About That Beer
DeAngelo Starnes on the White House/Gates Make-up Session
2009-07-28
By DeAngelo Starnes

When it looked like he might do so, I thought Obama better not apologize to Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley or the police department for his remarks about Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ arrest.  Cambridge’s mayor, a Black woman, already apologized to Professor Gates for the police officer’s actions.  Her apology should have ended the apology-volleys.  So I’m thinking an invitation to share a brew at the White House might be taking it a bit far. 

It’s rumored that someday we will pay for all of our sins.  My question is why does it sometimes feel as if being Black in America is a sin?  Why is there always a pathology or dysfunction assigned to the status of having a high content of melanin in the skin?  But more important, why should we feel the need to backtrack on the belief that we’ve been victimized by a racist action, regardless of whether we have been?  After all, in a simplistic sense, we were just minding our own business before being snatched from our villages and disbursed throughout the world?  The fallout might create historical and group paranoia.  The arrest of Dr. Gates sort of encapsulates this historical memory. 

Professor Gates received a lot of sympathy from many corners of society.  The sympathy seems to fall on the recognition that he was the victim of racial profiling.  On first impression, it appeared that it was another chapter in the sordid story between African American men and white police officers.  A story that usually ends with the African American male dead and the police justifying his death at their hands.  Thankfully, this chapter only included a bruised ego and an inconvenient four hours at the police station.

Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times made a fairly compelling argument as to why Gates’ arrest was not a classic example of racial profiling.  While there are more outrageous examples of racial profiling, the argument, regardless of how one perceives its tangential nature to be, remains valid.  Validity of the point is best understood in the form of a rhetorical question: Would the police have arrested Alan Dershowitz, an equally prominent member of the Harvard faculty, under similar circumstances?  More important, how many would have lambasted him for claiming his arrest was an instance of anti-Semitism?

In some quarters, Gates got called a bonehead.  To paraphrase a couple of columnists, the professor should have recalled the first rule all Black men need to understand when being questioned by the police – humble demeanor.  It brings to mind that Richard Pryor joke when he announces to the police after being pulled over, “I am reaching into my pocket for my license.  Cuz I don’t want to be in no [expletive] ‘accident’!” 

Nevertheless, as much as I try to adhere to that rule, I agree with Gates.  Who’s really disturbing the peace and being disorderly once identification has been produced without any reasonable cause to believe a crime has been, or is being, committed only to be handcuffed?    Further, why wouldn’t anyone who truly finds racism offensive and who is striving for that utopia-esque post-racial society not be upset and speak out against the arrest? 

It certainly says a lot about the strength of the opposition when Obama is criticized for opining that the police’s actions were “stupid.”  Let’s assume the President didn’t have a big enough mess to clean up on so many levels, do you think he would have backtracked to the extent he did without a racial component to this issue, including the fact he still finds himself walking on eggshells because he’s Black and is new on the job?  Could his initial comment have been borne from a similar experience or being victimized by racial profiling?  But that’s the power of the Finger-Pointers.  They scream to their listeners about reverse racism in an effort to confuse the issue when someone stands up and calls a marshmallow a marshmallow. 

And then there are the border-line liberal racial sympathizers who hope that it’s not really about “racism” but a “misunderstanding” grounded in “arrogance.”  This comes across a little head-in-the-sand-ish to me. 

Not to be left out is the inevitable push-back by the police PR machine: “Sergeant Crowley teaches classes about racial profiling with high grades from his students and was hand-picked by his Black chief.”  What does this last point really prove?  That Sergeant Crowley is incapable of racial profiling or acting on a racist impulse?  That’s what they want you to think when they juxtapose a Black face to a perceived racist action.  However, the juxtaposition is classic sleight of hand.  It doesn’t erase the underlying action, especially when that action is based on facts as ridiculous as what occurred in Gates’ arrest.

Maybe, there is an ulterior motive to inviting the cop to the White House for a beer.  In what would be a diabolically genius move one beer might turn to four which might turn to shots of tequila which might turn into truth serum.  That might be real hip.

Dr. Gates for his part has said he wishes to put the whole incident behind him.  To the extent this issue has served as a distraction from larger issues, such as whether there will be health care reform before Congress goes on recess, I join him.  But this issue shouldn’t be re-characterized as an anomaly in this so-called post-racial era.  If nothing else, the emotions and reactions to the incident are Exhibit A for the fallacy of this being a post-racial society. 

DeAngelo Starnes is a writer and attorney living in Denver with his wife and son.