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July 24, 2009

Not So Subliminal CBS News Take-Away: Gates a Criminal

Visuals showing CBS playing the race card regarding arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Visuals showing CBS playing the race card regarding arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Visuals showing CBS playing the race card regarding arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Yeah, it’s not like CBS is playing the race card using visuals like these to tell the Gates story, right?

In the course of a two minute background piece on the CBS Evening News, we see multiple views of the Harvard Professor from a mug shot. The first is a slow, full screen left-to-right pan. That is shortly followed by a diptych juxtaposing the “criminalized” Gates with officer Crowley (the officer seeming to look toward Gates, while Gates seems to reject the entreaty and look the other way). Then we see Gates again, this time inset in civilian clothes, but highlighted by his offensive remark (because black men always want to get it on with white women, right?) paired with a videographic of the police report which then pivots and expands like an accordion giving the impression it’s voluminous (like a rap sheet).

Gates, by the way, spent a total of four hours at the police station.

  • Tena

    Holy shit!
    I can’t say one more thing about that.

  • jtfromBC

    Wow, is “this a teachable moment” or what !

  • M.Carrera

    I’d have to disagree with the analysis. None of us were there and to suppose the events that day, occurred in anyway other than how they did occur- is quite dangerous.
    The abuse of power is all too real. But so is the error on the part of all people despite class, education and or race.
    A man of distinguished histories is not exempt from the experience of the layman. Nor should one assume on the behalf of him simply because of this.

  • Jerry Holtaway

    Oh the wonders of ‘gee whiz’ technology, when a computer jockey can show a producer flipping pages and get a “that’s cool!” reaction – no thought put into the meaning of the action…

  • Tena

    Ok, let me just say this again – I’ve said it a hundred since this started but you’re making a law and order argument here that isn’t relevant. There’s a difference between respect for the rule of law, which even law enforcement is supposed to have, and law and order, which is a code phrase for beating on people.
    I’m getting beyond boring on this, but I have experience – 20 years in the criminal justice system – and anyone who still doesn’t realize that about 3/4s of our law enforcement is based on racial profiling just either is kidding herself or doesn’t know what it’s really like out there for black men.
    Professor Gates is 5′5″ tall and has a physical disability that makes it very difficult for him to walk. They cuffed him in his own house – the man is hardly a threat. They went too far, they owe him an apology and this needs to be out in the open and discussed, finally.
    The racism in our criminal justice system is terrible. Want me to summarize the Prosecutors’ Handbook for Jury Selection in two words? No blacks. That’s it in nutshell. Tell me again there isn’t any racial profiling in our law enforcement institutions. That’s all it’s based on – racial profiling.

  • http://www.nocaptionneeded.com Lucaites

    M.Carrera: I think the point is that, at least in one sense, none of us had to be there. What the somewhat stereotypical photo array above shows is that there is
    nothing new here. Indeed, the ONLY thing that makes this “news” is that Professor Gates is a recognizable figure, a public intellectual/celebrity. The problem is
    not whatever took place between Gates and Crowley (though that surely is a problem) but that the visual conventionalized reportage demonstrates is how
    common this is … so much so that it allows The Bag to make the analysis above (rightly so) without breaking sweat.

  • yg

    ya, i’ll speak with your mama outside.
    oh my gawd … throw the animal in jail and throw away the key!!!

  • g

    Where are the right wingers who so fearfully worried about jackbooted thugs entering their homes to take away their guns?
    Would they defend Professor Gates had he been brandishing an assault weapon, instead of simply yelling at the police officers?

  • Fern

    “ya, i’ll speak with your mama outside.”
    I find it a little hard to believe that Harvard professors talk like this.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p00e5523476cc8834 DennisQ

    Crowley’s the sort of bully that is attracted to police work. He knows just how much he has to do to get somebody hopping mad, and he always has a cover story ready. He has perfected that innocent look to the point that he’s practically a choir boy.
    His cover is blown now. Whetber the Cambridge cops rally around him or not, they know he’s the sort of cop who makes them look bad. I’m completely unimpressed that he is an instructor in racial profiling – whose side is he on? He probably trains racists how to get away with it.

  • StopMisleadingPeople

    You guys seriously need to stop reading into things. Your in-depth analysis is false and misleading. Just because you are able to provide an explanation for why a person is looking one way or another, doesn’t mean it is valid.

  • http://www.doves2day.blogspot.com g

    Just because you are able to provide an explanation for why a person is looking one way or another, doesn’t mean it is valid.
    don’t be silly. Someone made a choice what photos to use for an onscreen graphic, and how to display them in relation to one another. There were both unconscious and conscious decisions in play – some having to do with scale, aesthetics, and the narrative being put forward. They were not random choices. If you think otherwise, you must not know anyone who does any design or layout work for a living.
    Analyzing those choices is what this blog is about. While the analysis may or may not accurately reflect the decisions, but it is worth discussing.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/bagnews Michael Shaw (The BAG)

    Well put.

  • M.Carrera

    No realistic person can forbade the possibility of negligence in this or any situation. I think I stated that before, but will echo the notion for clarity purposes. What some people willingly make light of is the chance that this respected educator lost control of himself and allowed for a situation to exist that could have been avoided.
    As a person of color I’ve been fully briefed on the ’statistics- thank you. Moreover I’ve been witness to folk submitting this ‘race card in exchange for some sort of mirage of compassion for just as long. I judge people on the base of individuality and not on abiding features which play insignificant roles in who we are or the potential to be as human beings.
    The less you think in this archaic fashion, the more you’ll learn about yourself.

  • http://www.nocaptionneeded.com Lucaites

    “I judge people on the base of individuality and not on abiding features which play insignificant roles in who we are or the potential to be as human beings.”
    M.Carrera: i take you at your word here. But the point is that while many people hum this mantra, the fact is few of us really behave as if it were true (you may, but if you do you really are the exception … at least in my experience). And more to the point, the evidence is pretty compelling that the police don’t behave according to it. BUT let’s not forget the point HERE at THE BAG, which has to do with how images frame the issue and invite our consideration of the event (regardless of what “the facts” of the case might or may have been). Can you think of instances where white Harvard Professors (or any white executive type) have been portrayed or represented in this way? I can’t … And so whatever did or did not happen on that doorstep, in broad daylight, there is something to be said for the way in which race plays a role in which it is represented. And if so, we really should wonder why. And especially if, as you say, people should be judged on something other than “abiding features which play insignificant roles in who we are or the potential ….”

  • M.Carrera

    I could not agreed more with the sentiment in your reply. There is an underlying issue, no doubt.
    The world needs people like you/The Bag, to confront, address, and question those who exist to agitate and cause harm, through the use of images in latent or open forms. We all have our battles. And although different in manner, similar in cause.
    Thank You.

  • zeroKnots

    “law and order, which is a code phrase for beating on people.”
    ewwwwww that’s so like all like disrespectful. I’m soooo antagonized.
    yaaawn. You bots are BOOOORRRRING. Don’t you GET IT? Youre TAPPED OUT no matter how Oblamer tries to bail out the race card!
    libiots.. listen, you don’t NEED TO POST ANYTHING ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN! Everyone knows what youre going to say before you say it, because it’s always the same. Devoid of originality. It’s either exactly what the last libiot just mimicked from the one before that, or the exact opposite of what a conservative just said. Youre all PURE CHEMICAL REACTIONS! DEVOID OF LIFE!
    Youre the chafff separated from the seed. The walking zombies detached from TRUTH.
    The only reason you adooooore Oblamer is because conservatives dispise him. His destruction of the country? You could care less.
    Obama’s not stupid, libiots are. He cultivates that antagonism and pays big money for CBS to do the same.
    Obama thinks American “fascination” with this issue is “fascinating”. That’s as close as a libiot will EVER get to irony.
    With blacks wearing pants around their butt cracks and blaring cop-killer ‘music’. He finds all this surprizing does he? pffft.
    I think the CBS subliminal subject is what’s fascinating. What else are we going to do while waiting for a vote to come around so we can slam-dunk you libiot traitors once and for all.
    That Obama pretends to be clueless about how antagonsistic he is to every division while he exploits them all so obviosly to create rifts. Kato Couric does the same ploy. So does insta-Gibbs.
    It’s why she pretends to adore him. She tries to lock the barbie/ken of anti-Christs together in the subliminal mind. Clueless people are infuriating and we have MILLIONS of them from sea to shining sea.
    She’s such an authentic air-head.. utterly vaccuous of principle premise or reality..
    Fascinating how infuriating that makes them both. They WORK it.
    And CBS is no BBC who insult your intelligence by telling you “noddy shots” are an INTOLERABLE SIN OF JOURNALISM! MIA CULPA!! OH THE SHAME!! OH THE HUMANITY!!! While they brew up every possible configuration of contextual engineering EXCEPT the original context.. out of some kind of perverse Brit addiction to subterfuge.
    But CBS is comming right along.. Theyre learning a certain BBC stench.. I.. I mean flair..
    I find them… fascinating.
    Anybody remember the ‘Taxi’ episode where Ignitowski burned down Louie’s apartment and Alex is watching Louie make up the PERFECT amount of damages to extort..
    Tony says “Louie, you COULD just ask for the actual amount”
    Alex “leave him alone, this is kind of fascinating.. in a sick sort of way”.
    Carryon..

  • zeroKnots

    You COULD always listen to clips of this silver-spoon privileged racist.. but nnnnaaaah that would be too much like information.
    .*`hope-n-change!`*.

  • zeroKnots

    Exactly. I was in paste-up/layout for a decade and we hired fine artists as commercial artists. Real talent. They put a LOT of effort into one frame. All of them pop-psychologists and lots of stuff was designed after pro-psychologists work. I guarantee libbyleft that CBS wastes no opportunity for effect.
    Especially when big-bro is footing the bill and their credibility is SACRIFICED FOREVER. SHOT.