“An Accident of Time and Place”

Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters — as metaphors, really — in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control. Narratives about race are as old as the founding of this great Republic itself, but these new ones have unfolded precisely when Americans signaled to the world our country’s great progress by overcoming centuries of habit and fear, and electing an African American as President. It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.

Well said. Read it all:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., An Accident of Time and Place (The Root)