COMMENTARY:"My Love For Harvard Law Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr."..... By Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Sunday, September 13, 2009
I fell in love with Harvard Law Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Thursday evening, where we met for the first time and only for the minutes that I had the privilege of tagging close behind the cane wielding Gates as I gave my spill seeking to write for “The Root,” an online magazine that he edits that provides national and other news from a Black perspective. That love is, of course, limited to my admiration of him for his skill in winning friends and influencing enemies.
I had closely followed the summer controversy around Professor Gates that aroused a national discussion on race relations and racial profiling after Cambridge MA. police arrested him at his university furnished home. This was even after he allegedly proved to police that he lived there and that the alleged complaint of a minority burglar on the Gates' premises lacked merit. Gates was essentially accused of making police mad by allegedly saying “do you know who I am,?” apparently a no-no for Blacks in this country. Though later released without charges, the Gates episode quickly reminded Black America that all is not yet well.
Gates was in Cleveland Thursday evening to moderate the Anister-Wolf Book Awards, a takeoff of the Pulitzer Prize Ceremonies that is held annually in Cleveland that awards literary excellence by Blacks and other minorities. Winners this year include 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed for her book, "Hemingses of Monticello", a literary masterpiece that examines the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
When I approached Professor Gates bragging of my writings as a Black journalist in the Cleveland area, after asking one of the hundreds of people in attendance for the sold out event if he were there, he was in the outer lobby of the Cleveland Playhouse headed to the stage and politely said “let's walk and talk.” I explained that I wanted to work for him and he directed me to the deputy editor, saying “tell him I sent you.” Gates then took to the stage and the show began.
I was in the third role up front having been invited to attend and having maneuvered my way to the area sectioned off for the four award recipients, Cleveland Foundation executives, Plain Dealer Newspaper Publisher Terry Egger, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr. and his wife Edwina, and other wheeler dealers. I wondered how the scholar, literary critic, author of controversial books on race relations and Director of Harvard's W.E.B Dubois African and African-American Research Institute would handle his role as moderator of the event, given the audience of literate types that was roughly 85 percent White and his summer in the spotlight. That spotlight is what amused me as a Black journalist who is always looking to put together pieces on the issue of race relations in America, a complicated concept that rarely wanes in interest where most people want to believe that they are fair and sensitive to individual and racial differences, even those that are not.
Gates quickly charmed the audience seemingly knowing just what to say, just what not to say, and just how long to say it. Before reading the profiles of the four honorees he joked of his arrest, the fall out from it, and his having had a beer with the arresting officer and President Obama on the patio of the White House Rose Garden.
“ I was told at an airport that I look younger than my mugshot,” he joked, easily winning the audience and drawing laughter.
After the event I told some friends of the aforementioned. One threw a curve ball asking “Did you know that he is married to a White woman,?" a rhetorical question for a research buff like me. I later reiterated the comment to my day who asked, “well how do you feel?” I responded that years ago I might have found it hypocritical for a Black male Civil Rights advocate and scholar on race relations in our country to choose to marry a White woman over women that look like me. But then I said that now it doesn't matter as much as what the person brings to the Civil Rights forum and Gates has brought a lot, though I am not sure if I am completely at ease.
My dad said, without pausing, “You've grown and you are continually growing.”
I fell in love with Harvard Law Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Thursday evening, where we met for the first time and only for the minutes that I had the privilege of tagging close behind the cane wielding Gates as I gave my spill seeking to write for “The Root,” an online magazine that he edits that provides national and other news from a Black perspective. That love is, of course, limited to my admiration of him for his skill in winning friends and influencing enemies.
I had closely followed the summer controversy around Professor Gates that aroused a national discussion on race relations and racial profiling after Cambridge MA. police arrested him at his university furnished home. This was even after he allegedly proved to police that he lived there and that the alleged complaint of a minority burglar on the Gates' premises lacked merit. Gates was essentially accused of making police mad by allegedly saying “do you know who I am,?” apparently a no-no for Blacks in this country. Though later released without charges, the Gates episode quickly reminded Black America that all is not yet well.
Gates was in Cleveland Thursday evening to moderate the Anister-Wolf Book Awards, a takeoff of the Pulitzer Prize Ceremonies that is held annually in Cleveland that awards literary excellence by Blacks and other minorities. Winners this year include 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed for her book, "Hemingses of Monticello", a literary masterpiece that examines the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
When I approached Professor Gates bragging of my writings as a Black journalist in the Cleveland area, after asking one of the hundreds of people in attendance for the sold out event if he were there, he was in the outer lobby of the Cleveland Playhouse headed to the stage and politely said “let's walk and talk.” I explained that I wanted to work for him and he directed me to the deputy editor, saying “tell him I sent you.” Gates then took to the stage and the show began.
I was in the third role up front having been invited to attend and having maneuvered my way to the area sectioned off for the four award recipients, Cleveland Foundation executives, Plain Dealer Newspaper Publisher Terry Egger, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr. and his wife Edwina, and other wheeler dealers. I wondered how the scholar, literary critic, author of controversial books on race relations and Director of Harvard's W.E.B Dubois African and African-American Research Institute would handle his role as moderator of the event, given the audience of literate types that was roughly 85 percent White and his summer in the spotlight. That spotlight is what amused me as a Black journalist who is always looking to put together pieces on the issue of race relations in America, a complicated concept that rarely wanes in interest where most people want to believe that they are fair and sensitive to individual and racial differences, even those that are not.
Gates quickly charmed the audience seemingly knowing just what to say, just what not to say, and just how long to say it. Before reading the profiles of the four honorees he joked of his arrest, the fall out from it, and his having had a beer with the arresting officer and President Obama on the patio of the White House Rose Garden.
“ I was told at an airport that I look younger than my mugshot,” he joked, easily winning the audience and drawing laughter.
After the event I told some friends of the aforementioned. One threw a curve ball asking “Did you know that he is married to a White woman,?" a rhetorical question for a research buff like me. I later reiterated the comment to my day who asked, “well how do you feel?” I responded that years ago I might have found it hypocritical for a Black male Civil Rights advocate and scholar on race relations in our country to choose to marry a White woman over women that look like me. But then I said that now it doesn't matter as much as what the person brings to the Civil Rights forum and Gates has brought a lot, though I am not sure if I am completely at ease.
My dad said, without pausing, “You've grown and you are continually growing.”
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