Yeah, Obama's presser last night was about health care reform. He talked about it for nearly fifty minutes. But you wouldn't know that this morning, because the final question asked the President what his thoughts were on the arrest-of-then-apology-to African-American Harvard professor Skip Gates by the Cambridge police. He admitted his bias as a friend of Gates, and thought the Cambridge police acted "stupidly." That seems to be the talk of the town this morning, but of course not just my town but the entire cable news circuit. Cable news - we know drama.
From what has been reported, Gates came home, found himself locked out of his house and broke in. A neighbor saw someone was trying to break in to Gates' house and called the police who responded to the scene. Once the police arrived, the police were presented with identification that he was who he said he was and owned the house. Apparently then words are exchanged. Gates is taken from his house in handcuffs for "disorderly conduct" towards the officers. Later, the charges are dropped and the Cambridge PD apologize to Gates. Should be over.
Of course, it isn't. Gates has said he's not going to let the issue drop because he claims it was a racially charged affair. Obama says that the Cambridge police were stupid to further. The officer says that he acted appropriately regarding the circumstances, and didn't do anything wrong. And now every Tom and Jane on T.V. wants to know why Obama isn't acting more post-racial for a black dude siding with another black dude.
Gates was right to object to any further police involvement once he proved he owned the place. The officers were doing their job, however, and when Gates started giving them push-back for investigating to find out the facts of the situation, they had it within their authority to arrest him for disorderly conduct. And Obama's right too - they were stupid for doing so. A more level-headed, smarter cop would have just left when he was being resisted, but Gates had a right to do so as it was the police coming into his house. The Cambridge PD apologized for this, and that really should be the end of it.
At the same time, Obama should have just shut up and stayed out of it. I imagine he's probably gonna have to walk back a little from the language he used last night, and he deserves it. I would have belittled the reporter (Lynn Sweet) for asking about it when the past fifty minutes of discussion has been about the health care crisis our nation is facing. Please, hack journalists, could we please, for once, try and focus the attention of the American people on the task at hand. Do it for Walter.
Listen, racial profiling goes on in our country, and it's wrong. My family has been stopped at the airport more than we care to remember because of our last name, and it is ridiculous. My mother works for the government and is Irish and French-Canadian, at least three generations removed from entering the country, and she has gotten stopped. But we need to move past trying to play thought-police with the police every time someone gets arrested and claims it was because of police bias. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Let the Cambridge PD deal with trying to find out.
Having lived in Boston, I've met my fair share of Boston-area cops. Most are very good guys just trying to do their job well. But there is always a few who have something to prove and like to strut around reminding folks he has some power. But just because you have power and authority doesn't mean you have to use it. I've also met professors who act in the same way regardless of being outside their academic setting. And I think Gates may fall into this category too.
So what we have here are some people who unfortunately ran into each other doing very innocent things, one getting into his house and the other doing his job to follow a lead. And then let their egos take over. And then some lame-ass journalist has to ask the President of the United States about it. And the President said something he's going to have to clarify.
And meanwhile, our country's health care system goes "tick...tick...tick..."
UPDATE: As I said earlier, CNN reports the accused racist Officer Jim Crowley has refused to apologize for the incident with Gates. To his defense, Crowley cites that he was one of the security guards who helped to try and tragically save African-American and former Celtics player Reggie Lewis. So like I said, maybe it's a little hasty to be calling him a racist.
Not to say there wasn't a racial element in this - the neighbor who called the police reported that there were "two black males with backpacks" trying to wedge the door on Gates' front porch according to the police report. I mean, obviously the report is biased from the perspective of the officers on the scene, but it notes that Gates played the race card as soon as Crowley approached the front door and seemed very uncooperative. It doesn't matter if you're black, white, Asian, Latino, or whatever but it's a pretty simple rule of thumb to not go out of your way to be a dick to a cop.
UPDATE II: Chris Bodenner, filling in for Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish, allows some readers with law knowledge to help the rest of us with the concept of "disorderly conduct." From what they say, it looks like the cop Crowley didn't really need to go at Gates for this except to save face for his ego (like I said earlier up top). But as one lawyer in Nevada notes:
In theory, you're free to say all manner of unpleasant things to civil servants, such as police officers. In practice, not so much.
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