Translation: I stuck my foot in my mouth and alienated of a lot of America by making racially biased remarks myself. That really burns me up because as a lawyer and politician, I’m supposed to be good at parsing my words.

So now I have to back pedal without ego damage and without an apology…dam mit!

Nubis Pertusus, Pennsylvania

As is my customary habit, I am carefully researching an issue which is making the headlines. This issue is the arrest of Henry Gates out of Harvard. My habit is to make sure my thinking is valid and truthful, and my habit is to well arm myself with truth. There is no greater power than truth, I make sure this power is in my mind and flying off my fingertips while I type.

Here are some well hidden truths about “King Henry” I found coming out of Harvard via a little known critique of Henry Gates from a man who helped to hire Gates and to appoint Gates to a professorship position at Harvard.

These are snippets of comments from Harvard Professor Martin Kilson who is now retired. Kilson is the first black man to earn a full professorship at Harvard where he taught for just over forty years.

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I’ve known Henry Gates as an academic colleague quite well during the past decade of his tenure here at Harvard. I was part of the Afro-American Studies Appointments Committee that selected him in fact….

…I decided to probe Gates’ particular style and modus operandi….I discovered two things that I disliked about Gates’ intellectual discourse. One was an almost neurotic need to couch discourse on African-American socio-cultural and political patterns in what I call “Black put-down terms,”…Second, much of Henry Gates’ discourse on African-American socio-cultural and political patterns exhibits a thoroughly chameleon trait — an almost manic need to produce a discourse on Black realities that migrates between a “Black put-down” or “Black-averse” mode, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a seemingly redeeming “Black-friendly” mode, though in ultimate essence the redeeming posture is phony.

…What else can explain the unbelievably arrogant irreverence that Henry Gates exhibited at so many levels….

…I’ve known Henry Gates for a decade and I can say that I watched and probed his “MO” as much as any of his Harvard colleagues have. At the center of Gates’ “MO” is a convoluted autocratic component….

…I’ve kept a respectful distance from Henry Gates’ goodies in order to reserve my independence of action. Luckily for me of course, my academic appointment needs and resources needs here at Harvard have not overlapped with “King Gates,”….

So I try to advise my progressive Black intellectual peers especially to be wary of “King Gates” strategic offerings - his fish-hooks, if at all possible.

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Remarkable similarities and parallels between the thinking of Henry Gates and the thinking of Barack Obama, yes?

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
Smart Girl Politics