The disunited colors of prejudice

On the face of it, it is hard to imagine that a top African-American scholar in the US would fall victim to racial prejudice when the leader of the free world is also black.

Yet that is exactly what Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. claims he suffered on July 16, when a white policeman arrested him at home near the university after receiving reports of a suspected burglary. Sergeant James Crowley reportedly chose to handcuff Gates to accepting that the professor was the rightful resident on the premises.

The incident continues to be fiercely debated in the US, with President Barack Obama inviting the two to the White House to help resolve the issue after he escalated it by saying the police had "acted stupidly".