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Ben Affleck tried to sell his sprawling Greek Revival “imitation” plantation — the site of his elaborate wedding to Jennifer Lopez Saturday — three years after revelations surfaced that one of his ancestors was a slave-owning Georgia sheriff. In 2015, the Hollywood actor tried to suppress details about Benjamin Cole, a relative on his mother’s side who owned several slaves in Chatham County, near his 87-acre Hampton Island property. Affleck purchased the property in 2003, according to reports. The revelations about Cole were made on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Affleck put...

The role of race in the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. became more difficult to untangle Monday with the release of the tape of the emergency call that brought Cambridge, Mass., police to his door. The tape revealed that the woman who reported seeing two men trying to break into a house did not know their race. When pressed twice by the dispatcher to identify the men by race, Lucia Whalen said: "Um, well, there were two larger men. One looked kind of Hispanic, but I'm not really sure. And the other one entered and I...

"How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-_6hYX-Cgw

If race were the only issue, there would be much less hyperventilation about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates' unpleasant run-in with the criminal justice system. After all, it would hardly be the first time a black man had unjustly been hauled to jail by a white police officer. The debate — really more of a shouting match — is also about power and entitlement. This is a new twist. Since the triumph of the civil rights movement, minorities have been moving up the ladder in politics, business, academia, just about every field. Only in the past decade, however, has a...

With his phone calls to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley last week, Barack Obama seems to have defused the furor over his comment that Crowley had acted "stupidly" in handcuffing Gates on his own front porch. (I agree with Obama' final verdict, which is that Crowley did overreact, even if it appears that Gates got hysterical.) It may be that Obama was admirably taking advantage of what he calls "a teachable moment," and showing America that racial disputes can lead to dialogue and not just name-calling. But Obama was also mindful of what has...

An amazing clip via Verum Serum. God only knows how much heat she and Sgt. Lashley will take from the “authenticity” police for this; Crowley’s a spectacularly lucky guy to have friends like them. In fact, I’m thinking that beer date at the White House to discuss “tolerance” might not be such a bad idea if Crowley gets to bring Kelly King along. Skip Gates and The One might just learn something. If you’re looking for postracial America, you’ve found it.

Something strange is happening in America. For the first time, a white man is standing up to a black man’s charge of racism. And he is being supported by his employer. In another first, the media coverage of this event is not employing the time worn premise that only whites can be racist. This incident may have gone the way of millions of others but for the fact that this professor was a friend of President Obama. Luckily for Henry Gates, the most powerful man in the world took time out [...]. The President then announced publicly that the Cambridge...

17 Ware Street Cambridge, MA 02138 . . Located on a residential, tree-lined street, this completely renovated home features a new kitchen, several decorative fireplaces, and a landscaped yard. . . Constructed in 1885 and renovated in 2004, 17 Ware Street consists of one wood-framed, two-level house. It is located near Harvard's Law, Divinity, and Design Schools and is within walking distance of Harvard Square and Harvard Yard. Several small convenience stores and a small grocery store are within a five-minute walk. . . Apartment Features This house has: * A living room. * A dining room. * A study....

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A police sergeant who responded to a 911 call about a possible break-in at the home of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. can be heard calling Mr. Gates uncooperative during a radio communication with a police dispatcher. Cambridge police released a recording of the radio transmissions Monday after more than a week of controversy over Mr. Gates's July 16 arrest on a disorderly conduct charge.

Excerpted quotes: ... we fiddled with the door and it was jammed. I thought, well, maybe the door’s latched. So I walked back to the kitchen porch, unlocked the door and came into the house. And I unlatched the door, but it was still jammed. ... It looked like someone’s footprint was there. So it’s possible that the door had been jimmied, that someone had tried to get in while I was in China. But for whatever reason, the lock was damaged. My driver hit the door with his shoulder and the door popped open. But the lock was permanently...

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. got ready for his sit down with President Obama and the Massachusetts cop who arrested him ... by hitting H-Wood last night, dining at Beso, Eva Longoria's restaurant.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and friend of Barack Hussein Obama goes on a racist rant in a 1996 speech at a church in Washington, D.C. He is not limited to using the N word during his rant. This originally broadcast on C-Span in 1996.

RAW DATA: Transcript of Cambridge 911 Call The following is a transcript of the 911 call a neighbor made on July 16 reporting a possible break-in at the home of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. FOXNews.com Monday, July 27, 2009 911 OPERATOR: 9-1-1, what is the exact location of your emergency? FEMALE WITNESS CALLER: Hi, I'm actually at (inaudible) street in Cambridge, the house number is 7 Ware Street. 911 OPERATOR: OK ma'am, your cell phone cut out, what's the address again? FEMALE WITNESS CALLER: Sorry, it's 7 Ware Street. That's W-A-R-E Street. 911 OPERATOR: The emergency is at...

This past month, Ruminant has been uncharacteristically silent, missing at least three column deadlines—not at all like her: and this at a time when her birth-country is so noisily scandal-ridden and patently loony that her usually effortless and knee-jerk snarkiness should have been propelling her on, of its own massive momentum, to write gleefully malicious prose, paragraph upon paragraph. But to what effect, I ask? To what effect? What can commentary add to "news" that is so transparently monstrous and mad that the only sane response is either 1) silence; or 2) going postal, in DC just for starters. Instead,...

There is no owner’s manual for the Oval Office, no school to learn how to be a president. Perhaps most challenging for any new president is learning how powerful that megaphone really is. Every offhand word, every spontaneous remark, every comment informed more by emotion than calculation risks profound consequences.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Watcha Gonna Do...? Editor's Note: Mr. Alexander leaves for Alaska today, but provided this analysis in response to Obama's accusations about police "acting stupidly" when they arrested his old friend, Henry Louis Gates Jr. "There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of...

<p>The caller who alerted Cambridge police to a possible break-in at the house of Henry Louis Gates Jr. earlier this month told a dispatcher that she had seen two suitcases on the porch and said she wasn't sure if it was a break-in.</p>

BOSTON -- The caller who reported a possible break-in at the home of prominent black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. did not mention race in the call, according to the 911 tape that was released today by Cambridge Police. The caller, Lucia Whalen, said she saw two men pushing on the door of the house. She told police she is not sure if the men live there or not. When pressed for a description by a dispatcher, she said one of the men may have looked Hispanic. The call led to the arrest of Gates on a disorderly conduct...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A woman who called 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. makes no mention of race.

Cambridge cops support Crowley 2:56CNN's Don Lemon speaks with several Cambridge police officers who pledge their support for Sgt. Crowley.