In the Wake of the Cambridge Affair

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

It has been over two weeks since the dignified university community of Cambridge, Massachusetts, became a focus of national attention in America’s continuing catharsis over race. A very tired, and very distinguished, professor, who happened to be black, returned from a long and grueling flight from China only to discover that he could not get his front door open. He and his driver went around to the back of his house and commenced to force the back door open.

A passerby in the very nice residential neighborhood called police and reported that a break-in might be occurring. When the police arrived, they confronted the professor in his home. What happened after that is in dispute, but the result was that the professor was arrested for interfering with a legal process. He was later released. The professor claimed to have been a victim of racial profiling, and the policeman felt that his authority had been questioned, and that he had been disrespected by the professor – and later by the President of the United States who remarked during a news conference that the Cambridge police had “acted stupidly.”

Right wing radio predictably went nuts over Obama’s comment and tried to ignite a national brush fire of raging racism. Surely the offended policeman would get loud and angry over being disrespected on the national stage. One Republican congressman put forth a resolution demanding that the President apologize to the Cambridge Police Department. The whole thing looked like it would be a godsend for the loony right fringe.

What happened, of course, was that President Obama, clearly the most brilliant and politically savvy individual to be President of the United States since Woodrow Wilson, and possibly since Lincoln, held a Beer Summit at the White House and gave the situation a positive thrust, one in which the professor and the police sergeant agreed to work together to improve race relations in America. Rush Limbaugh’s wet dream of increased racial strife and commotion withered and died.

Well, not completely.

One problem with people who incite others – for ratings, personal glory, to promote their personal or political agendas, for money, or whatever – is that when they are finally shut down, not everyone gets the memo.

Cambridge is a sophisticated enclave surrounded by rough-and-tumble metropolis of Boston, an urban area with a long history of racial strife. Officer Justin Barrett, a thirty-six-year-old young man who had been on the Boston Police Department a scant two years, got swept up in the noise over the incident in Cambridge. Filled with righteous indignation, the young cop sent out a mass email referring to the professor, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, as a “banana-eating jungle monkey,” and noted that if he had been the responding officer Professor Gates would have been introduced to the effects of pepper spray. Barrett has since apologized, but he has been suspended and will likely be fired over his remarks.

And that’s too bad because Rush, or Bill-o, or Sean, or Lou, or Ann, or Glenn, or whichever racist cretin pushed him into action is still employed – and making a nice salary, thank you very much.

The Cambridge affair has also stirred some antisocial behavior from the political left. Pepin Tuma, a thirty-three-year-old lawyer from Washington, D.C., took a message from the incident that police are thugs and tend to overreact, especially when they are dealing with racial minorities. He and some friends had spent a lot of time talking about the affair in Cambridge. As the group was walking down a street in D.C. they came upon a traffic stop, and Tuma began chanting “That’s why I hate police” loudly enough to ruffle the blue feathers of one of the police officers who was handling the traffic stop. Officer J. Culp didn’t take kindly to what he took as being publicly disrespected. He pushed the young lawyer up against an electric utility box while demanding, “Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?” Tuma was eventually cuffed and arrested for disorderly conduct.

So while Professor Henry Louis Gates and Police Sergeant James Crowley have apparently moved on, the Cambridge affair has left some angry individuals bobbing in its wake. Ending racism in America will not be easy, but the day is coming when race will no longer matter. The day is also coming when police will master the art of public relations and learn how to diffuse angry but harmless individuals without overreacting. It is all going to happen whether Rush and his hate-filled minions like it or not – and the sooner the better!

The Suds Summit

by Pa Rock
Social Observer

Tonight the President of the United States, a distinguished Harvard professor, and an experienced police sergeant will settle in at a picnic table on the White House lawn and discuss racism, racial profiling, and the importance of maintaining public order in twenty-first century America. To take the edge off of what could be a tense conversation, the men will also be engaging in the great American pastime of drinking beer.

The press, of course, is all over this story – like flies on Roy Blunt – and has even reported the brands of brews that that participants will be drinking. The professor will be sipping Red Stripe, the policeman will be drinking Blue Moon, and the President, ever mindful of the need to connect with the common man, will be tossing back Bud Light – America’s most requested beer.

Most of us know the story by now, or at least some version of it. Generally we tend to believe the rendering that leaves us feeling the most comfortable – the account that aligns best with our lives and our values.

To a black American who has grown up dealing with both subtle and overt racism, this is a no-brainer: a power obsessed white cop who has trouble accepting the fact that a black man can be a successful professional living in a nice neighborhood, bullies his way into the black man’s home on a flimsy pretense and then, when the black man questions his authority to do so, promptly carts this uppity nigger off to jail. Black Americans have seen it all before – for generations. They know that the severity of the police reaction is a direct result of the race of the suspect – and the suspect in this case was an innocent homeowner who happened to be black and living in a nice neighborhood.

To a white American who has grown up in a blue-collar neighborhood and has had to work hard for every dollar, this case is also a no-brainer. An honest cop who puts his life on the line every day answers a call about a possible house break-in. He does his job and investigates, only to be screamed at and demeaned by the angry black homeowner. Clearly it’s a class issue, with the professor thinking that he is better than the cop and above the law. Of course he deserved to go to jail. Why, if it hadn’t been for Affirmative Action and quotas, he would probably be washing dishes or shining shoes and living around his own kind.

And to a mixed-race President of the United States, this is a teachable moment – whatever the hell that means.

Professor Henry Louis Gates, an eminent historian, is righteously appalled that the police can enter his house, Gestapo style, and arrest him for not stammering “yass suh” to the cop’s every interrogatory. He would probably admit to responding by being rude and obnoxious. He was in his own home, after all, and it’s not against the law to be rude and obnoxious, especially when you are behaving that way in your own home.

Sgt. James Crowley, a veteran police officer who taught racial profiling at the police academy, feels that he acted appropriately in dealing with an angry individual who was interfering with a legal process. He was disrespected by the professor who refused to quietly submit to his authority, and he was publicly insulted by the President who told a news conference, and thus the nation, that he had acted stupidly. He is angry at being rebuked for doing his job.

President Barack Obama, a man with a black African father and a white American mother, has grown up with a foot in each camp. He has seen firsthand the way some people devalue others on the basis of race alone. Indeed, a substantial segment of the American populace is vocally uncomfortable with having an African American family in the White House and is unlikely to ever be reconciled to the fact of Obama’s presidency. But the President also grew up with, and idolized, his white grandmother who had a fear of black men. Fortunately for him, and for America, she was able to open her heart to her mixed-race grandson.

It will be an interesting gathering tonight on the White House lawn, one that could portend the beginning of a new American era on race relations. Whether they will admit it or not, each of the three participants have embarrassed themselves to some extent in this affair, and depending on the way tonight’s Suds Summit unfolds, each could redeem himself and, in the process, make life better for all of us.

May the beer be icy cold and flow freely – and may humanity prevail.