From The Dallas Morning News — Originally published Thursday, July 23

Race is a complex American albatross. Racial perceptions can distort common sense and even justice, sometimes perverting simple truth into horrible misjudgment.

These were the demons that greeted Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a literary scholar who happens to be African-American, last week. He found himself locked out of his home in an upscale Cambridge neighborhood — and then under arrest by a white police officer for disorderly conduct after he had broken into the house.

… Officers have a thankless job that sometimes is made more difficult by the reactions of the people they question. … Gates was not [calm], according to police reports, and shouted that he was targeted because “I’m a black man in America.”

Still, it is impossible to excuse [the] incident or to separate [it] from the veil of racial perceptions that cloud judgment. To a neighbor, Gates and his taxi driver prying on the door of the house looked suspicious … But then the subtle element of race injected another layer of suspicion into the interactions …

The Cambridge arresting officer, James Crowley, now faces national scrutiny and an uncertain future. …

Police officers everywhere are taught to resist verbal provocations and to de-escalate potentially explosive situations, not fuel them. While easier said than done, this is a prime responsibility of any law enforcement officer. …