Juan Williams wrote a best-selling history of the Civil Rights movement, Eyes on the Prize, and a biography of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, so one would think his commentary on American attitudes toward race and their complexity would be more intelligent than they were this morning on NPR. He was talking with host Steve Inskeep about Pres. Obama's comments on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates (I looked for a transcript of the conversation and couldn't find it; teh Googles has failed me). He kept saying that this incident couldn't be a "teaching moment" on race (one of the stupider things I have heard, but it's out there) because the facts of the case don't support a simple racial interpretation of it. That's true to the extent that it is now clear the Cambridge police officer didn't arrest Gates because he was a black man in a nice house.
Yet, Williams had to acknowledge that race was a factor, but it was complicated by issues of class (he used "town-gown"; can't there be a way to keep journalists from using cliches?). So, if race was a factor, only complicated by class, how is this not a "teachable moment"? I mean, it might be kind of important to talk about issues of race, law enforcement, and class, don't you think?
He also said that Pres. Obama made a boo-boo when he said, when asked initially about the incident, that the arresting officer "acted stupidly". See, some people (never identified, but really just the usual racist nincompoops) interpreted this as Obama taking sides in a racial argument. Considering the history of law enforcement and African-Americans, I'm not sure how this was wrong. Even with all the facts in, and despite Williams' insistence that this wasn't an instance of racial profiling, race was indeed a factor. Just not the only factor. The President was not "taking sides" in a racial matter. And why shouldn't he make a point to say that the officer in this case might have taken a moment before he arrested Gates, regardless of the latter's actions? Did the officer in question act stupidly? Is the mix of race and class complicated by the fact that, as Williams noted, the mayor of Cambridge, the governor of Massachusetts, and the President of the United States are all African-American? Does the reality that we have more and more African-American in positions of power and authority mitigate the reality of racial profiling, and the knee-jerk reaction of many blacks toward potential abuses of power by the police? Does it mitigate the reality of racial profiling? Any individual with a consciousness of our national racial history is going to take in the fact that a black man, prominent or not, was arrested in his own home after an initial call about B&E and think it happened solely because of race. Before I knew all the facts, that's what I thought.
I still think race was a factor, Williams' insistence notwithstanding. Yes, it was complicated by class, as well as Prof. Gates' behavior. Yet, wouldn't you be indignant if you were confronted by the police for attempting to enter your own home? Would you sit still for being arrested? Seems to me the whole "uppity" thing is raising its ugly, pointed, hooded head.
So, yeah, there is a teachable moment here, as the current phrase du jour has it. It is just more complicated, and it isn't made any easier by people like Juan Williams trying to ignore these complications.
