Getting it Right

Here's the best thing I've read on the Gates/Crowley brouhaha. This is from a web site called The Reality-Based Community:

For what it's worth, however, my take is that this little micro-dispute in Cambridge was fundamentally a conflict about "honor." This whole thing would have been a big nothing if either man were willing to swallow his pride. The cop could have defused it by letting Gates call him a racist and have it roll off his back. He couldn't because, I think, he has a self-conception as precisely not a racist cop (given that he does racial profiling seminars). To back down would have been to accept what Gates was accusing him of--to be dishonored. Gates couldn't back down and say "yes, officer, whatever you ask, officer" because he believed he was being treated in a way that was inappropriate to his status as a Harvard professor and because he thought he was being hassled because he was black. To back down would have been untrue to his idea of himself--as a race man and a part of America's elite. Again, he would have accepted being dishonored. So they both stood their ground, and the guy with the gun won.

And so Gates retaliates in the media, and with the president--where HE was, in effect, holding the gun. Now the Cambridge cops think that they are being dishonored, because they believe that they run a comparatively professional police force that tries to treat black and white citizens fairly ("we're not like LA!"), especially compared to what was the case in the past. To accept what Gates and the president said would have been to swallow being dishonored--to accept that what they believed about themselves was not the case. So they opened up on the president and Gates in this press conference.

The question is, is there any way for everyone involved here to retain their honor? That is, can they back out of this thing with the way they understand themselves, and that they want others to understand them, intact? Had the president used his press conference to make the quintessentially Obama move of explaining both sides to each other, then maybe.

I'm with the author up to this point. But I part company at this point:

But in what was up to this point a zero-sum conflict of honor, he took the side of Gates and dishonored the cops (rubbing it in by saying they acted "stupidly"). Maybe the cops deserve to be dishonored, but I think that as the president--as the "head of state" in our system of government--it would have been a better move to try to cauterize this particular wound rather than inflame it. For good or ill (and there is ill, because the role requires you to lead the country, and not just speak truth about it), that is what it means to be "presidential."

But I rejoin him on his final paragraph:

Today, however, Obama seems to have realized that taking sides in this zero-sum conflict was not the right move, at least given his office. Which is why this is so refreshing. Whatever his flaws, Obama knows when he messed up and he knows how to find the right way to clean up his mess. Whatever his flaws, I do believe this is a man who has a touch of greatness--not from being flawless, but from being able to recognize his flaws and counteract them.

So I'm 90% in agreement. Why do I differ? As somebody pointed out, in Obama's book Dreams from My Father he talks about being black and knowing that at any time you can be pulled over by the cops as "suspcious" and be hassled by cops because they "know" you must be guilty of something. What racist white America doesn't "get" is how this sears your soul. Obama came out on this issue because it is a deep pain in the black community. And until the white community "gets it" and helps get the society "past it", these flare-ups will continue.

I tried to put the issue in a race-neutral way: how would you react if the cops barge into your house with guns drawn suspecting you of being a burgler because of some random 911 call? I know I would be outraged because I would be terrified. I know that if I had the status of a Harvard professor I would try throwing that around to get them to back off. I fully understand Gates. What I don't understand is all those idiots who say "why I would tell the officer to arrest me because I know I must look like a burgler and let's get him to drag me off to jail in chains so that we can sort this all out there because I know the cops are servants of the people and would never hassle me or beat me up in the back of a patrol car". Nutty! (What these people won't admit is that they can't see this happening to them because they "know" they "don't look suspicious" so they "know" the cops will treat them right. What they won't admit is that blacks don't experience the world this way. Blacks have a long history of arbitrary stops by cops and nothing incidents turning into arrests. And blacks know that if you show any strength, then "the man" is going to beat some "sense" in your head to keep you "in your place". That's the ugly truth of racism.)

I remember living in the urban core in 1975 when I saw a small crowd gathered around some cops arresting some young men. Being the fearless idiot that I am and easily outraged by injustice I stepped forward to ask the cops "what's going on?". I was shocked to hear the cop say "we're giving these guys a choice, they could either go back behind the building and settle this "man to man" or the cops would take them downtown and book them". Translation: they would either beat the shit of these guys behind the building then let the guys go, or if they didn't like the "rough justice" the cops offered, then the cops would take them downtown and book them. I wasn't totally naive, but I was shocked because this was the first time I was up close and personal with police "justice". I never want to be that close again to how cops take power into their hands. This was too close to "bullies with badges" for me.