Posted 8/3/2009

THE GATES-CROWLEY-OBAMA AFFAIR

There's an old expression: "Everybody can't be wrong."

The Gates-Crowley-Obama affair proves the old adage itself can be wrong. For on this issue, everybody seems to be wrong.

This was not a case of racial prejudice.

Instead, it was clearly a case of social class conflict.

Everybody who ran straight to the conclusion that it had to be a "race" issue missed the whole point.

The upper and lower social classes have always resented each other. All through economic history, the rich have preyed on the poor and the poor have preyed on the rich. The wars between business and labor between 1880 and 1960 resulted in a great deal of bloodshed. Remember the "Haymarket Massacre"? Recall the bloody head of Walter Reuther, who was beaten by Ford goons in the famous "bridge riot"? Or read the 1905 book The Jungle, which showed how the rich meatpackers cruelly exploited their workers.

These were just a few examples of violent social class conflict in America that pitted white against white. Race was never an issue.

The shocking crime situation in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from the city's loss of its middle-class buffer. Without such a buffer, the sixty-year war between General Motors and the United Auto Workers resulted in the giant company's bankruptcy.

The social class problem in America started in England – before there was a United States. The Anglicans persecuted the Puritans as an inferior social class. As soon as the Pilgrims got to the New World, they began persecuting the Indians as an inferior social class. (The Puritans were superior because they dressed better and spoke English.) When things went wrong in New England, men turned on women, an inferior social class. Many women were labeled "witch" and burned at the stake in Massachusetts and hanged in Connecticut.

Professor Gates clearly belongs to the "upper-upper" social class. It's almost as good as having old money – like the Cabots and Astors. People in the upper class resent those in the lower classes – especially when the issue of criminal justice is involved. The television series Law & Order makes a fortune portraying rich white criminals beating the justice system while showing contempt for the lower-class cohorts of police officers and prosecutors.

Cops, on the other hand, are clearly denizens of the lower class. They love to put the blocks to people of upper-class power and wealth. Over the years, cops have built up a resentment against the upper class, which has never been subject to equal justice in this country. The cases of Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick and Michael Skakel at Greenwich, Connecticut, are real-life examples of the rich having their way with the criminal justice system.

Naturally, upper-class Professor Gates bitterly resented being questioned by a mere cop.

Naturally, lower-class Sgt. Crowley was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to bring down and humiliate one of the upper-class leaders of America's most prestigious university.

Gates, unfortunately, gave Crowley the perfect opportunity by yelling at him and calling him names like "racist." If you doubt this took place, just look at the photo of Gates screaming in protest as he is led out of his house in handcuffs.

Being photographed and fingerprinted in a police station is one of the most humiliating things that can happen to anyone. Think how bitter Gates felt. Think how gleeful Crowley felt. Just look a the photos on this page to see how visually degraded Gates becomes as he descends from lecturer to arrestee to mugshot perp.

President Obama is supposed to be a highly intelligent, well-educated man. You would have thought that he had at least heard of the great work Social Class in America, written by Professor W. Lloyd Warner, which identified and described the seven social classes in America as far back as 1949. The subject has been expanded on by many other sociologists since.

Perhaps the parties in this case are all suffering from denial. Although Dr. Warner's work was brilliant and pioneering, it was never popular with the educated set, which seemed bent on denying that social class even existed in America. People like Nelson Rockefeller (an obvious member of Warner's upper-upper strata) publicly claimed, "I am a member of the middle class."

But ignorance is no excuse. Neither is denial that social class exists in America.

There is a very simple way to prove that social class exists in the USA.

Ask yourself: Who would you prefer to have your daughter marry, a college professor or a police officer? A business executive or factory worker? An engineer or a rapper?

Social standing depends on many factors, including sex, wealth, income, education, occupation, associations, memberships – and, unfortunately, race.

The way to look at this is very clear to me.

As yourself one question, "If the same situation has occurred at the home of Bill Gates, would Sgt. Crowley have made the arrest for disorderly conduct?"

If the very white, very rich Bill Gates had been yelling at Sgt. Crowley and calling him names, I believe Sgt. Crowley would have "cuffed" the white Gates just as quickly as he cuffed the black Gates. The tempting desire of a lower-class cop to bring down a member of the upper strata is almost overwhelming.

If you doubt this, I refer you back to the Martha Stewart case. When the federal cops found they had no case against her on the charge of "insider trading" of stock, they prosecuted and imprisoned her on the ridiculous "crime" of "lying to federal officers." She was sentenced to ten months in the pen for doing something we all do daily (lying), according to most researchers.

But it was well understood that the lower-class federal cops wanted to bring down a member of the upper strata so as to set an example. The Feds went after a very rich, very prominent woman on a nothing charge, while their brothers at the Securities and Exchange Commission deliberately ignored the $50 billion Ponzi scheme being run by Bernie Madoff.

Remember, nobody went after the very rich and powerful Madoff until other very rich and powerful people were hurt. Not to insult Martha, but have we come very far from hanging witches?

When I was growing up in Cleveland in the 1940s, it was incredibly clear to me that the prejudiced environment I lived in was not one of bigotry regarding race or ethnicity. It was based on the widely held white belief that everyone else belonged to a lesser social order – Niggers, Spics, Wops, Chinks, Polacks, Catholics – everybody but Moslems, mainly because we didn't know any.

It was us against all of them. Respected newspapers ran editorials about how all the waves of immigrants from Eastern Europe "would lower the 'national intelligence.'" This was accompanied by comments that "the reproductive rate of Negroes would soon overwhelm the white population."

Today one of our most prestigious universities is being sued for discriminating against Asian applicants in favor of white students. It must be unthinkable for this collection of elitists to accept the fact that Chinese girls could have better academic and social credentials than white males.

It's the old social class thinking. Whites are higher than yellows. And males are superior to females. But the Asian population in America has been rising in social class rankings, since the average Asian family makes more than $7,000 a year more than the average white family.

We would all be better off if we could all step back a little and look at the big picture.

Race is just one component of social class status.

If Professor Gates carries out his threat to sue the police for racial prejudice, I believe his case could easily be destroyed by explaining the social class issue.

He simply didn't want to be questioned by a member of a lower social class.

He yelled at the outrage and called the cop names.

The lower-class cop jumped with joy at the idea of bringing down an upper-class bigwig.

After all, arresting a member of "old Harvard" is just as good as arresting someone from the world of "old money."

And probably more fun than cuffing a mere nouveau riche like Donald Trump.

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