The so-called beer summit between President Barack Obama, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police officer sergeant James Crowley took place without incident on July 30 at the White House.
The meeting came after a 10-day media frenzy following Gates' arrest at his home for "disorderly conduct" on July 16. This came after police received a call about a break-in at his home and despite the fact he provided evidence he lived there.
No one apologised or seriously discussed what happened. Gates maintained he was wrongly arrested. Crowley said he was doing his job.
At a press conference with his lawyer, Crowley said "we agree that we disagree" and must move on.
The far-right, racist wing of the media attacked Obama as merely a "Black" president. One right-wing blowhard on the far-right Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox Network called Obama a "racist" who hates white people — despite the fact his mother was white.
If you thought the election of Obama opened a new era of "post racialism", you can think again. Racism is still alive and well — barely hidden.
For that reason, Obama tried to reel in the backlash and organised what the press called a "beer summit". He even said his comment that the Cambridge cop "acted stupidly" with the arrest should have been "recalibrated".
He did not, however, take back his comments about the problems of racial profiling that persist in the US.
Crowley's arrogance
Crowley came to the White House after declaring he was in the right, even though the facts proved otherwise.
The police were responding to an emergency caller reporting a potential break-in by two men (Gates and a friend entering Gates' home). The emergency caller never referred to the race of the men and even said she thought they could be entering their own home.
Yet the police report written by Crowley referred to race.
Gates did not scream, as Crowley falsely charged. Crowley never spoke to the caller at the scene. He made the arrest using handcuffs within seven minutes of the call.
He also knew Gates lived there.
Most Black people believe that if Gates had been a white Harvard professor, he would not have been arrested.
Yet the white racist backlash was so fierce that Obama had to do something to cool the outrage.
Most Black men, including myself, have suffered racial profiling — by cops, landlords, lenders and employers.
What you normally do is simply move on. Generally, it's better to "chill" than have a confrontation.
Two Americas
While Obama likes to say there is only one United States, "not a Black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America" (as he did in his speech to the 2004 Democratic Party national convention), this isn't the case.
African Americans of all classes overwhelmingly understood the actions as that of a "rogue cop" (as Gates first explained). Many whites instead rallied to defend the white cop.
Even many liberal whites who voted for Obama were upset with his comment that the cop "acted stupidly" and that Gates would not have been arrested if he was white.
The fact that the charges were dropped in four hours (proof it was bogus), and he was arrested at his own home shows he was arrested for being an angry Black man.
It turned out the cop knew right away he was not a burglar and a Harvard professor, as he showed his ID. Gates also uses a walking cane.
What happened is not atypical. The criminal system is not colourblind. In mid-2008, 4777 out of every 100,000 Black men were jailed. imprisoned. By comparison, there were only 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white men.
Many white people have said this proves Blacks are a more criminal element, especially given the higher unemployment and poverty rates among African Americans.
Yet consider that a greater percentage of whites use illicit drugs than Blacks. But Black men are sent to prison at 13 times the rate of white men.
Prominent civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said structural discrimination was behind racial profiling. He noted racial profiling — assuming that being Black makes you more likely to be committing a crime or questionable actions — is also behind real estate red lining, subprime loans targeting minorities, and denial of jobs and promotions based on skin colour.
There has been progress, as evidenced in the rise of a Black middle class. That elite, however, realises the arrest of Gates shows even they aren't safe from blatant racism.
The racial profiling debate is just the tip of the iceberg in the rise of a racist backlash against the Obama presidency. He was attacked for his nomination of the first Latino to the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, who was called a racist by the right for being proud of her Puerto Rican heritage.
There is an organised racist campaign claiming Obama is not really a US-born citizen. These "birthers" claim Obama was actually born in Kenya — home of his father. The US Constitution declares only a US citizen born in the US can be president.
The state of Hawaii has provided proof of his birth certificate, but elected Republican officials jumped on the bandwagon claiming Obama is not really "one of us".
Some liberals and leftists dismiss these elements as the "lunatic fringe". But US history shows how a well-organised racist minority can take over mainstream parties.
It is a mistake not to respond to these racist attacks.
Strong response needed
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, an African American, offered the case of "30 Black and Hispanic youngsters — male and female — who were [arrested while] doing nothing more than walking peacefully down a quiet street in Brooklyn [New York] in broad daylight in the spring of 2007. The kids had to hire lawyers and fight the case for nearly two frustrating years before the charges were dropped and a settlement for their outlandish arrests were worked out."
They were the lucky ones. Cops do this all the time — and get away with it. Poor Blacks can't afford lawyers and can't fight bogus charges. At best, they make a deal and have a "criminal" record for life.
"White America" isn't interested in a serious discussion about racial profiling and race, even though Obama talked about it after his election. He talked about the history of race relations on his trip to Africa and at the 100th anniversary of the oldest civil rights group, the NAACP in July.
But the mainstream media barely mentioned his references to slavery being similar to the Holocaust or the need to learn the historical lessons of the slave trade.
Many ordinary white people believe Blacks and Latinos are "reverse racists" for pointing out this history and structural discrimination in the system. However, the winner in this divisive effort promoted by the right is the ruling elite.
Reverse racism is a nonsensical concept, since racism is based on the ideology of racial supremacy. African Americans are fighting for equality, not supremacy over whites.
The debate over racial profiling shows why civil rights organisations and grassroots alliances are needed. These must lead the fight to push back racial profiling and racist attacks, even those directed at Obama.
It doesn't matter what Obama's positions are on foreign policy or his defence of the interest of Wall Street and US world domination — when he is attacked for his race it is an attack on all people of colour.
Whenever a racist campaign is aimed at him and other prominent African Americans, it is directed at the real gains in civil rights won over the past three decades.
The racial profile of Gates by a white cop was an attack on all African Americans and people of colour. It won't go away by drinking a beer or pretending that both sides have an understandable point of view.
That's why the lesson of the Gates racial profiling case is not to chill out, but respond with outrage and demand the cop be held accountable for the abuse of police power.
[Malik Miah is an editor of the socialist magazine Against The Current and longtime civil rights and labour activist.]