They got the beers – the president and vice president of the United States, a distinguished Harvard professor who is black and a Boston police officer who is white. But the American public got the buzz – a slight inebriation over race which, though mild, has some folks talking out of their heads as if three sheets to the wind.

This dizzy spell will surely pass soon; such episodes always do. You see, when it comes to really tying one on about this potent subject, the country has proven over and over again that it just doesn’t have the stomach for it.

Last week’s “beer summit” might have been the “teaching moment” that some optimists foretold it to be had we been more willing and attentive students. But, given our refusal to really take on the subject, it seems we learned nothing other than that long-lived claims that the public would rather slurp the foam and skip the heavy brew  – discrimination, double standards, segregation, disparity, parallelism and prejudice – well, we learned those complaints were spot-on.

To hear some tell it, the president should never have loaned his voice to the brouhaha. Not that he had much choice once confronted by a reporter during that prime-time, televised White House news conference on July 22.

“Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge,” the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet began. “What does that incident say to you, and what does it say about race relations in America?”

How awkward he must have felt – Obama, the country’s first black president, who is being held up as the avatar of a “post-racial” America, being asked to pass judgment on what the post-racialists and idealists claim no longer exists. He knew he needed to reassure them that he was not, despite the cool exterior and ready smile, another angry black man with a pocket full of accusations.

At the same time, there was another conundrum: What to do about that other key constituency – the millions of black Americans who know good and well that what Skip Gates went through under the media’s glare goes on every day without a blip for young, black males who know that even stopping to ask a cop for directions can turn horribly bad. Had Obama not acknowledged the perniciousness of racism, he risked losing chunks of the most solid block of supporters he has.

True to politics, Obama split the difference.  He gave an on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand response befitting a man caught in the middle with so much at stake.

On the one hand: “When I was in the state legislature in Illinois, we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and Hispanics were being stopped disproportionately,” he said. “And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in this society.”

On the other hand: “That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made.”

Yet: “The fact of the matter is, is that this still haunts us. And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently, and often time for no cause, casts suspicion even when there is good cause.”

Then, again: “That's why I think the more that we're working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody is going to be.”

That was the real teaching moment. Anyone paying attention would have learned, or had affirmed, that being the first black president of a country with a history of .....

Please Login or Register to post comments on this article

Close Comment  |   Read More Comments Hide More Comments

Comments * :

Please do not enter the HTML tags(Maximum 600 characters).

Race prejudice plus power = RACISM. America will never listen and own up to their Racism. Really what Kane, . I don't give one damn about the arrest of Prof. Gates. I care they jumped all over my President because he said what most of us were thinking - police acted stupidly. He did not say they were stupid (He should Have), but he didn't. Even the President of the US could not speak what he thinks about stupidity, llet along RACISM.

America - if you could just admit your RACISM, a big step. Most Blacks keep talking about it because IT STILL HAPPENS.

by   
Dlkinc329
August 3, 2009, 8:04 am
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------