I understand Dr. Gates's grievance, but I don't see where racial profiling comes in.

Isn't racial profiling identifying a person as a suspect on the basis of race? No one even alleges that happened in this case.

However wrong the police may have been, they identified Dr. Gates as a suspect based on the fact that the house had been broken into, and on the fact that he was inside the house. Had he been black, white, green, or purple, that made him a suspect.

Sounds like the policeman over-reacted to Dr. Gates's behavior. If so, it was unprofessional. But where is the racial profiling? Gates was not suspected of disorderly conduct because of his race but because, well, because his conduct was disorderly. (Still sounds like a police over-reaction, but "profiling" is not a word that means "over-reaction")

Do we not have enough real racial profiling without mischaracterizing as racial profiling an incident that, however wrong it may have been, was clearly not that?

Kent