Part 3: The Gates-gate affair, as a media race event, became explicitly political when Obama weighed in. His comment on the Gates arrest came at the end of a long and detailed news conference on health care reform. Asked what he thought about the arrest, The New York Times reported that: “Mr. Obama took it [the question] head on, noting that “I may be a little biased” because he is friends with Mr. Gates but condemning the police in Cambridge, Mass.
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 . . .
Read more: The Obama Effect
My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ”blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined — They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential. I heard about the speech from my son, Sam, who was then living in Obama’s neighborhood, Hyde Park, as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. I was teaching in Krakow, Poland that summer, and in a phone conversation, Sam confidently instructed my wife, Naomi and me that we had to listen to the speech. We had already read about the speech. Sam predicted that Obama would be the next President of the United States. We had our doubts. He was prescient. For Sam, the prospects of an African American President didn’t seem as extraordinary at it did for Naomi and me. We came of age during the height of the civil rights movement. We remember when overt racism was on ongoing part of daily life. Young though we were, we remember the March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream” speech. We remember the slain civil rights workers. We remember the urban riots, the urban decay, and the fear on the city streets that followed. We remember the golden age of television, when black and white were the color of the images but not of the people on the screen. We lived through many firsts for African Americans and women, but the first we couldn’t imagine in our lifetime seemed to Sam to be likely, given Obama’s talents. His world, the world . . .