'Fact is, abuse a cop and s/he is duty bound to arrest you'

bushbasher, "no"

Sir Garfield Barwick, the former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia held that a police do not have the discretion not to charge where they are of the opinion that an offence has been committed. Otherwise police would (wrongly) assume the power of courts. If you are aware of a contrary opinion, please advise. Abusing police is an offence.

Where some offenders are fortunate is that in the interests of efficiency and (usually) more immediate and pressing demands, police sometimes disregard some relatively minor offences.

The power and authority of the uniform is about all that protects police in many circumstances and where abuse and disrespect towards police are commonplace, that power is lost with predictable results.

"The meaning of white privilege shifts and changes depending on economic class and gender while each intersects with the other, so a black male has different gender privilege than a white privileged male; and this gets more complex alongside class."

Agreed but then I get to "Given white privilege, the apology, the generosity of spirit, the willingness to avert a confrontation was Crowley’s responsibility." and I'm left wondering how the determination is made that Crowley's white privilege outweighs what appears to be Gate's class, wealth and intelectual privilege.

I'm also left wondering about demanding actions and choices by people based on stereotypes or perceptions of group based privilege (or disadvantage). What happens to society when we demand that individuals act on stereotypes both of themselves and those they deal with. Who gets to decide which sereotypes are Ok and which are not?

If we required people to treat others as though some sterotypes about ourselves and the other are true then we could quickly undo a lot of progress which has been made.

R0bert

The issue I have most with the article is not the musings about 'what ifs' in relation to gender, class and economic privelege but that it does exactly what most feminists rebel against and that is stereotyping.

We all choose our behaviours at any given time just as Gates and Crowley did and we can all be wise in hindsight.

The recent incident where a mother of a teen encouraged a catfight between her daughter and another girl would seem to be in contradiction to the authors offering that two women would necessarily have made a difference.

When we get away from stereotyping we make it possible for women to be both rocket scientists and homemakers or for men to choose nursing as easily as mechanics etc etc.

pelican, well said.

cornflower, with all due respect to barwick, i doubt his statement has much to do with the practical realities of low level crimes. (i would like the context in which he said that). sometimes it may be a question of too busy, sometimes due to bias, and often i would suggest it's due to plain common sense.

in any case, i'm not sure what exact crime you're referring to as "abuse a cop". gates wasn't arrested for the crime of abusing a cop, he was arrested for "disorderly conduct". this is the classic example of an offence where the cop has huge discretion.

I thought this was a dog of an article - the kind of pomo flummery that gives humanities academics a bad name.

Having said that - and I know the laws are different in the US - how the hell can anybody be arrested for 'disorderly conduct' in their own home? I think Ozandy's pretty close to the mark here.

I wonder how the police would handle such a situation in Australia? I imagine that if, say, Prof Mick Dodson locked himself out of his house and the police found him breaking into it, once he'd identified himself that would be the end of it.

This was obviously a very American storm in a teacup, IMHO. I bet it turns up as the basis for a 'Law and Order' episode before long.