President Obama's Six-Pack Summit

As news of the arrest of prominent scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Cambridge, Mass., home made its way across the nation, the effect on virtually everyone who heard it was the same — an immediate rush to judgement based solely on the scant information available.

The content of those judgements speaks volumes about the social state of our nation.

From a detached perspective, the incident is a fascinating and illuminating sociological study in race and class. If the people of our diverse nation are lucky enough, the Gates case will provide valuable insight into the architecture of polarization.

The story is well known by now: Gates, a Harvard professor who heads the university’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research, arrived home from a trip to China to find that someone had tampered with the lock on the home he leases from the university. He and his driver, who is Moroccan, attempted to force the door open. Cambridge police arrived after a neighbor called to report two black men with backpacks attempting to break into the house. The police asked for identification. Gates provided two forms of identification and became agitated. Police arrested him and took him in.

To make matters even more complicated, President Barack Obama, who is a friend of Gates’, weighed in on the matter, saying Cambridge police “acted stupidly.” He later clarified his statement.

However, President Obama cannot unring the bell. Cambridge Police have demanded an apology from the president. Professor Gates has demanded an apology from Police Sgt. James Crawley, who arrested him. Crawley’s colleagues characterize him as virtually racism-proof, saying he was selected to teach courses to combat profiling. Crawley expressed disappointment in the president’s remarks, but admitted that his friends would probably back his position, too.

Now, more than a week later, the woman who made the initial call has stepped forward to make a point that makes much of the rhetoric of the last few days moot: She never specified the race of the men at the door when she called the police, as the police report states. A recording of the call verifies her statement, which has been corroborated by a police commissioner.

With so many varying reports of the events that took place at Professor Gates’ home that afternoon, one must surmise that the truth is known only to those who were there, and likely lies somewhere in the chasm between the professor’s version and the police report.

Now that the president has stepped into the ring, it’s up to him to find a silver lining in this thunderstorm. The Gates case continues to resonate through the nation, and the American people are watching.
President Obama may be on the right track. The conflict is a common sort of rub, and the president has proposed a regular-guy sort of summit: He invited Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley over for a beer.

We imagine they’ll leave the Six-pack Summit as friends.