The press conference, on July 22, 2009, was supposed to be about health care reform, but the last question posed to the president was about race - something the president can't seem to get over despite the horrible state of the economy, the war in Afghanistan, the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, and other serious problems. The question was from Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I should say at the outset that "Skip" Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts. What's been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house, there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place -- so far, so good, right?...
But so far, so good. They're reporting -- the police are doing what they should. There's a call, they go investigate what happens. My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in, I'm sure there's some exchange of words, but my understanding is, is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. And at that point, he gets arrested for disorderly conduct -- charges which are later dropped.
Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact.
That might be a fact, Mr. President, but it is a fact totally out of context. As Mona Charen points out in her column today: "It’s a contentious and emotional minefield. Yes, there has been harassment of blacks by white police departments. But that’s hardly the whole story. Blacks and Hispanics also commit a disproportionately high percentage of crimes."
A fact not out of context is: Mr Gates is a tenured University Professor at Harvard, lives in a city with a black mayor and a state with a black governor, and is friends with the first black president of this country. Why is he still walking around with a chip on his shoulder, and why is his friend in the White House unable to remove the chip from his shoulder?
President Obama has a chance to do something about any residual racism that exists in this country. He can start being presidential, show some pride in America, stop interfering in the lives of Americans, support our military, and, in short, grow up and get rid of the chip.
There's a big difference between acting presidential and being presidential.
Note: See my post of April 5, 2009: "We Should Have Known."
We should have known when he bragged about his time as a “community organizer” that such a person is not one who brings factions together but rather incites grievances, perceived or real, on the part of one of the factions.
