On Arresting Scholars in their Own Homes

Once upon a time I was outside my first floor apartment trying to clear some gunk out of the window sill - this one window had been shut for so long and I wanted to get some natural air into the room. I was out there with a small knife for a while, trying to remove all this sealant crap, when I noticed that weird feeling; that tingly feeling like you're being watched, you know? I turned toward the parking area and, sure enough, some well intentioned neighbor had called the cops on me. Uh, oh. Well, I just went about what I was doing. They saw me see them.

After a while of watching me and my pathetic non handyman ways, they ... just ... left. Not a word. No questioning me about my suspicious activities. No tasering. Nothing.

I guess that's what happens in America when you're not a respected University scholar. You can look suspicious, look as though you're breaking into your own home, and the cops just ...leave you alone! Good thing I never really aspired to scholar-hood. They'd have arrested me, for sure.

Side note: When the President says that police acted stupidly for arresting a black man in his own home, because a neighbor suspected he was a thief - that doesn't mean the President thinks all cops are stupid. It doesn't even mean that the President thinks the particular cops who arrested Professor Gates in his own home were stupid. It means, in this isolated incident, they acted stupidly. Is that so hard to understand?

I guess it is - for some of my fellow non-scholars.