Jules Crittenden

Beer Summit II

Gates and Crowley share informal suds. I’d love to know what they talked about. Because I have a dream. Boston Herald:

In a setting a tad less formal, with no president or national press on hand, the Harvard professor and the Cambridge cop at the heart of last summer’s White House “beer summit” met for a second round – this time, at a local pub.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley met for drinks Wednesday at River Gods, a popular River Street bar outside Central Square, not far from where their lives first intersected.

Exactly what they discussed is their business.

“Now, now, now, we would never overhear what our customers talk about,” general manager Caroline Enright said yesterday, “but it was extremely friendly and very amicable.”

…

The two strolled into River Gods about 5 p.m. on “Primitive Sounds” night (featuring “Roots Rock and Roll, Gospel, and Blues” with “DJ Easy Ed,”), Enright said.

The manager declined to say what the two drank but said they stayed for a little over an hour at the pub, which both have frequented in the past.

“River Gods is dedicated to the art of conversation,” Enright said, “so it was fitting that they agreed to meet here.”

Working in this business, sometimes you get to be privy to great events in gestation, sometimes even act as midwife in the painful delivery of horrible, unwelcome truths.

The Gates Affair was the first big racial blowup of the post-racial presidency. Gates, following his arrest on disorderly charges when he loudly accused Crowley of being a racist when he showed up to protect Gates’ property this summer, was all over CNN and assorted other high profile venues squawking about the indignity and injustice. Skip wasn’t returning the Boston Herald’s calls, which was too bad, because we could have told him what was going to be in the paper the next day. Crowley was the man who did desperate mouth-to-mouth on a dying, vomiting Reggie Lewis in a bid to save the Celtics star’s life in a practice session at Brandeis University 16 years ago. Crowley was also a police academy instructor who teaches the course, with a black cop, in how to avoid racial profiling.

There isn’t much we could have done about Obama, who stepped in it himself that night when he said on national TV that Crowley and the Cambridge PD acted “stupidly.” I remember watching that press conference that night, thinking: Take cover, guys. Bad news enroute. There’s a rocket headed for Skip Gates’ hindquarters, and you just stepped in front of it, Mr. President. You guys just racially profiled the wrong white cop.

Next thing you know … beer summit. It was a step in the right direction. Even if it wasn’t really about getting the racist stain off Sgt. Crowley. It was about getting Obama’s foot out of the mess he had just stepped in. Too bad. Given the readiness so many people have these days to accuse everyone they disagree with of racism, I wouldn’t have minded seeing the post-racial president make the kind of effort he did back when he was in the crosshairs himself, accused of proximity to an America-bashing bigot. I guess it’s a matter of whose ox is being gored. He’s been a disappointment on that front.

After Beer Summit I, which ended up being a predictably bizarre parody of itself, maybe Beer Summit II was an actual working session. Crowley seems like a serious, thoughtful guy, and if Gates let himself get a little carried away in the heat of the moment, he is a Harvard professor and quite capable of serious, thoughtful work.

It would be great if Crowley and Gates were talking about that last night at the pub. Gates, when he was expounding on a CNN stage in the middle of Times Square last summer, said he not only wanted an apology, he wanted Crowley to submit to a lecture about the history of racism in this country. Gates has made a decent Ivy League career out of that subject, and even done some useful documentary work about the realities of people’s lives across generations. But imagine what kind of figure he could be in this nation’s tortured history of race relations if he actually played a role, a real person engaged in real events, in getting us past it. If he has learned the lesson of his own experience, maybe he’s the one who can lead us … 45 years after the Civil Rights movement and 145 years after the Civil War … out of this endless cycle of race-baiting, racial assumptions, racial preferences and racial discrimination, in both directions. Maybe the pair of them together … Irish cop and black Harvard prof … can serve as example for all of us of how it is done, how people can be met on their own merits. Judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Memorandum’s roundup isn’t showing much interest in this at last check. I agree with this at The New Republic, though. That doesn’t happen much:

As someone who found the whole Crowley-Gates-Obama beer summit kind of absurd the first time around, I’m actually kind of impressed–not to mention surprised–by the news that Crowley and Gates met for a second round of beers (minus Obama and the cameras) at a Cambridge bar last night. Is it possible something good might come out of that whole media circus?

TPM’s disappointed Joe Biden didn’t pop in. Apparently TPM doesn’t take race relations very seriously.

I guess Gawker’s being sarcastic. Presumably not about the Biden part:

Horrible racist Sgt. James Crowley and angry racialist professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. were spotted having beers at a Cambridge bar called River Gods last night. It’s not the White House, but at least Biden wasn’t there.

Racialist, interesting term. Someone who makes a science out of racism, or someone who makes a buck off it? Here we go, from the American Heritage dictionary:

1.

b. Policy or practice based on racial considerations.
a. An emphasis on race or racial considerations, as in determining policy or interpreting events.

2. Chiefly British Variant of racism.

racial·ist adj. & n.
racial·istic adj.