Obama "Beer Summit", Crowley Press Conference - history!

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Thursday, President Barack Obama held a "Beer Summit", as some have called it, with Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., Cambridge Police Sergeant Officer James Crowley, and Vice President Joe Biden, bring an end to an unfortunate but necessary event in American Cultural history, and starting a new chapter in American race relations.

It was the first time in American and world history a sitting president met publicly with a white police officer and the person the officer arrested, a black man. And to add to the moment, the president is African American. I think the teachable moment President Obama referred to was that two gentlemen of seemingly different stripes but of one culture can not only meet, but (as they agreed to do) meet again and again.

 

Sgt. Crowley assists Prof. Gates as President Obama leads the way

President Obama issued this statement:

"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," the president's statement said. "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."

And I think everyone did, even if Sapporo, my personal favorite beer, wasn't on the menu, (Obama had a Bud Light, Crowley chose Blue Moon, and Gates had Samuel Adams) it was still gratifying to see the four men sit together and talk. It provides a great example for a country that seems ready to split over differences of opinion. We have to get to the point of communicating openly and often and without fear. While it's hard to know exactly what was said between the men, we can read between the lined in Crowley's press conference - in the video - when he said "We agreed to disagree." It's not hard to determine what they disagreed about.

In the arrest of Gates, basically because Crowley judged him to be disobedient after what turned out to be a case of a mistaken 911 call in since Gates was entering his own home, Crowley said he was "going by the book" or word to that effect. But the whole point of critics of racial profiling is that the "book" argument is used all the time. The "book" is tossed out when an officer uses his or her own personal emphathy, and please don't tell me this isn't done. Water Goldstein over at the Huff Post has a great blog on why white guys like him come away from such encounters gaining the help of an officer, and not handcuffs.

Gates and Crowley say: "time to move forward"

In the website "The Root", Professor Gates, its editor and chief, wrote:

Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control. Narratives about race are as old as the founding of this great Republic itself, but these new ones have unfolded precisely when Americans signaled to the world our country’s great progress by overcoming centuries of habit and fear, and electing an African American as President. It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.

In his press conference held after the "summit", Crowley said that both he and Gates would talk again as soon as next week.

That the two plan to meet and seize the moment to create a lesson for America is really exciting. I really believe God made this happen. It's too good to be true that a professor of Black Studies and a police officer who's also an expert in racial profiling are working together and have this exchange to build from. That's a miracle.

Toward American Culture

I hope people realize from this that we really are one people and there's much that binds us together below the surface. I don't know if it's from reduced education spending, longer work hours, or what, but we seem to be less patient with the idea of study and more willing to just go with our prejudices, but that's countered by the ever-more-well-mixed society we live in. We have extremes like the thoughtless Glen Beck (who said the President was racist in a horrible misuse of the term) and the thoughtful Gates and Crowley right before us. With a little communication we'll have more people like Gates and Crowley and far fewer people like Glen Beck.

President Obama's beer bust with Gates and Crowley: a beer poll

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What started as a calamity threatening to divide America has seemingly ended in a planned beer bust at the White House, courtesy of President Barack Obama himself. The ill-advised (in my opinion) arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates by Cambridge Police Officer Sgt. James Crowley four days ago caught the attention of the nation, but it was President Obama's comment that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" and the rather terrible response by the Cambridge Police Union at its press conference , which created a much-needed national conversation about race, law enforcement, and American culture.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, there's no doubt that it has been the political talk of the day, even if much of it was disjointed, nasty, and ignorant, especially online. My first video blog, which asserts that Professor Gates was arrested for being an "uppity black man", has drawn over 355 comments on YouTube.com alone within one day, pushing it to over 2,700 views and the 14th most commented on video in the "News and Politics" section of the giant video-sharing site as of this writing. While demographic data is not yet complete, I can say just by combing through all of the comments that the viewers were overwhelmingly male, and about 80 percent white and 20 percent "of color" at first, then on the second day more people identifying themselves as black (who really knows in the comment section, right?) pushing the result to about 60 percent white to 40 percent of color.

Some of the comments were nasty and some were excellent, but the one I liked best of all was not on YouTube, but on Facebook and made by my long-time friend and Oakland, Bret Harte Junior High School classmate Lars Frkyman (who stared with my other long-time Oakland friend from the same school and from Skyine High School, Bill Boyd, in my "Star Trek Review" vlog), who wrote (and I reprint this with his permission):

You keep fighting that good fight against prejudices. As a white guy growing up in Oakland I was beaten several times cause of the color of my skin by a bunch of ignorant angry...fill in the blank.Later in life I've been hassled by white cops because of the length of my hair and my unshaved face. I think it must be human nature to exert power over anything, whether it be pit bulls, gray hounds, the homeless, gays, women, men you name it, humans will abuse it. I guess the sad fact is there's a bully in every crowd. We've come a long way but we sure do got a long way to go eh?
ps Obama's right..stupid cop! No apology necessarry
Lars

Lars is right. The Crowley / Gates incident was one of institutional racism on the part of Crowley, versus classism on the part of Gates. Crowley keeps saying "I went by the book" which opens the door to the kind of racial profiling African Americans and others are just plain tired of. "Going by the book" just means that Crowley didn't use his own judgment in the matter, plus he let his ego get in the way when he realized this "black man" was yelling at him and not following his orders. Gates' was angry that Crowley entered his house (without a search warrant) and from his point of view did not show him his police ID or look at the professor's identification, and so was going to "inform Crowley of who he was".

Two yaks ramming heads. Only one of the yaks, Gates, represented a group of people who'd had it. Racial profiling has been the bane of the African American existence for too long, and Obama's comment that the "Cambridge Police acted stupidly", even if his words may have been poorly selected, was right on and struck a cord from sea to shining sea.  For Crowley to behave with the proper judgment in this case, many agree, would have been to make no arrest at all. But some officers are hard-wired to feel (not think) they have to make an arrest if the person's black, at least that's the perception of most African American (especially in the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting) and many whites too, like this commenter on my first YouTube video on this issue:

ALL of you are blaming everyone but whos responsible. First the media was the first person to play the race card to be exact it was CNN. Why because it will sell they know it why dont you? I am irish and white my family came to america in the 1910's we where hated by EVERYONE but my family overcame and if you want to blame someone blame the press they are the ones who plaster black men on the news every damn day and now you wonder why people are scared of blacks. All of us need to put this down.

Or just have a good, ice-cold beer or two! In fact, that's what President Obama, Sgt. Crowley, and Professor Gates plan to do at The White House. According to Obama, it was Crowley's idea, and Gates accepted the invitation. In a statement provided to "The Root" , a website covering news from a black perspective where Gates is editor-in-chief, he wrote:

"..if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color...After all, I first proposed that Sgt. Crowley and I meet as early as last Monday. If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

Ok, fine, now what beer should they drink?

The Beer Poll

Having gotten past the arguments, we can watch Obama, Gates, and Crowley have a beer, but what brand? You can pick the beer in my poll below:

create fun quizzes & tests on pollsb.com

As of this writing, Budweiser has the lead over Pabst Blue Ribbon by 12.5 percent. No one picked Miller, while my favorite, Japan's Sapporo beer is even with Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and 12.5 percent picked "Other" beers. In the interest of real diversity, pick Sapporo! But that written, the day Obama, Gates, and Crowley meet for a beer should be called "National Raise a Glass for Diversity Day."

Seriously.

I think it should be a day that people of different stripes deliberately get together to just get along, get to know each other, and have fun. Considering how far America's come in being a true melting pot, it's not hard to do at all.  But the rule should be to have a beer with someone who's of another background and race from your own.  That would be huge!

"Obama not American" believers: are they just racist?

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You know, I'm sick of racists. Just plain tired of em. You know who they are - or maybe they're you. People who are really upset that America elected Barack Obama, a black man, as president but since they feel they can't say so without the anonymity of the Internet, they craft other means of expressing their anger, like hanging on the to the crazy idea that President Obama's not an American citizen.

Even when there's a birth certificate:

Obama's birth certificate

Driven by racism

You know, some contend that racism is a mental illness and if you followed this story you'd get hard evidence to back that claim. It doesn't matter than President Obama's been through election after election, that he has a proven birth certificate, and that his birthday was listed in the Hawaiian newspaper where he was born, nope.

It's not enough for a small group so angry that the President's not white, they've hyped themselves into having faith the president's not American. They get up at meetings and yell and scream and generally talk crazy talk, hoping someone will listen, but then only the site Free Republic, which is conservative, does.

Think about it.

Have you seen a large number of blacks saying "Obama's not American?" Of course not. You've only heard one black guy: Allan Keys and as much as I personally like him, have observed him use white racism for his own purposes yet cry when someone's being racist toward him and employ a steady diet of nutso conservatism as a tool to achieve his own political ends.

Keys loves playing the "harmless-to-whites-black-guy" role, a black catholic who blindly sides with Israel only for political score points, all the better to raise money for some future campaign. Alan's angry that Barack was the first black elected official to score with whites; he's jealous because he's tried to get elected to something so many times and lost time and time again; Barack's success just pisses him off.  Obama beat him for the Illinois Senate in 2004, and now he's President of The United States, and Alan just can't take it.

Alan's the crazy brother you tolerate and like, even as you feel sorry for him, and I do. When racists want to say they're not racist, they hold up their Alan Keyes puppet for show.

Oh brother. Oh, God, save us from these people for they no not what they do. They include Rush Limbaugh, who's wickedly stupid statements on this are so entertaining, I can see why he gets $400 million because while some believe this guy, others love to listen to a great mental train wreck. Only Limbaugh would get it wrong by stating Obama lacks a birth certificate and that Liberals don't love God.

I do and I'm Liberal.

But back to the main point, FactCheck.org has seen, and reportedly touched the birth certificate. Period. Obama was born in the U.S.A.  Of course, some people want to believe otherwise, but then while they claim to believe in God, they've certainly got the Devil in them.

North Korea: Free Journalists Or Face Military Action

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As I write this, video journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to jail for 12 years of hard labor. While they're charged with 'tresspassing" into North Korea during a project where they were reportedly covering the story of the trafficing of women. Interesting that North Korea would not want such a story covered, eh?

I've thought about this and now recall the ideas of my professor Robert Scalapino at Berkeley, who advocated a nuanced way that America could cause this Leninist state to move toward Democracy. But that was 1989; these current moves show a country that has little interest in personal freedom and every interest in power.

Kim Jong-il has assesed the World's economic situation, rightly determined it terrible, and estimated this time was the best to make his move. He wants desperately to be considered the leader of a nuclear power and over the last three weeks alone has made moves that are certainly so provacative as to flirt with the very idea of war.

Why else would he basically kidnap - forget the kangaroo court - Euna Lee and Laura Ling? It was a stupid move to say the least and not just because they're American, but Asian. Kim Jong-il's now managed to piss off everyone not in North Korea, and moved the war clock pretty close to a possible scenario of bombing the hell out of the military installations there, should any harm come to those Americans.

Look, what I think President Obama should do is negotiate with Kim Jong-il even as the U.S. Military and the CIA are planning and executing a strategy of getting Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of jail.

How?

There's got to be a way we can get a radar-invisible helicopter over that area, drop troups in an isolated place nearby at night, shoot anyone who comes to attack them, make way for more troup drops, get over to that prison, break in, and get them. Then as they're out, have the helicopter land, get them on board, and get them out. As they reach altitude, they would be joined by our stealth bombers which would protect them as they fly out and over to South Korea.

Done.

Look. I know this is risky, but frankly I'm totally sick of Kim Jong-il's behavior toward American and the World and North Korea's gone too far. Plus, he's got to answer for interrupting an investigation into female trafficing along his boarders. If Kim Jong-il's trying to test President Obama, he forgets that American citizens will back whatever agressive decision Obama makes.

There's a growing feeling that we're being pushed around because of the perception that our economy's in the tank. First, we had the Somali Pirates, which ended with some casualties but it was necessary. Now this, and it seems miliary action's needed again.

Enough already with North Korea. As The Thing would say, "It's Clobberin' Time!"

Susan Boyle to Sing For President Obama July 4th

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Susan Boyle, who I explained on Monday had a total right to hate the show "Britain's Got Talent," after the way the show's producers treater her and the media hounded her into an emotional breakdown landing her in a mental hospital called Priory Clinic in the UK, and may miss the planned BGT concert tour, has been invited to sing before US President Barack Obama on the 4th of July.

According to the website Entertainmentwise.com and the Daily Record, Boyle's brother Gerry said "Her dream is still very much alive. In fact, it's only just starting... She's been battered non-stop for the last seven weeks and it has taken its toll. But she'll be looking forward now to the Fourth of July."

It's fitting that the American President Obama would step in to clean up a British mess with the way Boyle, an overnight international superstar, was treated. Now, Boyle can get her rest, forget the zoo tour that the BGT minders have set for her, and sing for Obama.

Boyle expressed it was her dream to sing before the Queen of England, but now she'll get to croon before the most powerful person in the World.

That's just rewards for her, and punishment for the producers of Britain's Got Talent. Bravo, President Obama!

If you didn't know what happened to Boyle this week, here's my video as a recap:



Oh, and no, there's more news out there. Stick around...

Rush Limbaugh's Wrong, Sonia Sotomayor's Not Racist

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I'm sure anyone black or white can relate to this because it's a common conversation:

White person to me: "I as a white person don't know what it's like to be in your shoes as someone black.

Me to the white person: "Well, you can do it; I don't mean to be insulting but it's called empathy. I have a lot of white friends who get the experience just by having black friends."

I've had that episode replayed over and over again in my life, though less so today than in the past. I've never thought the white person who was in the conversation - and they have been many people - was racist. Indeed, I did think they were race-concious and that's a very good thing.

Why? Simple. Because that person's not being colorblind and for that moment at least recognizes that it's really impossible and a total joke to be "colorblind". We make choices positively or negatively who we want to associate with regarding a person's skin color every day. In my case, having a diverse set of friends is extremely important because it shapes and keeps in check my "world view". A racially complex set of friends keeps you're mind sharp and makes life fun.

It's for that reason I assert Supreme Court Justice Designate Sonia Sotomayor's not racist. She's certainly as race-concious as the white persons who've made the statement I opened with, but that's not being racist. To be racist is to put another person down because of their skin. Period. Moreover Sotomayor's 2001 comment in a very long speech given at U.C. Berkeley (and called "A Latina Judge's Voice) reads like this:

"First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Think about that, and combine it with the statement I presented and made to me many times by someone white. It's the flip-side of the white person's statement. Think about it. Think again. Sotomayor's 2001 comment essentially confirms what has been said to me many times and some of the white persons who said this were, drumroll please, conservative and all male come to think of it.

So what's the real problem? Well, there isn't one; it's manufactured by a conservative PR machine led by radio yeller Rush Limbaugh, always feeding the minders of his $400 million broadcast contract, and repeated by television producers seeking ratings to maintain a level of post-election political interest. Gotta have something to get your blood going and this is red meat for some folks, especially Limbaugh.

But Rush, in his zeal to pin Sotomayor as racist, has started telling lies. He said on his show today, Wednesday,...

"I mean, when she says that she'd do a better job than a white guy, what is it? It's racism. It's reverse racism, whatever but it's still racism. She would bring a form of racism, bigotry to the court."

But she didn't say that.

The comment I presented by Sotomayor above was made in a remark about how judges have responded to civil rights cases over our history. Since that has impacted people of color, Sotomayor was simply saying a wise person of color -- in this case a Latina woman judge - with experience would hopefully make a better decision in that context than someone white and male who did not have the experience.

We have to pay attention to what is said here in specific. Indeed, if I were to challenge Rush in person he'd have to admit he was wrong, if he was honest with me, of course. The bottom line is because we as a World don't know how to talk about race, the door's open for folks like Rush to confuse the discourse.

We Need To Learn How To Talk About Race

The real problem is some people, regardless of color, don't know how to talk about race. Too often conversations focus just on their personal perception of a racial issue rather than a broad read of what people do. (I'm not discounting the value of a personal perception, just the application of it. Ok? Really stop and think about what I'm explaining before you react here. Thanks.)

For example, I tried to explain to a friend why her friend, who was making and selling a product like the terrible "Obama Waffles", was doing a bad thing, very racist in that it took a black stereotype and used it to make fun of President Obama. I further explained that her friend's product would be roundly panned in the blogsphere and give her friend a bad name.

My friend, who's white and not involved with the product, reacted defensively and then launched into an explaination of why she's not racist, which wasn't my assertion at all as I was talking about her friend's product not her. I explained that we're not talking about her or her experiences and I know she's not racist, but she's got to understand how society around her is changing and what's acceptable and what's not. After a time of a lot of frank and a bit rought talk, she understood what I was saying and said she'd talk to her friend. Oh, and we're still the best of friends.

But episodes like that mean we need to take stock of what's happening beyond our personal experience. It's good to get a constant statistical and content read on how society is changing (Marketers are you paying attention?) so you're not caught in the backwash of social change.

The GOP's fighting this problem right now and Limbaugh - as the GOP's standard bearer - by calling Sotomayor racist, has once again revealed its own racism.

The reality is, even with people like former Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-Colo.) staffer, conservative writer, and activist Marcus Epstein pleading guilty to the hate crime of calling an innocent black woman the N-word and striking her with a karate chop in 2007 (he says he wants a second chance and accepts that he behaved terribly, which is an understatement.), we've still come a long way in America. You don't have to be black to understand the black experience or Latino to "get" the latino experience, or Asian to feel the Asian experience, or white to get the white experience, but all of us try, accept our physical limitations, and listen.

A lot. With love.

Yeah, that word again.

Boxer Demands Obama Pick A Woman For Supreme Court

 

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Like other supporters, I received this email letter from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, but this one was pointed right at one of my favorite subjects: "Who should be Justice David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court?"

After not much stewing on the matter, I would guess, Senator Boxer wants it officially known: President Obama's choice must be a woman and she's taking to the Internets to make it known. I still favor Kathleen Sullivan for the job so no harm there; this is what Senator Boxer wrote:

Dear Zenophon,

Women make up 51% of our nation's population.

Yet only 17% of the seats in Congress are held by women. Only 3% of corporate CEOs are women. And just one out of nine Supreme Court justices is a woman.

President Obama can change that.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Since Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the Supreme Court four years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the sole female Justice.

Now, with Justice Souter's recent retirement announcement, President Obama has a chance to nominate an intelligent, well-qualified person to the Supreme Court — and I believe that person should be a woman.

We need a Supreme Court that is more representative of all Americans, so that its decisions better reflect the diversity of life experiences and points-of-view in America.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Many pundits have warned President Obama to make his choice based on merit — and I agree. In fact, there are many highly qualified women to choose from.

When 96 percent of all Supreme Court Justices throughout our history have been men, clearly it is evident that we need another woman on the Court.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

When asked recently how it felt to be the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg simply replied, "Lonely."

It's time to change that.

Thanks for your help.

In Friendship,

Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator

Did you get that you're supposed to email President Obama?

I think its important to add that in a diverse society we must have a diverse Supreme Court that can make a contemporary set of laws rather than laws from another less diverse time in America. That written, we have the battle between Latinos, African Americans, women, and according to TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin, white men.

So what to do?

Obama should pick the person who has the best set of qualifications and I just can't see anyone better than Kathleen Sullivan. Period.

Ok. Your thoughts?