dwells on insignificant minutiae, but leaves out important information such as the dates and locations where the experiences he describes occurred. I recommend reading this book, because the topic it covers is so important, but I wish a talented editor could deeply revise the whole thing.
Want to Read
September 5, 2010Side note: I atttended a small lecture given by Charles Ogletree where I was able to get my book autographed and take a picture with the author.
March 29, 2015
Main ideas - race trumps class in America today. That truism is made apparent by racial profiling and policing policies that target blacks and other minorities disproportionately to whites.
October 30, 2020
Charles Ogletree is a great scholar and thinker. Turning around troubling questioned of presumed innocent before proven guilty does not apply to black folks! The prime case in point is Henry Louis Gates, Jr being arrested trying to get into his own home. From the neighbor calling the police to the police arresting Gates was just a debacle and all because Gates is black and presumed not to belong in that neighborhood.
March 2, 2021
This is an important topic and I'm glad I read this, but it bothered me that the author seemed to substitute classism for racism---i.e., that it was terrible that a Harvard professor was profiled by the police, as if profiling a high-school dropout would be more understandable. Kind of elitist.
At the end is a long list of cases of racial profiling, making the point that this is a more pervasive problem than we ever hear about, but it was tedious to read.
At the end is a long list of cases of racial profiling, making the point that this is a more pervasive problem than we ever hear about, but it was tedious to read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews