…of Police, Professors, Presidents, and Beer

Get used to it sports fans…this, is America.

For the better part of a week, we have wrung our intellectual hands over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. ´Skip´, as he is casually called, got nabbed by the cops after mouthing off to Police Sgt. James Crowley. The officer was there to check out reports of a possible break-in at the professor´s Cambridge, Massachusetts home. Days later, President Obama waded into the pool by offering his two cents saying the Cambridge Police acted, "stupidly" when they arrested and booked the renowned Harvard academician.

So, how is it that a distinguished Harvard Professor gets into a racially charged finger pointing pissing match with, and gets arrested by a police officer who trains cadets on how to avoid racial profiling? The answer is part and parcel of why you, and I, Professor Gates, and Sgt Crowley still struggle with this issue of racial divide in America, 400 years after the first black slave was shoved onshore.

This answer is also really quite simple, but involves a couple of points which aren´t terribly obvious at first blush…

A Nation of Immigrants,

Unlike most countries across the globe, Americans are not a homogeneous society. Oh sure, in Bosnia you have Serbs, and Croats, while the split between Iraq´s Sunnis and Shia´s has become all too infamous, but these are ethnic, or religious divisions, not easily spotted on sight. Americans on the other hand look like a box of crayons. Our differences in skin color and features are unavoidable clues that we use to instantly define one another. These definitions are quite often based upon generalizations void of cultural consideration. Definitions used for bonehead snap judgments made on opposite sides of a glass door when a police officer sees a black man, and the professor sees a white cop.

Passive Racism

I´m encouraged that the kind of hateful racism practiced by monstrous ideologues with an agenda is on its way to the city dump. It hasn´t completely gone away and probably never will, but that voice is weaker. These days we suffer mostly from a brand of racism spawned by a gross lack of sensitivity to the conditions and realities of others. How many folks know that referring to Saint Patrick´s Day as "St Paddy´s Day" is offensive to some Irish-Americans, or that the casual use of "boys" to refer to a group of black men might be considered a racially charged insult?

When Gates and Crowley first glanced at each other through that glass door on the professor´s front porch, all this kicked in. Gates, a lifelong expert and scholar of the "African American experience" recently remarked, "…I know every incident in the history of racism from slavery to Jim Crow segregation." Perhaps…but subconsciously, the professor may have long ago used that catalog of hate to teach himself how to react to a white cop at his door demanding identification. Of that moment, Officer Crowley later told a Boston newspaper, "…I really wasn´t sure exactly what I was dealing with." That´s code for…this 58-year old gray haired man with glasses doesn´t appear to be a criminal, but he´s black, so he must be up to something. Minutes later, egos spiraled, Skip was fingerprinted and booked, the President weighed in, and my colleagues had a field day.

Now that we´ve all backed away from the edge, President Obama´s "…cooler heads should prevail" offer to have both Professor Gates and Officer Crowley over to the White House to work it out, is a good one. The plan is to sit down with the President and talk things out over a few beers. If both accept, (Only Gates has accepted at time of publishing) then we´ll know we´re not dealing with haters. Sensitivity…well, that´s another issue. Maybe through the haze of "Miller Time" both Gates and Crowley can somehow find the clarity of thought to subconsciously declare something along the lines of, "…you don´t act like former Alabama Governor George Wallace" or "…you´re nothing like convicted murderer Tookie Williams", and react accordingly…next time.

Who knows, perhaps they´ll both find they even have the same taste in beer.

You can reach Elliott Francis at reelfast@reelview.tv