IT was just after midday when on July 16 eminent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, incensed by police behaviour told Sergeant James Crowley of Cambridge Police Department: "This is what happens to black men in America!"

When Crowley asked the professor to speak with him outside his house, Gates replied: "Ya, I'll speak with your mama outside."

This happened when police had responded to Gates' house after his neighbour, Lucia Whalen reported spotting "two black males with backpacks" trying to gain entry to Gates' home.

The two black men were Gates, returning home from China, and his driver. According to reports the woman became suspicious since Gates was contending with a stuck front door. But the "two black males" is also a familiar story among African-American males in the United States, including their President Barack Obama.

This was also similar to Zimbabwean David Mwanaka's story: he was arrested last year in the United Kingdom for "stealing" maize from his own field.

Mwanaka told the media that on one occasion four police cars turned up while he was harvesting his maize crop, but he conveniently called their actions "ignorance".

The police were apparently called by neighbours who had spotted a black man stealing food.

Each time, Mwanaka had to convince police that he was a genuine "farmer", and would be forced to prove his personal identity and ownership of his (own) vehicle. He was made to call the white farmer, from whom he rents the six acres where he "farms", before police were satisfied that he was not a thief.

Gates was also made to produce his identity although the police officer later argued that he could not produce his own identity because Gates was shouting at him.

A few days later, President Obama remarked on the incident and said the officer who had arrested Gates had "acted stupidly".

As the make-up of the story changed, there were more twists and turns, with different sections of American society arguing that this was a storm in a tea cup and did not warrant strong sentiments from the president. Others had a different view, especially black people who feel that Obama's Presidency is proof that they can no longer be treated as door-mats.

President Obama ended up inviting the white police officer to the White House to get the full story, and he was again forced to more or less "retract" his original statement. His conciliatory remarks indicated a man caught between a rock and hard place, for there were are too many interest groups to placate.

Said President Obama, "I could have calibrated those words differently and I told this to Sergeant Crowley."

Media reports, however, said the White House refused to characterise Obama's statement as a formal apology and that the president stuck by the substance of his original comments made at a Press conference last week on Wednesday.

We ask: What was the substance of the president's original remark? Did it centre on Crowley's "stupid" actions?

And, who is Henry Louis Gates Jr and why is the story significant, even in the Zimbabwean context?

Fifty-eight-year-old Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. is a distinguished African-American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual.

Gates was the first African-American to receive the prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, and he is the holder of multiple honorary degrees and awards for his teaching, research, and development of academic institutions to study black culture. In 2002, he was selected to give the Jefferson Lecture, in recognition of his "distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."

This writer realised Professor Gates' eminence in the scholarly arena in 2001, when there were recommendations that he and Professor Toni Morrison, as African-Americans, should be members of the jury of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair's sponsored project -- Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, a project designed to celebrate Africans' literary works, and contribution to global knowledge. Unfortunately, it never happened.

This writer recalls the disappointment, because people believed that Professor Gates had already crossed the threshold where he would want to come to Zimbabwe, and get the story first hand, instead of passing value judgments on Zimbabwe's land reform programme, especially President Mugabe's leadership.

Since the Gates story is a clear case of racial profiling, it is pertinent to ask whether President Obama would have reacted similarly if this incident involved a black man living in housing projects in the Bronx, New York, for example?

Does social status affect how issues that affect people's well-being are treated by the ruling class and the media?

Why was it also pertinent for President Obama to invite Sergeant Crowley to the White House to hear his side of the story, when statistics show that black males in the United States of America are still racially profiled as criminals, drug addicts and for other vices?

Was President Obama making a conciliatory gesture? To whom, and for what reason? What did it mean to blacks all over the world since it came soon after President Obama's first African visit as president, and also soon after his hard-hitting address when the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), a civil rights movement, commemorated its 45th anniversary?

These two events were in essence the first time President Obama did a "home-coming" so to speak, and touched base with his own, addressing people whose hopes about his presidency are so high, especially on issues of race and equal opportunities.

However, it is an understatement to say that racism is an issue that would never have gone away so quickly even after his election as America's first black president.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of 15 years broke ranks with him while he was still campaigning since he made it clear that even if he were elected president, race would remain an issue on America's moral conscience.

Recently, another African American pastor, Reverend Al Sharpton buttressed the point soon after the death of pop icon Michael Jackson. He made it very clear that Michael Jackson's achievements had been instrumental in the advancement of black people such as media mogul Oprah Winfrey, golf champion Tiger Woods and President Obama himself.

However, this event is not just a one-off incident. It is also not stereotypical and although there are sections of society who might think otherwise, the bottom line is that racism is alive and kicking in the United States.

What could be surprising to some is the manner in which Professor Gates reacted. Many out there would flippantly think that he over-reacted, but would you act normally if your own neighbour called the police at 12:44pm (afternoon) alerting them that there were two black men trying to break into a neighbour's home, and one of those two men wasyou, the house holder? More specifically,would you act coolly in a country where everything is seen through colour lines?

Was Professor Gates a new comer in the neighbourhood, or was the woman a new comer? This is pertinent because Gates uses a cane after an injury he sustained when he was young. How about the white police officer, who is described as a specialist on racial profiling? How many eminent Harvard black scholars live in that neighbourhood?

Some think that history is inconsequential. However, in 1994, there was the white police officer Mark Furhman, who attended the murder scene of O J Simpson's wife and her friend.

His overzealous answer to the call of duty surprised many. Although the bodies were discovered just before he was to go off duty, he volunteered to stay on.

It was Mark Furhman who saw the blood stain on O J Simpson's vehicle. He was also the one who volunteered to scale the fence of Simpson's house, where he found the notorious glove that became key evidence in the court case.

But as investigations proceeded, it emerged that there was ample evidence that Furhman was a racist, and he had to leave the force prematurely, and a disgraced man.

That same year, Susan Smith, who was later sentenced to life in prison for murdering her two young children sent police and the media on a wild goose chase when she claimed that her vehicle with her children had been carjacked by a black man.

Meanwhile, she had driven the car into a lake with the children inside. Smith made tearful pleas on television for the rescue and return of the children, and based on the profile she had given, some young black men in the town were picked up and detained for questioning.

Historical records show that African slavery in colonial America occurred in 1619, and four hundred years later, they chose a black president, who faces the daunting task of deprogramming the Anglo-Saxon psyche towards black people, and vice versa. And the Gates story could just be a good test case since it involves a high profile personality.

The figure of speech, "those who live in glass houses should not throw stones" implies that if one is susceptible to insult then they should not pass judgment on others.

So, is President Mugabe now vindicated when so-called democrats can also lose their cool, and shout racial epithets?

Each time President Mugabe has spoken, some in the international community have accused him of propagating hate speech. Well, how do scholars, analysts and politicians all over the globe view this July 16 incident?

We strive to have non-prejudicial societies. However, much as we would want to idealise non-racialism, it remains a major factor, and when we eventually come up with concepts like racial profiling, hate speech, political correctness, these are not concepts that emanate from within the black psyche. They are created for us by the very system that would have designed the template where they are active agents.

This is why it is difficult to understand apologists like Mwanaka who told to The Times Online: "I do not want to blame people for being racist. I think it has more to do with ignorance. The problem would be if it was the same people calling the police, then I would think it is malicious."

Is this the general consensus that racists are ignorant of their actions - two hundred years since slavery ended?

This incident might fizzle out but the point has been made. Racial profiling in the United States and Europe as well will not go away soon, just because the United States has a black president.

Now this is where we hope that President Obama and academics like Henry Louis Gates Jr would understand President Mugabe's sometimes spontaneous reactions to the likes of George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the former white commercial farmers who want to use racial supremacy to best advantage.

We cannot run away from racism, because it is an historical truism, just as much as it is a contemporary issue. It pervades every sphere of our lives.

After studying one of the greatest American novels, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"by Mark Twain, I later realised that it is one of the most challenged novels since its publication in 1857.

Many groups have wanted to have it banned for various reasons, but for African Americans, the major reason they want it proscribed is because of its mention of the N (nigger) word - more than three hundred times. They also think that it denigrates black people.

But slavery is reality. This failure to understand a historical truism is probably why black people are where they are right now. Race is an issue, but we are forced not to interrogate it since it involves skewing power.

But the unfortunate thing is that situations of a racial nature present themselves when one least expects, and like it or not, when that situation presented itself the way it did on July 16 both Professor Gates and President Obama reacted in a manner we are all familiar with - impulsively.

These reactions are clear manifestations of why the USA cannot overnight claim to be a non-racial society.

How also do we address historical imbalances if we do not cross-examine them critically?

It is not an issue to be glossed over. Now Zimbabweans will probably appreciate that if a Harvard professor and the President of the United States of America who has been in office for only seven months could react the way they did, then the President of Zimbabwe has the same rights. And these are not rights confined to a small community like Cambridge. These are rights that get tested in the global village especially when emotions are tested to unimaginable limits.