"There's a lot of talk on the streets about keeping it real," said Dave Chappelle, introducing one of his TV show's running sketches, "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong." It showed black people pushed to the limits of sanity by a perceived injustice -- and suffering the consequences of acting rashly. "We all just got to be careful. When you're 'keepin' it real,' pick your spots. Reality is hidden for a reason."

Last week, acclaimed Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates updated the Chappelle sketch by getting arrested for "loud and tumultuous behavior" on the front porch of his own home. Translation: he was arrested for raising his voice instead of acting deferential in the presence of a cop.

The officer, an 11-year veteran of the Cambridge, Mass., police department, had arrived to investigate a report of a break-in. A neighbor had called the police to report "two large black men with backpacks" breaking into Mr. Gates' home.

Skip Gates, a 58-year-old not-so-large black man who walks with a cane, was arriving home from the airport after a trip to China. He couldn't get entry because the front door was jammed, forcing him to enter through the back door. With the help of his car-service driver, he eventually got the front door open. He was on the phone ordering repairs when Sgt. James Crowley arrived.

Explaining that he wasn't an interloper, Mr. Gates produced his ID, but Sgt. Crowley wouldn't reciprocate. This made Skip Gates hot because he wasn't being accorded the respect he believed was his due as both a Harvard professor and a black man with a long-running series on public television.

At this point, Skip Gates, decided a la Dave Chappelle, it was time to "keep it real." Unfortunately, the officer exercised his option to keep it real, too. Skip Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct as soon as he stepped on his front porch. It was such a dubious charge that Cambridge dropped it days later. Even the usually cautious President Barack Obama chastised the Cambridge police for acting "stupidly" when he was asked about it at his Wednesday night news conference.

Cornel West must have been jealous when he heard about his friend's arrest. Though arguably the most recognizable African-American intellectual on the planet thanks to his large afro, scarves and dark suits he wears in any weather, Mr. West has yet to be arrested. The bit player in two "Matrix" movies just released his second hip-hop CD and could have used the street cred that comes with an unrighteous bust.

Fair-minded people will agree that as soon as Skip Gates showed ID proving that he was standing in the foyer of his own home, Sgt. Crowley should have exited gracefully. Contrary to what many folks believe, it is not a crime to raise your voice at a cop in your home, even while black, though it isn't considered smart politics in the long run for obvious reasons.

But it speaks volumes about the Harvard professor's sense of privilege that he thinks he's going to get an apology from the cop. Think about it. Officer Crowley was willing to put an eminent black professor through the indignities of the criminal justice system not because he felt his life was in danger, but because he felt disrespected. Is there any wonder the criminal justice system is awash with black folks? Black folks tend to shout when they're arrested for nothing.

But as a literary critic, Henry Louis Gates must be able to appreciate the plot twist that emerged yesterday: His antagonist is a fellow academic. Sgt. Crowley taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy. He was personally selected for the job by a former police commissioner who is black. If Dave Chappelle were writing a skit about this incident, his head would explode. We're living in a time when stupidity and ego look a lot like racism. "Post-racial" America is just as confusing as the racist one.

I don't know a black male of my generation who hasn't had an unpleasant experience with the police. I've never been arrested, but I've been thrown in the back of a squad car. I've been screamed at and disrespected, too. Many cops still carry mental images of black men that would have been over the top 100 years ago. We usually deal with it with wry humor and stoicism -- the way President Obama did when he joked at the end of his news conference that even he wasn't above being shot at the White House under similar circumstances.

Still, Mr. Obama's larger point -- missed by shrieking conservatives -- is that we (re: black men) shouldn't be shocked by what happened to Skip Gates. No matter how big you get, someone is going to want to make sure your papers are in order. Even Mr. Obama has to deal with deranged critics who insist he was born in Kenya.

We've made incredible progress as a nation in the last 40 years, but we're still only a generation removed from legally sanctioned police brutality. We have to chill and wait for a whole generation of folks with old movies in their heads to move on. There's nothing post-racial about another black man going to jail over nothing.