What do you call a black man with a PhD? The answer begins with an “n”. Yes, it’s an old and bitter joke about the resilience of racial bias in America, but it got a new twist last week. The black man with a PhD was Henry Louis Gates Jr, one of the most distinguished scholars of African-American history and culture at Harvard. His unexpected tormentor was a local policeman called James Crowley, a white, well-trained officer called to investigate a possible break-in.

The facts we know for sure are as follows. Ten days ago Gates got home from China in the afternoon to find his front door jammed. He forced it open with the help of his cab driver, another black man. A white woman in the area called the police to report a possible burglary. Crowley showed up and saw a black man in the hallway of the house through the glass door. He asked Gates to step out onto the porch and talk to him. Gates refused.

The police report — written by Crowley — says he told Gates he was investigating a break-in in progress and Gates responded furiously: “Why? Because I’m a black man in America?” Gates tried to place a call to the local police chief, while telling Crowley he had no idea who he was “messing” with. The interaction quickly degenerated. After Gates had shown his Harvard identification, Crowley said he would leave. Gates then followed him to his front door, allegedly yelling that Crowley was racist. On his own porch, at his own property, Gates was arrested for “disorderly conduct”, handcuffed and booked in at a local station.

The incident clearly struck a nerve. Boston has a fraught racial history. Gates, of course, is no underclass black man but among the country’s elite, friends with the president, chums with Oprah Winfrey, a man given a small fortune by Harvard to build one of the best departments of African-American studies in the world.

The affair got another lease of tabloid life when President Barack Obama was asked for his reaction to the incident and said that while Gates was a friend and he did not know the full facts, the police acted “stupidly” by arresting someone when there was proof he was in his own home.

So was this an example of excessive racial grievance on the part of Gates or excessive racial insensitivity on the part of Crowley — or a little bit of both? Such moments are fully understood only by the individuals involved — and even then the truth is murky in such emotional circumstances. But it is indeed unusual to arrest someone for “disorderly conduct” when he is on his own property.

Massachusetts law defines the perpetrators of “disorderly conduct” thus: “common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behaviour, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses and persons guilty of indecent exposure”. Apparently Gates’s loud accusations of racism on a street in Cambridge at one o’clock in the afternoon in front of at most seven passers-by and neighbours was a qualification for the charge. It’s no big surprise that it was swiftly dropped.

Crowley gave an interview on Thursday after Obama’s remarks, refusing to apologise. When asked what he thought of the president’s comments, he smiled, paused and said: “I didn’t vote for him.” The way he said it, the contempt in his voice and pride in his actions, helped to illuminate for me why Gates might have perceived racism. But the second police report — from an officer called Carlos Figueroa — testified that Gates initially refused to provide Crowley with any identification, yelling, “No, I will not!” and, “This is what happens to black men in America!” and, “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

Gates is not a merchant of racial grievance. He is a scholar who has won wealth and fame and respect for his work and who tends to eschew the kind of bald racial accusations he made that day. Maybe he was exhausted after a long trip and irritated by being unable to get into his home; to be confronted by an officer of the law asking if he was a burglar may well have been the last straw. He lost his cool. A black man should never lose his cool with a white policeman in America. Obama explained in his autobiography the unwritten code for black men in such situations: no sudden moves.

Would this have happened to a white man? That requires some unpacking. A white man seen breaking through the front door into a house in an affluent section of Cambridge, Massachusetts, might not have prompted a police call. Any suspected break-in, though, could justify a call to the local police station.

More importantly, a white man seeing a policeman call him onto his porch for identification would probably not have exploded the way Gates allegedly did. Nor, one might add, would a poor black man arrested on the streets of the largely African-American neighbourhood of Roxbury in Boston raise such a ruckus about “racism”. Gates’s response was a classic example of how successful black men in America feel when treated by the police in a manner used in the ghetto. That was also perhaps the reason for Obama’s solidarity. What do you call a black man with a PhD again? Equally, I’d wager that if the policeman had seen an older white man wielding a cane through the glass door of a posh house, he would not have demanded that the man come out onto his porch and identify himself. He would have knocked, explained the reason for his visit and instantly accepted a white man’s explanation. Is this racism? If it has never happened to you, no. If it has, yes.

On the web, the comments sections on various blogs and stories were the most honest. Here is one view: “Butt the hell out Obama. You don’t know the facts of the case, you weren’t there, you’re friends with the douchebag, you’re black. Taking Obama’s word is the same as judging a criminal by a jury of his fellow gangster peers.”

Here is another: “Professor Gates might not have been arrested if he’d been more submissive — let the cop win the masculinity contest. Every brotha has played that game as well: you don’t look the popo in the eye, you do say ‘sir’ a lot and maybe you won’t get locked up. Then you go home and stew in the stuff that gives African-American men low life expectancy.”

Yes, America has a black president. But some things haven’t changed that much, have they?

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