Cops have a job. That job is to serve and protect the public. For the most part they sit in their cars cruising the streets. Hours can passed without an incident, although they are fully aware that anything can happen; a robbery, a family dispute, a shooting ad infinitum. The worst thing that can happen is to run into someone who says, “Who don’t know who I am.” especially when that person is a Harvard professor breaking into his own house.

What should have been a simple show of ID ended with the professor arrest for disorderly conduct. The officer didn’t know that this professor was a friend of President Obama and the press would have his name all over the TV and newspapers within a heartbeat, especailly after the president called the Cambridge police ‘dumb’.

Perhaps the professor had been angry. People get angry by cops confronting them on their own doorstep. I was drinking in front of my friend’s gallery in New York. A police car pulled up to the curb and three cops got out with their hands on their guns. It was the first night in June without rain. The cops asked for IDs and told anyone with a beer in their hand to stand to the side.

“Is this Saudi Arabia?” One wit asked from the sideline.

“No, it’s New York City and drinking out on the street is against the law.” The driver of the car was adamant about this charge and gave the violators of that city ordnance a ticket. What was worse was his hostile attitude and we were all white. A black boy would have been locked up by the 5-0. Thrown in jail. And there’s no doubt about that, so I can understand the professor’s rage.

Over 2 million people are in jail in America. The vast majority black.

Cops aren’t dumb. They’re just upholding the state of things.

So President Obama wasn’t wrong ain saying that arresting this professor was dumb.

I would have said it was fucking dumb.