Noemie Emery: Teachable moment for a president and a professor
By: Noemie Emery
Examiner Columnist
July 29, 2009
Our "conversation on race" is yielding a cluster of "teachable moments," due to a break-in that wasn't, a racist who isn't, and a narrative that seemed (to some people, including the president), almost too good to be true.
The president took the side of his friend, Harvard professor Henry (Skip) Gates, who said he had been accosted in his home by a "rogue" police officer and arrested by him when he protested; and condemned the policeman, who said he had answered a report of a break in (by Gates, who had locked himself out of his residence), that Gates hadn't explained, but accused him of being a racist, and that he had arrested Gates for making a public disturbance when the noise drew a sizeable crowd.
The surprising thing is that Obama was surprised when - surprise! - law enforcement officials told him to butt out of their business, and when the public overwhelmingly took sides with them and with the policeman, who spoiled the story by having a spotless race record, who taught a course in how to avoid racial profiling, and who had been praised for fighting to save the life of a dying black athlete.
Many people thought he should have controlled himself and walked off when it became clear that Gates wasn't dangerous, and they may be right. If so, the cop is getting his teachable moment in controlling himself in the presence of showoffs, Gates is getting a teachable moment in not crying "racist" on no provocation, and Obama is getting his teachable moment in that most of the people in the country he governs do not buy the prevailing nostrums of the liberal establishment in which he was nurtured and raised.
In the world he lived in until recently, it is axiomatic that white cops would tend to act "stupidly," as in the world lived in by Judge Sonia Sotomayor where it is taken for granted that the experience of a wise Latina woman is "richer" than that of white males.
It is taken for granted, too, that people cling to God and to guns out of "bitterness," and that when it comes to mandating "equality," the rights of white firemen are a small price to pay.
Gates said he knew that Crowley had a "narrative" in his head - that Gates was "uppity," and deserved to be humbled - and many pundits have no doubt this is true. But if they have no doubts, then they ought to acquire them, as this is "projection," which is unscientific; "profiling," which is a definite no-no; and "prejudice," which we must all rise above.
They say whites have no idea what it is to be black, and to know that any white man you meet is a possible racist. But they have no idea what it is to be a policeman, and to go into houses not knowing who is inside, but knowing anybody who is
black or white, old or young
is a possible killer.
Gates is 58, small, and walks with a cane, but the black guard at the Holocaust Museum was killed by an 88 year-old white man, whom he had helped enter when he saw the old man struggle to open the door.
Obama is the president of the black guard who was killed, but he is also the president of New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci, and of James Crowley, the Cambridge policeman who answered the call of Gates" neighbor, and in this case has behaved rather better than he.
Obama and Sotomayor have spent their careers immersed in an insular culture, in which academia runs into identity politics, and in which they have lived their whole lives. It is called "liberal."
Liberals comprise about 21% of the population, (but have a media presence that makes them seem larger: the media presence of Gates' defenders makes them seem many more than they are.)
They are now having their teachable moment, which is in how the other 79% thinks. Most Americans hate identity politics, think rights belong to people, and not to demographics, and value police and firemen over professors of race/gender studies.
Obama would do well to sit down and listen. The road to leadership, and to re-election, runs not through the faculty lounge.
Examiner columnist Noemie Emery is contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of "Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families."
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