Police were called earlier in the week notifying them that someone was breaking into Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates’  house.  That someone?  Henry Louis Gates.  You see the professor is black and apparently that’s unusual in the neighborhood he lives in.

So the police arrived and words were exchanged and the aging academic was arrested for disorderly conduct.  When he was asked to provide them with proof that he lived there, he provided it along with a few choice words, at least according to the police report.

Based on what I have heard it seems likely that both the officer and the professor showed a lack of respect to one another.  The later is a matter of fact, the professor yelling at the officer and pulling the “don’t you know who I am” card.  The former is certainly conjecture on my part, but I feel comfortable in saying that I don’t find it hard to believe that there was some provocation on the officer’s part.

The charges were dropped and there is an ongoing investigation in to the whole mess, but that’s not what I really want to focus on.  Even if it were just Professor Gates that was in the wrong (and he was in the wrong), this would still be worth talking about.  There seems to be, in the world today, a general lack of respect for one’s fellow man.  You see it in traffic, in the movie theater, in public office.  We don’t treat others as we would want to be treated in that same situation.

The golden rule, which ever form you see it in (do unto others or don’t do until others) is an olden rule and not unique to Christianity/Judaism.  I think in today’s culture of hurry, hurry, hurry we jump too quickly to take offense and we speak without thinking about how our words will affect others.

In your comings and goings today I urge you to love your fellow man, showing them the respect they deserve as a human being.  As Christians that is one thing God requires of us again and again, but it is clear to me that regardless of your religious or philosophical belief it is the least you can do.  Literally.