Polarizations
I've stayed out of the Gates-Crowley-Obama contretemps if for no other reason than that I'm out of the country and unable to keep up with all the breaking news-blips, but the following statement in today's NYT strikes me as significant even beyond the problem of racial profiling, police malpractice, and the wise and legal responses to both:
Advisers said both his sharp statement, which was made at Wednesday night's news conference, and his toned-down remarks on Friday reflected strains of his experiences. He was personally outraged by the arrest and wanted to speak bluntly about it, aides said. And they said he was distressed that his words proved polarizing and contrary to his instincts for conciliation.
The lion's share of Obama's political legacy rests, it seems to me, on whether he gets (and therefore we get) (a) a serious economic revival with unemployment declining for several months in a row within a year, in time for the midterm elections; (b) a decent near-universal health care bill, preferably sooner, to keep up his momentum as a winner; and (c), before 2012, a reasonably rapid exit from Afghanistan.
To get (b), in the short term, and then (a) and eventually (c), will require a great deal of analytical acumen, political finesse and the ability to polarize a winning Congressional majority against obstructionist Republicans and Blue Dogs. There will have to be a hard-ass campaign against profiteering health insurers, venal medical-industrial complexes, and other Special Interests. This needs to be a campaign against as well as a campaign for.
It's fine with me if Obama wants to conciliate Skip Gates and Sgt. Crowley over a fine American beer. I hope he can pull it off. I can imagine a splendid moment, the presidential equivalent of his Philadelphia speech on race last year. But having done that, he needs to remember--urgently--that all polarizations are not created equal. As the granddaddy of all community organizers, Saul Alinsky, reminded us, the public good requires not just a pious resolve but mobilization against retrograde antagonists. Blue Dogs need to be threatened with primary opposition, and the stadiums need to be filled in their states with angry protesters. The bully pulpit needs to be pounded. Now.
No one wants to go after those Blue Dogs more than I do and I agree with all three of your priorities but it is easy to overlook a fourth priority which both the Gates flap and today's NY Times front page story on Cheney illustrate.
Cheney was passionate about unleashing the military on suburbia. That's how far right we've allowed the executive branch to get. The Gates issue illustrates how that mindset filters down to law enforcement at the local level (anyone see the men from Mars gear the St. Paul police deployed to defend Republicans from Minnesotans at the convention last year?).
Part of Obama's challenge in selling economic reform and healthcare reform is trust. Do Americans fear or trust the government with major change? Do Americans have the confidence to fight these battles in good faith free from fear that dissent will have personal costs? Bill Gates was apparently mocking concerns about privacy in a speech in India the other day. Assaults on individual privacy and liberty are coming in many ways as technology makes almost any kind of tracking and listening possible by business, criminals and government.
We may need to worry more about becoming China than we do about defeating Afghanistan.
July 25, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent points.
I am really irritated by talk show hosts - Bill Press after the health care presser- wanting Obama to get aggressive and adversarial in his comments on issues. This was very prevalent in the campaign - he need to be tougher. Press, a former pro athlete, was all about needing that testosterone display to be a winner.
I think our whole culture and society is FUBARed because of that attitude and really welcome Obama's refusal to sink to it.
Then at the end of the presser, something that he has personal understanding of - the damage and injustice to millions of Americans- gets him to make a statement indicating some outrage. And it sets off this firestorm. Precisely because of all the tension on racism that is ingrained in our society.
The GOP is milking it for all they can get. Sotomayor, Gates, and now the nominee for Surgeon General. She's AA, we have to find something WRONG with her that isn't overtly racist. So, she's overweight and that sets a bad example.
If the GOP would live up to their expectations of perfection in candidates and office holders, it wouldn't be so utterly ludicrous.
July 25, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine post, but in a democracy, wouldn't it be more pertinent to mobilize support for policy - not mainly polarize against the opposition? Obama's election was enabled by swing votes of independents who ordinarily would've drifted rightward. There must be "negative strategy", sure, but there is in your quote the recipe/excuse for every bloodletting in human history. The Left's dogmatic absolutism has left it a legacy of almost Old Testament-style mass homicide everywhere its hoary tenets have been formalized. Enough.
July 25, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose I should always stipulate that when I advocate mobilization against retrograde antagonists I am not calling for genocide. I hereby declare that I am never calling for genocide.
July 26, 2009 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahh... were such sentiment universal, millions in the 20th century might still be alive.
July 26, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I hope 2 happens but if it doesn't, it doesn't. 3 is unrealistic IMHO and won't happen.
And I do not accept the implication that these things make Obama a bad President, if they don't happen.
July 25, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not so much concerned with the Left's "dogmatic absolutism", I'm an absolutist myself. That is, I believe there is an absolute distinction between right and wrong and I do not think that these things are relative. Discerning what is the right and the wrong in a particular situations is another matter. What I am concerned with is BOTH the Left's and the Rights stereotyping events to fit some pre-established notion they have about what goes on in the world-- to use an urbanism : how things go down .
Let us list three possible stereotyped preconceptions that were committed in this case.
1) Professor Gates, full of himself as a VIP of whom (he thinks) everyone in Cambridge knows about stereotyped the policeman as being a racist trying to malign a black man.
2) The Sergeant might have been inclined to suspect Dr. Gates as a burglar slightly more because he is black
and
3) President Obama stereotyped the whole episode as just another example of "being home while black" as some of my friends have coined it.
Of the three I think that the empirical evidence shows that stereotype 1 and 3 were active.
Of the sergeant: did he or did he not incline to believe that Dr. Gats was a burglar more because he is AA or not? It is hard to say. We cannot read into his soul. What he did overtly did not show, as far as I can tell, any bias.
I am sure that if the same thing happened to me and I started to mouth off to the investigating officer, I would probably be put in cuffs and arrested too.
So we come to what someone calls the suicidal tendency of the Left to strive for dogmatic purity, never learning the basic lesson that life is complicated and every case is unique and that to try to fit certain types of cases all into a facile box of "racism" makes things easy but it also perpetrates the distortion of facts and that turns thinking people off.
There is no magic formula that you can bandy around in every event to solve the moral/legal implications of that event. You have to learn to think on your feet and judge things as they come rather than rely on the tired old one-size-fits-all kind of thinking.
I am sure that if the same thing happened to me and I started to mouth off to the investigating officer, I would probably be put in cuffs and arrested too as I should be (for disorderly conduct).
July 26, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yesterday the presenter on BBC World news introduced the story by saying, "This is an issue President Obama doesn't need but seems to want."
Did Gates act like a jackass? Sounds like. Did Crowley act less than professionally? It seems so. But since it was Gates' home and it is not against the law to act like a jackass (especially in ones own home) and the officer was the professional with a professional obligation to serve the public (Gates) and Gates broke no law it seems obvious that Crowley acted unprofessionally (stupidly) in arresting the man.
I agree with you that mouthing off at a cop is unwise and will likely lead to mistreatment but that doesn't justify the mistreatment and a man like Gates who's profession involves him in the civil rights movement has a right (responsibility) to make a stink about it.
And the first black President of the United States may see a larger responsibility to use this incident to invite Americans to a moment of introspection on this thorniest of issues. Maybe this issue is the most important thing we have to deal with and maybe President Obama is the one person who can start us down the road to light.
Or maybe we will all shrug the same old shrug and say 'That's just the way the world is' and be doomed to live in this pergatory where police, soldiers and politicians can act out their darkest emotions with impunity because we the people have no right to complain about the injustice.
July 26, 2009 5:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely wrong! Cops are not Gods. They are not kings. They are public servants, and should always remember that. But, rarely do they see themselves as public servants. Because they have a badge and a gun, plus a union that will never accept that one of its members can do something wrong, they demand that we all genuflect in their presence. Failure to do so, let alone becoming mouthy towards them will always, in their minds, justify use of whatever force or coercion they can hand out, and being armed, they can hand out an awful lot of both.
I will always retain the right to say what I please to a public servant, who, after all, is just a servant.
July 26, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
As to your last line, you shouldn't treat your servants badly. Gates should not have gone nuts because a policeman responded to a 911 call, it's childish and ridiculous behavior. The policeman was protecting Gates's property and Gate should have been grateful, even though surprised.
As to the cop, he also overreacted. He is a public servant just as you say. You don't go to jail for getting mad at the DMV lady and you shouldn't go to jail for acting like an ass in your own home either. It's the cop's job to calibrate his behavior and assume a certain amount of stupidity on the part of the public and to let it drift to the degree feasible. He didn't do that, and he's wrong. So they're both wrong, as the President said, but the public servant with the awesome power to deprive one of liberty is much more wrong. Handcuffing a citizen in his own home because he mouthed off is ridiculous and frankly, horrifying.
July 26, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am sure that if the same thing happened to me and I started to mouth off to the investigating officer, I would probably be put in cuffs and arrested too as I should be (for disorderly conduct).
Only if you broke a law. And you're going to have to supply some of that law stuff to back up your assertion that mouthing off to a police officer is disorderly conduct -- and, in particular, under Massachusetts law.
The "disorderly conduct" canard has been pretty thoroughly eviscerated here.
Saying unpleasant things to a police officer is not a crime, at least not in a democracy. Or it shouldn't be. And saying unpleasant things to other citizens who don't happen to have a badge, an assortment of deadly weapons, and the power to deprive you of your life and liberty under color of law (as Overreach THIS! noted) is not a crime. The fact that many police officers treat it as a crime, and have the power to do so, speaks volumes about the road our country has already traveled.
Beyond that, the rest of the replies to your repeated justifications of an arrest for an action that is not, in fact or in law, a crime, cover things pretty well.
July 27, 2009 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let us list a fourth possible stereotyped preconception that might have been committed in this case.
4) The Sergeant, having had his authority challenged publicly and in front of his colleagues, wanted to show who was boss and teach a lesson to the mouthy professor (completely independent of his race).
I think that the empirical evidence shows that stereotype 4 was active.
-- ARG
July 27, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
here is my latest take on the event. all previous post by me on this issue have to be considered in light of this post which actually is a "letter to the Editor" pice for my local newspaper.
It is in the very nature of being a policeperson that you will display
a certain psychological profile in your work. You are the one person
in the whole governmental structure that is actually officially
responsible to enforce the law. So when you approach someone who is
in some sense a suspect, you are not going to approach that person
with a smile and a handshake. You must maintain a certain official
posture.
When you rise to the level of academic prominence as Dr. Gates has
risen to, it is hard not to view yourself as a special person who
deserves special treatment. After all, everyone around you considers
you a special person and treats you likewise, why would you not
consider yourself that way too.
The problem arises when these two types interact, usually leading to
trouble. We as ordinary citizens do not want the police to treat
prominent people in any special way. We see it as a case of equality
under the law--but that is not to say that prominent figures do not
often get special treatment by law enforcement officers because of
their special status.
The case at hand is that Sergeant Crowley did not know that Professor
Gates was a prominent member of the community since he is not likely
to be easily recognized as such outside academic circles in Cambridge.
It is sad but true that prominent academics cannot dream of
competing with movie stars as far as face and name recognition is
concerned. I believe that the Professor did not –at first at least--
realize that the officer did not know who he was, and came to the
conclusion that the motivation of Crowley was racist. My opinion is
that things went from bad to worse after that leading to the arrest of
Dr. Gates for disorderly conduct.
Police officers –who hold that awesome power—are prone to let that get
to their head, and prominent people are likewise prone to let that get
to their heads too. I think the case had very little to do with
racism, but all to do with the clash that occurs when these two types
have to interact.
July 27, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the empirical evidence for that is merely consistent with the facts as known not indicative of it
July 27, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink