I didn't say Gates "behaved badly." I said "No one behaved well." I believe that Gates had a right to be angry, but that if he had managed not to yell, the outcome might have been different. I believe that once he had been called a racist, which to most people is a term of abuse, the police officer had a right to be angry, but if he had defused the situation (which, in my view, was primarily his responsibility), instead of arresting Gates, he'd had done a better job. I believe that the woman who called it in saw black men on the porch, and assumed they didn't belong in the neighborhood, but she called the police when she thought her neighbor was being burglarized.

In other words, everyone did things within their rights, everyone's feelings made sense, everyone did something they thought was right, and the whole thing erupted in a clusterfuck because it happened in a context where any flaw in anyone's behavior was magnified by the long history of racism in the United States, especially on the part of law enforcement. I don't think that we, or our children will ever get past that context, and when people get angry, as they do, the context makes their imperfections (sometimes) farcical, (sometimes) tragic and always depressing.

I teach. If something analogous took place in a classroom, it would be my professional responsibility to defuse a potentially explosive situation in a class discussion, and I (hope I) would take responsibility if I didn't. In this case, it was the police officer who was professionally responsible for the situation turning out as it did.

One thing about the Lenny Bias situation: the kid wasn't sassing the cop.