Last week, I wrote about security and privacy and posed a few questions to readers. But as I thought about my encounter with “Chad,” I kept replaying the scene in my head; and what I realized is that it mirrored to some degree, a now infamous one: Henry Louis Gates and I had a lot in common, it seems. Now that the furor of that “teachable moment” has died down, I can clarify my muddled thoughts. But before you cue the laughter, hear me out.

To refresh: Chad was selling home monitoring systems door-to-door (though my brother-in-law swears he was casing the joint). When I opened the door, Chad first queried, “Are you the owner of the house?” to which I responded in the affirmative. Chad began his spiel, paused, frowned, and asked again, “You said you were the owner, right?” I replied, (again) “Yes.” After the third query, it became clear to me that Chad was having a difficult time comprehending black home ownership. His sales pitch slowed, he glanced behind me, then around. It was obvious: “She’s lying.” I thought he might ask for proof of residence. Or call for backup. For a second, I though my white neighbor had, indeed, played a cruel joke on me…

Which brings me to Henny G. In my addled brain, I began to play out a fantasy: WWSD? Certainly, I would have been offended, angry. And rightly so. Overreacted? A tad. Traumatized? You bet, given, well, you know, I’m Henny G. I might even have been tempted to do some signifying, call up Wilmer Valderama for some “Yo mama” advice. Thinking about “the incident” in social media terms, though, here’s what I would have done.

I: Ownership

Had I been Henny G, I would have retreated to the solace of a friend’s home for a few days (the trauma of the incident being far too painful for me to remain in the Harvard-owned residence). From the privacy of, say, Martha’s Vineyard, I might craft a plan. I might have decided that I would not turn to CNN or NBC or ABC or any mainstream media outlet for validation of my injury. I didn’t need to. Instead, TheRoot.com would be the single source of information on the incident (supplemented by my mug shot and the police report, of course). I would own the story.

II: Credentials

I might have crafted a different narrative. I probably would not have said that my situation was just like that of most black men in America, because I would know that is not the case. Most suffer far worse fates. I probably would have said something like, “I’ve worked hard to achieve what I have…I realize that despite my hard work and achievements, at the end of the day, I am still just an ordinary black man, subject to the same whims of racist ideology and practices as other black men and women far less privileged than I. Nevertheless, I am speaking from a place of privilege…” (Henny is far more eloquent than I could ever be, but you get the idea). I would have said that given my position, I want to talk about those hundreds of thousands of black men and women, not myself. Maybe. I might have mentioned the body of my work (“Just Google me, baby”). I might have mentioned that part of the reason I launched TheRoot.com was to engage Americans in alternative modes of discourse, to present a different view—to move beyond the narrow coverage and the sensational into thoughtful conversations about issues such as race, class, culture, democracy, politics, religion, language…the site is in its early stages, but growing…again, the real Henny G would be much more eloquent on this topic than I ever could.

III: Leverage

This is where I believe President Obama’s “teachable moment” comes in. Because I own the means of communication as well as the story, I now have the opportunity and responsibility to leverage it. This Teachable Moment was not the president’s but Gates’s, the Teacher. Here’s a Gates quote I pulled from Wikipedia: “Asked by NEH Chairman Bruce Cole to describe his work, Gates responded, ‘I would say I'm a literary critic. That's the first descriptor that comes to mind. After that I would say I was a teacher. Both would be just as important.’”[5] Hmmm…

Had I been Henny G, I would have accepted the president’s invitation to the White House to share a beer and conversation with officer Chad, er, Crowley. I would have shown up with lovely gifts of Harvard gear, say, T-shirts for the officer and his children and signed copies of, oh, I don’t know, the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, a copy of The Signifying Monkey, a 2Live Crew CD (okay, that might be pushing it). I would have worn my snazziest Harvard tie AND pin. Certainly, I would be tempted to wear a Harvard T-shirt, but I would save that for my visits to Africa—it’s a more casual crowd over there.

While at the White House, I might have been tempted to Tweet about the beer summit (“Crowley’s hands are cold and clammy,” “Wow, the president is really tall,” “I’m drinking this beer, but boy, a chardonnay would be great right about now” “Dude, I can see Baltimore from here!!!”). I probably would have packed an HD mini and created a few videos. Perhaps the officer (and his numerous reps) would be interested in talking about life in Cambridge, his work, how he views the situation? Maybe I could score a visit to his diversity training session? And TheRoot.com would have been the source.

Certainly, the incident brought much publicity and traffic to the site. But I believe mainstream orgs benefited far more because Gates missed an opportunity to teach. This was a lesson not just about race and class in America (not to mention property) but also about African Americans and our relationship to technology. The lesson for us all is that we need to own our stories and leverage the technology resources we have and are quite capable of using, given that most are free (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, vlogs, etc.) to create the kinds of conversations and results that we want to have.

It seems to me that even when we own the story and the means of communicating that story, we still feel compelled to seek validation from mainstream. And that’s troubling. It means that we have not given ourselves permission to articulate or own stories.

-END SCENE-

Tags: "Skip" Gates, Harvard, Henry Louis Gates, social media, strategy, teachable moment

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 6:11 pm and is filed under blog, education (.edu), media // culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.