Kiss and Make up with a Beer?

Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. (a Black man) was arrested in his house by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley (a White man). President Obama (a Black man) says the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in making the arrest.

The situation escalates and charges of racism and racial profiling are leveled. The President is criticized for defending the Harvard scholar and the unapologetic policeman is backed by his union. The news media, talk shows and blogs all have a field day as the public weighs in with various opinions. Sounds like a powder keg about to explode, right? But not so fast.....President Obama had more to say:

"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," he said. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."

In what he called an opportunity for a "teachable moment", Obama, at the suggestion of officer Crowley, invited both men to have a beer with him at the White House.

"My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved, and the way they would have liked it to be resolved," Obama said. "The fact that it has garnered so much attention, I think, is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America, and -- you know, so to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate. What I would like to do, then, is to make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people."

In what was a very different tone than before, Henry Louis Gates Jr. said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with the President and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested him. In a statement posted Friday on The Root, a Web site Gates oversees, the scholar said he told Obama he'd be happy to meet with Crowley, whom Gates had accused of racial profiling.

"I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates said. "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."

"It is time for all of us to move on, and to assess what we can learn from this experience" Gates said. ".....Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

A trio of Massachusetts police unions released a joint statement shortly after Obama's latest comments, saying Crowley had a friendly and meaningful conversation with the president.

"We appreciate his sincere interest and willingness to reconsider his remarks about the Cambridge Police Department," according to the statement. "It is clear to us from this conversation, that the President respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis."

Isn't it wonderful to see intelligent people act intelligently? I, however do wonder if it's possible for a President, a Professor and a Policeman (yeah the 3 Pees) to agree on what kind of beer they should be drinking.

I can just see the new ad campaign for which ever beer wins: "Intelligent people drink"....... or "the beer that brought the nation back together"...... Stay tuned!!

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Gates Arrested in His Own Home

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual. Gates currently serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, where he is Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

The above was taken from his Wikipedia biography. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is also Black. Whether this fact played a role in his arrest at his own home or not is as matter of conjecture. Below is one account of what happened when police were summoned to his house, because a neighbor, identified as Lucia Whalen, thought that two Black men were trying to break in. See Video here



The President, Barack Obama, was asked at a news conference what he thought of the incidence. Obama called Gates a friend, and said he doesn't know all the facts of the case but he said:

"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home," Obama said.

See Video Here

"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."

The police sergeant accused of racism after he arrested Gates insisted that he won't apologize. Police say Gates at first refused to display ID and then accused the officer of racism. Sgt. James Crowley said he followed proper procedures in arresting Gates.

Crowley said he was disappointed by the national debate triggered by the incident and insisted he followed proper procedures in arresting Gates last week in Cambridge on a charge of disorderly conduct.

"I'm outraged," Gates said in extensive comments made to TheRoot.com, a Web site he oversees.

"I can't believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I'm astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race.

There are 1 million black men in the prison system, and on Thursday I became one of them," he said. "I would sooner have believed the sky was going to fall from the heavens than I would have believed this could happen to me. It shouldn't have happened to me, and it shouldn't happen to anyone."

He spoke of a "terrifying and humiliating" experience at the Cambridge jail, where he was booked, fingerprinted, photographed and questioned, then locked up in a tiny cell that made him claustrophobic. He said he wants an apology from the officer, Sgt. James Crowley. He also said he planned to talk to his legal team about the next step.

Prosecutors dropped a disorderly conduct charge against Henry Louis Gates Jr. The city of Cambridge called the arrest "regrettable and unfortunate," and police and Gates agreed that dropping the charge was a just resolution.

The city of Cambridge, a Boston suburb, released a statement saying the situation "should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department."

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Terror in Tehran

I don't normally do politics in this blog but what is happening in Iran needs to be aired --- as widely as possible.

Neda is Shot

President Obama Speaks Out

Reports start coming in on a brutal crackdown by the Iranian authorities

Eyewitness Report from Baharestan Square in Central Tehran

This frantic phone call from a Tehran woman will break your heart as you consider our standard response has been "that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence" and that "the international community is watching." Part of yesterday's response by President Obama in a press conference included "that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy (of the Iranian regime) and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it." The Iranian theocratic regime clearly is not interested.

Unedited Video from Iran

What will happen next??......The world is watching!!

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The Wright Factor

Presidential candidate Barack Obama's ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright has been in the limelight lately. He has received a lot of media attention for his views on 9/11, Aids and a host of controversial topics that have not sat well with many people. He is a black minister of a black church.....but not just any black church and he is certainly not just any black minister. Until his recent retirement he was the minister of the church that Barack Obama attended. He encouraged Obama to become a member of his church. He married the Obamas. He baptized their children. He was more than Obama's pastor. He was Obama's friend.

Barack Obama very publicly turned his back on Jeremiah Wright saying that some of the views of his ex-pastor were reprehensible and in no way represented his own, stressing that Wright does not speak for him nor his campaign. Was this done out of political expediency or was there a real disconnect between the two men who have known each other for many years? The truth may just be a complicated yes on both counts. But whatever the real answer is, I think the real question should be why has this ex-pastor been given such prominent news coverage? Is this an attempt by the media to make Obama seem guilty by association?

The recent media attention of Jeremiah Wright began with an interview with Bill Moyers of PBS. Click here to watch the interview.

Bill Moyers himself had some comments in reference to the media reaction to Rev. Wright:

But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfqCyMU3mfo]

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Bill Moyers, in summing up, comes to the conclusion that race is a factor in the media attention of Wright:

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".