Anderson@Large

Obama’s Racial Brewhaha

In convening a beer summit “personal interaction,” President Barack Obama hopes some cold brews will lower the temperature on a racial brouhaha that has become “so hyped and so symbolic.”

Indeed, the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and Obama’s poorly “calibrated” remarks have dominated news coverage.

In an after-brews statement, Obama said:

I am thankful to Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley for joining me at the White House this evening for a friendly, thoughtful conversation. Even before we sat down for the beer, I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another, which is a testament to them. I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart. I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.

Obama hopes that “having a drink at the end of the day” will end his slide in the polls. But he may be crying in his beer over the latest Pew Research Center poll.

Obama’s overall job approval declined from 61 percent in mid-June to 54 percent currently.

According to Pew, the slide in Obama’s job approval ratings was precipitated by disapproval of his handling of the economy, healthcare reform and Gates-gate:

Thirdly, Obama’s comments on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. appear to have played some role in his ratings decline. News about the arrest of the prominent African American Harvard professor at his Cambridge home was widely followed by the public and 79% are aware of Obama’s comments on the incident. Analysis of the poll data found that the president’s approval ratings fell among non-Hispanic whites over the course of the interviewing period as the focus of the Gates story shifted from details about the incident to Obama’s remarks about the incident. Interviews Wednesday and Thursday of last week found 53% of whites approving of Obama’s job performance. This slipped to 46% among whites interviewed Friday through Sunday as the Gates story played out across the nation.

During a press conference at AFL-CIO headquarters, located across Lafayette Square from the White House, Crowley said:

This was a positive step in moving forward as opposed to reliving the events of the past couple of weeks.

Crowley said there was no apology:

Two gentlemen agreed to disagree on a particular issue. We didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future.

Crowley said a second discussion will be held in the coming weeks.

In his after-brews statement, Gates said he wants to put the mess behind him:

Having spent my academic career trying to bridge differences and promote understanding among Americans, I can report that it is far more comfortable being the commentator than being commented upon. At this point, I am hopeful that we can all move on, and that this experience will prove an occasion for education, not recrimination. I know that Sergeant Crowley shares this goal.

Stay tuned.

‘Beer Summit’ at White House

In the beginning, there was President Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords.

 

In 1993, President Bill Clinton hosted the public signing of the Oslo Accords by Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

BTW, I was hanging out at the Willard Hotel the Sunday before the signing ceremony when Arafat happened to walk by. I got a chance to shake his liver-spotted hand and wish him luck.

Today, President Barack Obama will practice beer diplomacy at the highly anticipated picnic table summit.

The Washington Post reports:

Obama, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., police are scheduled to gather over beers at a picnic table outside the Oval Office, joined by their families. The White House hopes the meeting will transform a public relations misstep for the nation’s first African American president into a “teachable moment” for improving the nation’s race relations.

While the arrest of Gates is less weighty than, say, peace in the Middle East, there are two warring factions in the People’s Republic of Cambridge.

The Post notes:

Even as the two men agreed to meet again at the White House, Gates has remained consistent in his belief that, when he was arrested July 16 for disorderly conduct (a charge that was later dropped), racial profiling occurred. And Crowley has remained consistent in his belief that it did not.

Oh, to be a fly buzzing over the White House lawn when Gates and Crowley sit across from each other at the picnic table.

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Film Festival

The films of legendary actors and activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee will be showcased at a two-day film festival that kicks off today in Harlem.

The First Annual Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Film Festival is presented by Howard University’s John H. Johnson School of Communications and Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theater.

Dean Jannette L. Dates said:

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are exemplars for us all. Their dedication to the communities in which they lived was the driving force in their professional lives as well as their private lives. They felt the need to give back to those who respected them for their activism and loved them for their work.

In September 2001, I was working on a documentary about the Florida election debacle. In the wake of 9/11, people who had made pledges to support the film were suddenly nowhere to be found. People like Barbra Streisand who removed anti-George W. Bush rants from her website.

But Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee kept the faith. As lifelong voting rights activists, they understood the importance of telling the untold story of the 2000 election. So they narrated the film without compensation.

In addition to screening classics such as “Cotton Comes to Harlem” and “Jungle Fever,” there will be the world premiere of “Slap the Donkey.” Narrated by Danny Glover, the documentary tracks Al Sharpton’s 2004 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on black politics in the 21st century. The panelists will include Cornel West, Ron Daniels, and my friend, Herb Boyd, who recently interviewed President Obama on Air Force One.

The film festival will be held at the AMC Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem. For more info, go here.

Obama and Diversity

The past month has been full of distractions – racial, not really post-racial and personal.

So, I missed the release of the National Journal’s study on diversity in the Obama administration, which found that fewer than half of Cabinet-rank officials are white men.

While they represent less than half of senior aides, “the most powerful West Wing aides are still mostly white men.”

Eleven percent of President Obama’s top officials are African American. That’s not much of a change from George W. Bush, whose White House staff was 10 percent black. Yeah, who knew?

Interestingly, the survey found that the Obama administration is, ahem, “heavier on Harvard degrees” than the Bush administration.

While the Obama administration is heavy with policy wonks and academic, “few of his key people can point to significant business experience.” The National Journal reports:

Overall, only 28 percent of Obama’s top officials were business executives at some point in their careers, compared with 38 percent of Bush’s top officials at the start of his first term.

For more info, check out “Obama’s Team: The Face of Diversity.”

Race Baiters ‘R’ Us

In the wake of l’affaire Gates, President Obama invited Sgt. James Crowley to the White House to work it out over a beer with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

For Obama, the case is closed.

But Obama’s critics want to make a federal case – and political hay – out of his comment that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.”

So, today, Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter will introduce a House resolution calling for Obama to apologize “for impugning the professional conduct of Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley.”

The draft resolution reads:

Whereas on July 16, 2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley responded to a 911 call from a neighbor of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis (“Skip”) Gates, Jr. about a suspected break-in in progress at his residence, which had been broken into on a prior occasion;

Whereas on July 22, 2009, in responding to a question during a White House press conference President Barack Obama stated: “Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don’t know all of the facts involved in this local police response incident”;

Whereas President Obama proceeded to state Sergeant Crowley “acted stupidly” for arresting Professor Gates on charges of disorderly conduct;

Whereas, as a former Constitutional Law Professor, President Obama well understands that all Americans are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and their actions should not be prejudged prior to being fully and fairly judged by an appropriate and objective authority after due process;

Whereas, President Obama’s nationally televised remarks may likely detrimentally influence the full and fair judgment by an appropriate and objective authority after due process regarding this local police response incident and, thereby, impair Sergeant Crowley’s legal and professional standing in relation to said incident; and

Whereas, President Obama appeared at a daily White House Press briefing on July 24, 2009 to address his denouncement of Sergeant Crowley and stated: “I could have calibrated those words differently” but “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station.”

Whereas, President Obama’s refusal to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Sergeant Crowley and, instead, reiterate his accusation impugning Sergeant Crowley’s professional conduct in the performance of his duties;

Now therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

Calls upon President Obama to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley for having unfairly impugned and prejudged his professional conduct in this local police response incident.

Stupid is as stupid does. And the GOP is the stupid party.

A Rocky Week

So much for the best laid plans of mice and citizen journalists.

I had planned to share news and information about implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, broadband deployment and adoption, 2010 Census, green jobs, fatherhood initiatives, health care reform and Weatherization Assistance Programs gathered during the National Conference of State Legislatures’ annual legislative summit.

Instead, I spent the week blogging about race.

Race also crashed President Barack Obama’s primetime news conference.

Obama’s response that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” ignited a racial firestorm. Critics are stuck on stupidly.

In an interview with ABC’s “Nightline,” Obama said:

I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home.

Well, at least my week will end on a post-racial note.

NCSL’s closing event will be held on the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is where the fictional Rocky Balboa trained for the World Heavyweight Championship fight against Apollo Creed.

Oh, wait.

Black in America

I tuned out CNN’s “Black in America 2.” From jump-street, I questioned why CNN was “investigating” black folks.

Then as now, I think CNN should probe wrongdoing rather than citizens whose only “crime” is being black in America.

CNN should investigate miscreants like Wells Fargo, Wall Street banksters and subprime loan modification sharks.

If CNN wants to “look at the most challenging issues facing African Americans,” then investigate the impact of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package on reducing black unemployment and expanding opportunities for black-owned businesses.

We know what it means to be black in America. As my friend Bill Reed recently wrote:

The people talking that smack of America entering into “a post-racial society” are engaged in much more fantasy than fact. The facts are: In June 2009 unemployment rates reported were: adult men (10%), adult women (7.6%), teenagers (24.0%), whites (8.7%), Asians (8.2%), Hispanics (12.2%), and Blacks (14.7%).

In an interview with his daughter, Elizabeth, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. observed:

The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. [laughter] The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again. I am proud of the American people for electing the best candidate who happened to be a black man and that’s a great historical precedent in the United States, but America is just as classist and just as racist as it was the day before the election—and we all, to quote my friend Cornel West, “are recovering racists,” and we all have to fight those tendencies. In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room—and we have to become sensitive to it.