— Frank Rich, New York Times, Column, August 2, 2009
Click here for his column

She opened the COGC segment with music/lyrics from the situation TV comedy Cheers [it died 16 years ago] accompanying a montage of transposed images of the three protagonists as well as snippets of commentaries and jokes from news and comedy shows. “We couldn’t resist,” she tells the audience, a bathetic smirk on her face that should have made many more than this writer cringe, but it was a succinct reminder that much of mainstream, corporate broadcast news is theatrical, insipidly theatrical.

Nevertheless, the parody, stupid, could have used a fourth protagonist, injecting black humor with verve, that is, a personification of the realities of America’s racial malaise (as revealed in studies about racial profiling and Driving While Black as well as job and housing discrimination statistics, to name a few of the manifestations). An effigy in powdered white face of American racism should have been Brown’s fourth protagonist. 

Would have loved it if it had been done wisely and savagely.

Episodic eruptions of historical moments like this – I’m talking about those in-your-face race moments so sprawling that they cannot be denied (and this one was comparatively peaceful unlike the Rodney King inferno), jarring public consciousness and sensibilities – can be and are used to spotlight America’s racism and bigotry and its institutional matrices. The latter allow millions and millions and millions to deny that the demons exist or that they are not as bad as they are portrayed – as the race troglodytes Rush Limbaughs/Bill O’Reilly’s and their minion want everyone to believe.

The beast, so say the Cassandras, is far more hideous than America will admit.

Some points:

1. From The Criminal Justice Journalists’ News Center. I didn’t see anything like the following on any broadcast news shows: Unconscious Racial Bias And The Gates Arrest
   

   The Boston Globe interviewed experts on the social psychology of the Henry Louis Gates case, concluding that “regardless of people’s stated attitudes about race, unconscious racial biases can influence their behavior in surprisingly powerful ways.” People who are not racist may unknowingly behave in ways that reflect racial stereotypes, even when they may disagree with such ideas. One study found that when participants in a computer simulation were told to shoot criminals but not unarmed citizens or police who appeared on the screen, more black than white men were incorrectly shot.

   It’s impossible to know whether hidden bias caused Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, a white man who teaches courses on how to avoid racial profiling, to arrest the African-American Gates. Research indicates that a large majority of white people, and about half of black people, are quicker to make positive associations with white people and negative associations with black people. Boston Globe story here.

2. It was good that the President called the Cambridge Police Department’s actions “stupid.” He was trying to stir things up and was successful. He knew he would have to deal with its consequences, that is, back off his original comments.  He grew up in America and he understands its machinations regarding race and racism.
3. This may be only a footnote but Lucia Whalen’s experience shows the risks that decent people face, that they can’t escape the beast no matter how decent they are.
4. America’s race troglodytes – the legions of blithers, Glenn Becks, Bill O’Reillys, Et. Al. – are far more sinister than anything that the President could say or do. And it’s so obvious.
5. Two of the wimpiest pieces I’ve read:
   

   Headline: President Obama, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley aimed to fix their mistakes. By Errol Louis. Also by Errol, headline (which was better than the column): Arrest of Prof. Gates puts focus on biased police stops: ”if we are lucky, Gates will use his experience as an opportunity to enlighten us all about how to view one another as neighbors and citizens, not stereotypes.”

   Police department are the paramilitary enforcers of city, state and federal governments. Errol could have written this: “If we are lucky, Gates will use his experience as an opportunity to enlighten us all about how to deal with American institutions, elected and otherwise, that abuse their citizens and residents of color.”

6. I wonder how the international news media reported on the race drama and also wonder, albeit tongue-in-cheek, why the American journalists news media didn’t report on what their sisters and brothers overseas were saying about the drama. I don’t have time to check so. I did get this following description from Carla Barcaro, a former WORD writer who posted the following on the WORD’s Facebook page. Barcaro, Brazilian, wrote:
   

   “Ok, there has been some coverage about the incident, mostly involving a bit of sarcasm. The headlines were somehow around these lines: Harvard professor arrested for breaking into a house, making excess noise and mess. Detail – the house was his own.

   It was of course “ironized” that all this happened in the land of uncle Obama. I don’t know much more about it. All I know is that racism is still very much present in America. I am in NYC right now, and I can’t help comparing how feelings and emotions and ideologies differ from country to country, even if slightly. Racism in Brazil is more subtle, yet not least hurtful and damaging. In Brazil people say they are all friends, tap each other on the back, and they really mix together very well with all races.

   Yet go to the slums and you will see that most people living in the favelas are from Afro Brazilian descent.”

   And in another post on the page, she wrote:

   “At the university I am attending in Brazil we do have some great black professors who have not had an easy life in spite of their talent.

   Anyway… I guess prejudice and racism will go around whether the president is black or an “uneducated” man from humble background, like Lula.”

— In New York, State Senator Eric Adams, a retired New York City police captain and co-founder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, said the rules for dealing with someone differed by setting. “If it’s their house, they’re allowed to call you all sorts of names,” Mr. Adams said. “A man’s house is his castle. If they’re in the street, and they don’t listen to the officer’s warning, ‘Sir, you’re being disorderly,’ you can lock them up at this time.”

— Several officers interviewed in four cities on Friday said they tried to ignore such remarks. Others said they had zero tolerance for being treated disrespectfully in public.

— The line of when to put on handcuffs is a personal and blurry one, varying among officers in the same city, the same precinct, even the same patrol car.

— “… and if you don’t have a tough skin, then you shouldn’t be a cop.”

Full NYT story.

I did major police reporting in Rochester, New York. I did a little police reporting in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and a tiny amount in New York City. Based on what I learned from police on the beat and in the streets and from policing experts: Sgt. James Crowley should have walked away.

And the New York Daily News could better serve its readers by adopting a few of the reporting techniques of the New York Times. That could happen without disrupting the DN’s tabloid style.

This writer is not holding his breath.

Backup: Center for Constitutional Rights

More backup: Stanley Fish, NYT.