Patrick, a past target of racial profiling, to chat at noon

By Scott Helman, Globe Staff

Nearly 40 years ago, a 14-year-old Deval Patrick arrived on the leafy campus of Milton Academy, a black kid from the South Side of Chicago suddenly forced to navigate the insular, largely white world of East Coast prep school culture. Though the move worked out well in the end, it wasn't always easy to fit in. Patrick has recalled being harassed by police, who thought he looked out of place.

Governor Deval Patrick

Those episodes, though decades old, bear some similarity to what Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. experienced last week in his dust-up with Cambridge police. Gates's arrest raises again the question of how much racial profiling remains a problem in American neighborhoods, even in the age of Obama.

The president pointedly said last night that he thought Cambridge police acted "stupidly." Patrick was more measured in his comments, saying at an event earlier in the day that he found Gates's arrest "troubling ... to me as a friend of Skip Gates, as a black man, and as a governor," according to WBZ.

At noon today, you will have a chance to ask Patrick about the budget crunch, overhauling healthcare, the Gates controversy, his own experiences with racial profiling, and anything else on your mind. Be sure to tune in. He's eager to take your questions.