Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arrested at Cambridge Home.

Update 4 (July 28, 2009):

• Fish, Stanley. "Henry Louis Gates: Deja Vu All Over Again." Think Again Blog. New York Times July 24, 2009 (http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/henry-louis-gates-deja-vu-all-over-again/).

Update(s) 3 (July 24, 2009):

• "Black officer at Gates home during arrest said scholar acted strange, supports arrest" (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-harvard-scholar-arresting-officer,0,4731766.story)
• Williams, Juan. "Obama 'Has Gone Way, Way Too Far' in Gates Arrest." (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/07/24/juan-williams-obama-has-gone-way-way-too-far-gates-arrest)
• Gelzinis, Peter. "Flap Far from Black and White." (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1186759)
• "Obama Seeks to Clarify 'Stupidly' Comment" (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/24/cambridge-police-unit-demands-apology-obama-stupidly-remark/)
• Police Report on the Incident(http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html)
• "The 'Unfathomable' Arrest of a Black Scholar" (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/gates.arrest.reaction/index.html)
• Stripling, Jack. "If It Can Happen to Him. . . ." (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/22/gates)
• Washington, Jesse. "Gates arrest a signpost on racial road." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090722/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_analysis)

Update 2 (July 21, 2009): Charges dropped. Further information is here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534203,00.html?test=latestnews. Update 1 (July 21, 2009): When a police officer arrived on the scene to investigate the tip, Gates was reportedly already having an altercation with another sergeant inside the home. The professor allegedly shouted that he would not provide the police with information and that "[t]his is what happens to black men in America!" The sergeant reportedly then tried to calm Gates, to which Gates shouted, "[y]ou don't know who your [sic] messing with!"according to the report. The report said that the two then moved to the front porch, where Gates continued to shout that the sergeant was racist, catching the attention of roughly seven "surprised and alarmed" onlookers. . . . Further details on the incident here from the Harvard Crimson: http://uwire.com/Article.aspx?id=4161926. Original Post (July 20, 2009): Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling. . . . (Tracy Jan, Boston Globe July 20, 2009.) Read the rest here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html.

Davis, Lennard J. "In Academe, Once a Star, Always a Star." CHRONICLE June 26, 2009.

Academic fame is an even stranger goddess than her nonacademic counterpart. In the world of films or novels, your fame is fleeting — you're often only as good as your last production. Films that splashed across marquees in the summer are all but forgotten when the snows fall. And as regards books, secondhand bookstores and Web sites are swollen with works that were once the rage and now are obscure. Fame, which D.H. Lawrence famously referred to as the bitch goddess, is in those worlds really bitchy. But in academe you need to have written only one major book or article, and you'll be remembered until you die. Once your idea is accepted and becomes famous, it has amazing durability. In addition, once you've made your mark, it is very hard to erase it. You may write a lot of other books on different topics, but you'll be remembered only for your original mark. Fame is very economical and can spare only one tomb per name in the academic pantheon. We could, in fact, invent a new parlor game: Think of a famous person, and the assembled players have to shout out the concept associated with that person. Try Foucault — you'll no doubt respond "power." Said, Orientalism; Bourdieu, habitus; Baudrillard, simulacrum; Derrida, deconstruction; Watson and Crick, the double helix; C. Wright Mills, the power elite; Gramsci, hegemony; Elaine Scarry, pain; Donna Haraway, cyborgs; Judith Butler, performativity. Hours of fun to be had over nachos and salsa. Those scholars may write legions of books, but the subsequent work won't erase the initial flourish of their signature concept. If these people were actors, we'd say they were typecast. It is the nature of academic fame that it is faddish and cultish — faddish in the sense that, by definition, it is based on the newness of a scholar's ideas. Readers demand the shock of an innovative insight. But it is only a matter of time before a concept slides into familiarity. The new idea becomes institutionalized. Therefore the successful outcome of any famous concept will be its general acceptance, to the point that it becomes, paradoxically, commonplace. We then find it difficult to understand how the concept could have had the éclat that it did originally. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i40/40b01201.htm.