So, I've been following the Professor Gates brouhaha along with everyone else, especially since President Obama's comments on the incident in response to a specific question about it.
Ever since I heard about it, I kept thinking that the whole thing reminded me an awful lot of a (terrible) movie that I saw years ago. Today I remembered the movie (and I'm obviously not the only one, but I figured it might be noteworthy anyway):
Amos & Andrew
When African-American professional Andrew Sterling (Samual L. Jackson) moves into a summer home on an up-tight all-white New England resort island, the snoopy white neighbors are sure he must be breaking and entering. They call the cops who get too rambunctious and break into Sterling's limo, tripping its security alarm. When Sterling shows up to stop the alarm and pulls out his keys to open the car, a skittish cop thinks he's pulling a gun and opens fire.
Now things are really a mess, because not only have these cops screwed up big-time, they've screwed up big-time in an election year when their Police Chief (Dabney Coleman) just happens to be running for re-election. This mess-up smacks too much as a race-inspired melee, so Chief Tolliver arranges a cover-up to keep his reputation intact. He hires a drifter to pose as a thief so the cops will have a legitimate reason for "protecting" the vacationing Sterling.
Things continue to complicate in this airbrush farce, that attempts to lighten with laughter, the delicate and combustible subject of American race relations. ~ All Movie Guide
Well, now. There you have it...
OK, not quite as prescient as, say, The China Syndrome (released just 12 days before Three Mile Island), but...