He said: “I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry. No. 2, the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Obama admitted that he did not know all the facts in the case and he explicitly did not accuse anyone of racial bias, but the implication was there for all to comment on, and they did.

The debate intensified.  It started with the arrest and was a continuation of an ongoing theme: dealing with the problems of race in America, including the very different perceptions of the problem across the population.  Those with clear positions presented them forcefully, and they were joined by the beltway pundits who commented on the practical implications of the response, without much reference to the normative issues involved. (link) Obama backtracked recognizing that he had inflamed the situation by calling the Cambridge police actions stupid, and he invited Crowley and Gates for a beer at the White House to diffuse the situation, which it did.

Another moment in the continuing struggle to talk about the problems of race and American democracy passed.  But this one was different, having to do with the fundamental issue of political culture: the relationship between culture and power.  Things were turned around, a revolution of sorts was apparent. This was the first time that such an issue occurred with a black President.

Commentators noted that Obama made a big mistake by offering his opinion on the matter, as one put it, speaking more as a person than as a President.  Among these observers, there seemed to be a general consensus that Obama’s statement was a mistake.  His intervention undermined his attempts to enact healthcare reform.  He was getting involved with a local issue, best left alone by the head of state.  He got involved even as he admitted to not having all the facts at his disposal.  Obama and his advisors did have second thoughts about what he said.

He appeared unannounced at a White House press briefing indicating regret for “ratcheting it up” the controversy.

Yet, President Obama had no choice but to get involved.  He was asked a direct question at a press conference.  Not to respond with a direct answer would have appeared as overly calculating, open to a range of undesirable interpretations.  Perhaps political pundits, the professional insiders and the commentators, would have approved of the pragmatism, applauding his decision to stay on the central message of the conference, the need for healthcare reform.  But in the long run, beyond such media commentary, there would be the real danger that Obama would have been criticized for compromising fundamental principle.

Much was made of the forcefulness of Obama’s statement, but in fact it was circumspect.  He indicated a suspicion that the event was part of the long story of racism, but he did not criticize it as such.  He called the action stupid, but he did not condemn it as a moral outrage.  A President who was not African American would not have been asked about the Gates Affair.  An African American President once asked about the affair had to answer.  Staying within his fundamental project of expanding the American Dream by addressing the American dilemma, a fundamental theme of his election, the President had to be open and clear about his position, while recognizing the complexities.

This was the voice of official power, a fundamental change in the political culture.  Those who dissented from his vision attacked his intervention.  Those focused on the politics of the news cycle questioned its wisdom.  But racial politics have been thus transformed.  The terrain has been reordered.   At the time, just about no commentator thought Obama did the right thing when he spoke up.  Now, in retrospect, a year after the fact, it seems to me it is clear.  He did the right thing.

Part 1: a local affair, in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Henry Louis Gates Jr. returned from a trip to China, ironically working on a television documentary on the heterogeneous racial, ethnic and national genealogy of Americans. When he and his driver were trying to open his front door, finding that it was jammed, a neighbor thinking that they might be burglars called the police.  The police investigation led to the arrest of Gates in his own home, with Gates asserting racial profiling, with Sgt. James Crowley, the arresting officer, charging Gates with disorderly conduct.  The charges were subsequently dropped.

The characters in the affair are noteworthy.  Gates is a distinguished professor at Harvard, a renown scholar and public intellectual.  As a student of African American culture, he is careful and sober, not a flaming radical.  Crowley, ironically, is a police academy expert on racial profiling, teaching a course on the subject at the Lowell Police Academy.  And in many ways the two are on the same side of the cultural wars.  Both Gates and Crowley have cooperated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Crowley having participated in a 3- day workshop on Racial Profiling at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles in 2007, Gates delivering the Center’s Third Annual “State of Antisemitism” Lecture in New York in 1994.  These were odd antagonists in what turned out to be a major national affair.

Part 2: the local becomes national. The event was first covered by The Harvard Crimson, but given Gates’ prominence, and the irony that he was apparently arrested for breaking into his own home, it became a national story, covered by the national media.  As such affairs go, it followed the conventional black and white script.  There were those who clearly saw the ugly face of racism pure and simple, and there were those who sided with the cop and stressed the importance of maintaining and respecting law and order.  The usual suspects played starring roles in the performance: Reverend Al Sharpton, Rush Limbaugh, et. al. And then many others chimed in, with more and less insights.  Professional observers of the problem of racial profiling noted that bias is often not conscious.  It emerges from psychological perceptions of the other, and in a society with a long history of racism, these perceptions do not change quickly or easily.  Accepted prevailing practices may be fashioned to overcome this problem, but they do not necessarily succeed. (link) It was observed that “a proud cop” met “an arrogant professor,” but if the professor were white, an arrest would not have resulted. (link)

Further, a close look at the case as it developed in its details revealed both that race mattered in its classic form (link), and that the real problems are political correctness and reverse racism.  The case followed the conventional script of the cultural wars about race and class.  But this was different.  Barack Obama is President, and Gates is the President’s friend.  Part Three reveals how much things have changed.

These events may not be at the core of the problem of racism.  That is manifested more in the daily struggles and interactions of ordinary people, beyond the public eye, as they get on with their lives.  But the events, “media race events,” permit the symbolic enactment of American moral codes about race.

Blacks and whites perceived the OJ trial and acquittal differently.  In and of itself this would appear to be a trivial matter.  It took on great significance because it revealed how separately and differently blacks and whites live and perceive themselves and each other in America.  Distinctions, differences and commonalities about race were revealed. With an African American President, such a case, which inevitably appears periodically in American life, has taken on a new dimension.  The head of state, the central symbol of authority in the society, is now black, and this necessarily has meaning.  The first case in point in the course of the Obama Presidency is “Gates-gate,” a socio-political drama in three parts.  The case suggests both how racisms persists and has not much changed even with the election of a African American President, but also how the election has changed everything.