Given all the hype of the Beer Summit, you would have thought we were about to enter a new age of Post-Post Racial America. Instead all we got was a bunch of crappy photos.
The reason why the Beer Summit turned out to be a Beer Bust, was because it was never really designed to be a meeting of the minds, instead it was design to cover self inflicted wounds.
Lets start the most wounded, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The brother got all bent out of shape because in walked the cops and they did not respect his authoritah as a Harvard celebrity. Gates knew damn well he broke into his own house, so why did he trip out when the police showed up saying they received a report about a break in? He tripped out because, at that moment in time the Great Henry Louis Gates, darling of Harvard, was just a regular guy who needed to show some ID. For that bit of indignation, Gates played the race card. However, in this case the race card became the race boomerang and hit Gates square in the ass.
Next we have Obama, who in a moment of candor, allowed his carefully crafted mask of Post Racial professionalism to slip and all of America was allowed to see the type of reverse racial prejudice that only comes from sitting in Reverend Wright's church for 20 years. Obama clearly did not know jack shit about what happened to his friend Gates. Yet Obama easily assumed that since a white cop hauled off his well heeled black friend, then the stupid cops must have had a racial motive. Again, the facts come out and the boomerang struck Obama. It was Gates big mouth set the whole dust up in motion and the police were just doing their job.
Finally we get to Sgt. Crowley, his only wound was letting Gates' big mouth get to him. Had he had just left the scene after getting the id he needed, he could have hopped into his patrol car and curse Gates mother, father and whole generation without anyone being the wiser. Sgt. Crowley's life would have forever remained the same. Instead from this point forward, Sgt. Crowley's life will forever be on the media's radar. God forbid Sgt. Crowley should have another questionable run in with a black man it will be circus city all over again.
Through out this whole over inflated story, the only real victim was the 911 caller Lucia Whalen, who tried to be a good Samaritan and all she got was a dose of the race car and scorn. She had to come forward and tearfully clear her own name. She wasn't even invited for a beer.
I truly hope we do not hear one more word about this over inflated story again. The only good part of the whole thing is that it threw Obama off message for several days and may have helped to save us all from the nightmare of socialized medicine.
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8 comments:
Honestly. Not only a beer snooze, Gates is now claiming Crowley falsified his report. I have to hand it to racists, they never admit when they're wrong.
Frankly, I don't understand why Crowley had beers with two such stone cold racists. To add insult to injury, they didn't even drink while with him showing their disdain which is what I expected from them. To top it off, Gates is now claiming Crowley lied, falsified the report and he is indeed innocent and was racially profiled. This is why I would never have a beer (I don't drink alcohol anyways) with racists be it they're black, white, green, blue and 17 different shades of grey.
They had a beer and all we got was some lousy photos, more racist blame games and more proof Americans were stupid on November 4th, 2008.
One more note, what does this idiot Gates teach at Harvard anyways? Ethnics studies, or African American studies? I just know one thing. I don't want my children going to that school if they're going to continue to have bigots like Gates poisoning the minds of their students. What next? Voltemort teaching defense of the dark arts?
He had a beer because the president invited him, and I for one, despite my disdain for him, wouldn't turn down an invitation to meet him and take my family on a free tour of the white house.
I hope I don't hear about this again, but it doesn't matter ultimately because it isn't about race; it's about using legitimate problems of racial prejudice and police misuse of authority in order to gain power and to distract from real issues.
Am I being overly critical, or does Obama's constant slouching posture in the "beer summit" pics say something about him too?
Maybe it's just me, but I think a President should be a little more self aware.
Maybe I have to much time on my hands.
madmath1:
Crowley who committed the smallest self inflicted wound, should have found a polite way to say no thanks to the beer summit. Gates and Obama needed him more then he needed them.
Without the summit Gates and Obama would have to have explained themselves fully. Now they can both hide under moral equivalence.
I believe gates teaches African American Studies at Harvard, no surprise there.
theblackcommenter:
I would have found a polite way to turn down the invitation, because I know there whole thing wasn't going to be about race. Avoiding the summit would have forced Gates and Obama to fully explain themselves and thus lead to some meaningful discussion on race.
Roadhouse:
I don't think you are reading too much into it. Obama's outward personae is a carefully crafted one. It is in those true unguarded moments when we get to see the real man.
His "stupidly" remark was an unguarded moment as well as him not helping his old friend Gates down those stairs.
I'm white, and have been arrested many times in Chicago, in my youth. (The last time I was 25--it has been 26 years since my last arrest.) During a police action, it is so simple--things go much smoother if you suck it up and cooperate. The cop tapped you in the groin? The cop called you an idiot? The cop insulted you? Deal with it later!!!! During a police action, guess what, the police are ALWAYS in charge. And they can ALWAYS make things harder for you if you request it. Mr. Gates sounds like the guy in Animal House who repeats, over and over, "Thank you, sir, can I please have another?"
check this out, written by a blogger who doesn't let the facts get in the way; "A professor, standing in his own house, is confronted by a police officer, gets upset, and – no, he wasn’t tasered – was arrested because the police officer – Cambridge, Mass. police Sergeant James Crowley – is too much of a dick to understand that, as a police officer, the responsibility to calm tense situations is his and not the responsibility of a Harvard University professor or of any other citizen.
Sgt. Crowley may not have used a Taser to subdue a highly respected scholar, whose crime appears to have been getting overly emotional when police officers confronted him in his own home.
But Sgt. Crowley’s actions that day are indicative of a new law enforcement paradigm that requires citizens to fear the police, a new law enforcement paradigm that dictates that citizens must be able to calm themselves instantly in order to perfectly obey, comply with, and conform to the orders of police officers, regardless of whether or not they are posing a threat to themselves, others, or the police officers and regardless of whether or not what the police officers are telling them to do makes any sense.
Sgt. Crowley was never told by his superiors that what he did was stupid, inappropriate, and excessive.
Far from it."
To repeat, I have been arrested many times. But not in the past 25 years. Perhaps I actually matured. :) The blogger obviously ignored the facts in this case. Hey, why not?
And, by the way, there have always been bad cops. No doubt about it. It doesn't appear that Mr. Crowley is one of them, though.
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