Thursday will apparently mark the awaited "teachable moment on race" for our country as President Obama "sits down for a beer" with Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley from the police force of my own beloved Cambridge, MA police force.
Our local papers and radio waves are filled with strong opinions on the subject, but I've talked about the incident almost not at all with any one I actually know, quite possibly because our church leaders, for one, have been so trained in diversity issues. And so the perception among that crowd has tended towards "Yup yup yup" with an eye-roll.
Both Gates and Crowley are indignant. Neither is remotely apologetic. President Obama made strong statements (saying that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" and noting America's long history of racial profiling) and then mildly pulled away from them without disavowing them.
My friends would point to all of this as evidence that all people want their life narrative to be known and validated. For Prof. Gates, it's being a black man of high status and accomplishment being arrested for being in his own house. Yes, Sgt. Crowley demanded that he step out of his house, but he didn't (initially) do that because he knew that once he did that , Crowley could arrest him. Staying in his house (his OWN house, the one he was accused of breaking into) would require the officer to get a warrant. Evidently he's another black man facing police harassment for being black.
Sgt. Crowley's narrative is: he was responding to a call of a prospective breaking and entering. He was being openly disrespected and screamed at rather than cooperated with. He asked Prof. Gates to step outside his house because police officers lose their lives not infrequently under such circumstances. Having some regard for his own safety was not inappropriate, and the situation was safer once Prof. Gates stepped outside. He's by no means a racist--in fact he teaches a class on race relations and profiling and can produce several African-American police officers who will go to bat for him on this point.
The diversity conversations I've been in would, first, validate President Obama's offer to get them together to talk. But if it had to pick a narrative to listen to, it would pick Prof. Gates'. Whatever Sgt. Crowley's intentions, the narrative that matters most here is the one of the historically powerless. If Sgt. Crowley felt endangered, he could have backed off until the six, count 'em six, squad cars he called for arrived. This seemed to be the heart of Obama's original, candid comment. While--as he acknowledged and was then pilloried for--he didn't know the full facts of the case when he quickly and openly commented, it didn't take a genius to acknowledge the long history of racial profiling by police officers and to assess that it was "stupid" for arresting a man for breaking into his own home on the basis of yelling at a police officer.
I have a mild oar in the water here. A close friend of mine had a run-in with the local police several years ago over a minor offense that was turned into a major offense by--best as my friend could determine--a strikingly dishonest police officer and complicit assistant DA. Rightly or wrongly, I'm sold by my friend's perspective. The police and DA behavior seemed egregious and frightening to me. When I told my friend's story to some African-American friends, they rolled their eyes. Yes, they knew many stories like this. One said, "The key lesson here is never to get into the criminal justice system at all. Because once you do, this (stuff) starts to happen."
Whether my friend's perspective on their experience is accurate or not, the quick, eye-rolling identification by my African-American friends is what strikes me. Sgt. Crowley may indeed have as many great qualities as have been attributed to him by his friends this week. Prof. Gates may have escalated the situation.
But am I happy for all the press this episode is getting? Yes I am.
