NEWSPEAK

"There I was standing in the lobby of my chic Latin Quarter hotel, in my handmade suit, Burberry coat and Paul Stuart scarf, when this French couple comes up to me and asks whether I'm their cab driver. I was polite, I just said no. At the time I was angry, but thinking about it later, I was furious. Those guys just weren't seeing me."

--Du Bois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, as quoted in The New York Times, Feb. 7. Gates was describing an incident of the week before, in Paris, where he had participated in a conference entitled "A Visual Arts Encounter: African-Americans and Europe."