Harvard Scholar Says He Received Death Threats

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Sunday joked about his arrest by a white police officer, but also described receiving death threats and dreaming about being arrested at the White House.

According to the Washington Post, in his first public appearance since sharing a beer at the White House on Thursday with the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, and President Obama, the noted African American scholar said the national debate over racial profiling sparked by his arrest shows that issues of class and race still run “profoundly deep” in the United States. 

But Gates also described how the incident and the subsequent national debate affected him personally. He said he shut down his public e-mail and changed his cell phone number after receiving numerous death and bomb threats.

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