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Teachable Moments
This is the headline at The Root:
“Gates Says ‘Yes’ to Beer with Crowley.” And the sub-headline: “In a statement to The Root, the Harvard professor says he would meet with the cop who arrested him, as President Obama has suggested.”
I know that there are many cynics out there who will sneer at this and call it a gimmick or a publicity stunt, but I say it’s not. If both sides take this seriously and go into it with open minds and hearts, good things could happen.
I think it’s safe to say that this would not have happened if anyone other than Barack Obama had been president. For all the disagreements I have with him on a few specific issues, the man is extraordinary.
22 Responses to “Teachable Moments”
I agree that it is a teachable moment, but it should be a teachable moment in both directions.
Those in positions of power should be aware of the real history of racism in our country and its lingering effects on how whites and minorities view certain situations. We need to be aware of our subconscious prejudices and also be sensitive to those who are prone to be defensive because of their life experiences. I'm not advocated a touchy-feely approach to law inforcement–just a conscious effort to be fair.
Minorities can learn that they are not victims every time a police officer talks to them. On public radio yesterday, a man called in a claimed to the victim of racial profiling because a police car once followed him for a few blocks through a bad neighborhood. Guess what? That's happened to me too. It's part of a policeman's job to watch people and ask questions when something looks suspicious (like someone trying to jimmy a door open).
So, I'm not opposed to making this a teaching moment, as long as the teaching goes both ways. I actually hadn't read Gates statement until now, and I'm a little put off that it appears he intends to do all of the teaching, and not any of the learning. I think he ought to invite the police man to co-host the PBS documentary with him. I've heard he's taught classes on racial profiling so I'm sure he had some valuable input.
In Gates statement it sounds like he wants to use his experience to lead “to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling”. If so I'm not sure the lesson he's planning at the teachable moment is the same as Crowley would have in mind, since Crowley has said that was not a factor.
I didn't think the story had enough lines in the story for you two to read so much into so I went back and read the story a second time… still don't see anything that supports your negative innuendos…
Would either of you care to point out what part of the story you're having trouble with?
SteveK do you read anything in Gates remarks that says he's taking responsibility for his actions or expressing any regret for them? To me it sounds like he is saying Crowley was in the wrong but Gates will be a big man and have a beer with him anyway. He brings up racial profiling twice so the assumption is that he thinks it is relevant to what happened.
I don't know, what do you think the lesson is that he is trying to teach?
Sorry DaGoat, I still don't understand the point you're trying to make and your saying that “it sounds to me like he is saying” doesn't help.. Maybe if you'd quote the part of his comment that makes you feel that “he's planning on doing all the teaching”.
Though this is off topic and has nothing to do with my question to you I'll sidestep and reply that from the articles and interviews I've read NEITHER of them are taking responsibility for their actions… NEITHER of them are expressing any regret… And, BOTH of them are saying the other was wrong. The only thing positive that's come out of this it that they BOTH say they'll be willing to have a beer with each other.
Back to the 'lesson' business:
I think the key words in that sentence was “I DON'T KNOW” and I don't know either however instead of tossing around negative comments or disparaging remarks about either of their motives I'm going to try to keep an open mind until it plays itself out.
Meanwhile it doesn't seem to make sense assuming that either Gates or Crowley are trying to teach anyone anything though it's obvious that they'd both like to have their positions and point-of-views heard.
SteveK -
NEITHER of them are taking responsibility for their actions… NEITHER of them are expressing any regret… And, BOTH of them are saying the other was wrong
A very valid point.
I think the key words in that sentence was “I DON'T KNOW” and I don't know either however instead of tossing around negative comments or disparaging remarks about either of their motives I'm going to try to keep an open mind until it plays itself out.
Sounds reasonable to me.
In the spirit of the teaching moment if Kathy is ever in eastern Iowa I will buy her a beer.
Kathy, you've got a beer waiting for you in Washington, as well. But I completely disagree that beers-at-the White House could only happen in a world where Barack Obama is president. Isn't the one who really deserves credit for this sit down none other than Sgt. James Crowley? (I think I read, though, that Gates is also taking credit for the idea of a friendly chat. Either way, it certainly wasn't Obama's idea.)
Also, it was long before Barack Obama became president that Sgt. Crowley became an instructor at his local police academy, teaching courses on race and policing. I'm not saying that police in general have no issues to work on, but some very significant strides toward toleration and equality were made long before Obama entered the White House. Let's give Obama credit where he deserves it, like for the stimulus package that kept unemployment at 8%, just like the White House promised. (Sorry, cheap shot. Couldn't resist!)
He brings up racial profiling twice so the assumption is that he thinks it is relevant to what happened.
It IS relevant to what happened, even if you think it isn't, and even if the police officer thinks it wasn't. Sometimes I wonder if you and some others around here ever really listen to what people say when it doesn't fit your world view. And by “people” I mean, like Obama in everything he has said, especially in his impromptu press conference, and all the broad diversity of commentary there has been on this incident in the media and in the blogosphere.
First, it's imossible to objectively prove or disprove the involvement of racial profiling in any one incident like this.Second, even if it could be definitively proved that racial profiling was not involved at all, the point is larger than that. Obama SAID it, right in his comments! If you disagree, fine, make your case. But you don't seem even to HEAR these things.
Plus, it's rich for you to say that Gates seems to think he'll be doing all the teaching, as if you have not made it perfectly clear that in your opinion he has nothing to teach and Officer Crowley is the only one who has anything (valuable) to teach. You're just as one-sided on this as you accuse Gates of being.
SteveK, the part that I object to in Gates' statement is the assumption that it is based on that he is clearly the victim of racial profiling, without any acknowledgment that that conclusion is at least debatable. And he said he was willing to meet with Crowley in order to further his cause, not out of a desire for reconciliation as I believe the president intended.
And you are right–Sgt. Crowley is equally unwilling to admit any wrong-doing, but I was struck by
Gates' one-sided statement right after Obama's well-spoken attempt to reach reconciliation. Also, from what I have seen it seems to be Gates that is trying to keep this issue going (a new PBS documentary?) while Sgt. Crowley mainly seems interested in getting the press off his lawn and moving on with his life. If Sgt. Crowley had issued a statement right after the president's statement saying that he was looking forward to starting a compaign to raise awareness for how tough the police have it to have to deal with irrational people all the time, I'd be equally as critical.
Well, thank you, DaGoat and David, for those offers of a beer if I am in D.C. or Iowa.
David, it was Pres. Obama who proposed that Crowley, Gates, and himself get together for a beer at the White House sometime. It's to Crowley's credit (and to Gates's) that they accepted, but neither of them were the ones who brought it up initially.
And I think you misunderstood what I mean when I said that turning this incident into a teachable moment could only have happened with Obama as president. My point is that this incident, although it happened in a particular place and would seem to have only or mostly local significance, actually has quite broader significance than that. That's perfectly clear from what Obama said, even if you didn't know it already.
Whatever efforts Officer Crowley has been involved in that may have helped to reduce the incidence of racial profiling, or were intended to do so, would be unknown to anyone outside of the Boston area. By contrast, the whole country (and world) is going to read and hear about the results of the Crowley-Gates beer and chat. The teachable moment lies in becoming aware that a personal or seemingly isolated conflict has wider and larger implications, and to start to become aware of what those are.
I don't think that the above describes anything Crowley has done or said so far. Which is not a criticism; it's just the nature of the context here. Crowley and Gates were the ones IN the conflict, who each created it with their actions and responses. Pres. Obama is the one who was not directly involved, became involved (not entirely by choice), and chose to be a third party who could provide a larger framework.
And I don't know, I don't understand, really, why this even has to be explained. It seems so intuitively obvious to me, what makes this a teachable moment. Not a criticism, really; just — frustration. I don't get the difficulty people are having in getting these concepts.
“Plus, it's rich for you to say that Gates seems to think he'll be doing all the teaching, as if you have not made it perfectly clear that in your opinion he has nothing to teach and Officer Crowley is the only one who has anything (valuable) to teach. You're just as one-sided on this as you accuse Gates of being”
This isn't directed at me at all, is it? Honest question.
“Sometimes I wonder if you and some others around here ever really listen to what people say when it doesn't fit your world view.”
I completely agree. I honestly mean this with respect and not in a snarky way (not sure if that will make a difference): have you spent much time considering how your listening skills stack up? Because from what I've seen, compared to other bloggers, you are pretty sure of your own view and one of the least likely to try to understand where someone who disagrees with you is coming from. You are also one of the quickest to ascribe ulterior motives to anyone who disagrees with your world view. I'm not trying to be mean or start a big fight (probably too late for that). Just some honest criticism.
“First, it's impossible to objectively prove or disprove the involvement of racial profiling in any one incident like this.Second, even if it could be definitively proved that racial profiling was not involved at all, the point is larger than that.”
As you rightly said, we don't really know whether racial profiling was an issue here. So if you were Sgt. Crowley, would you object to being made the poster-boy for racial profiling? Would you feel OK with people saying, “Well, we don't know if you really engage in racial profiling, but we'll still use this incident to educate the public about the evils of racial profiling. And we'll have the guy you arrested by the principle spokesperson”. You'd be OK with that?
the part that I object to in Gates' statement is the assumption that it is based on that he is clearly the victim of racial profiling, without any acknowledgment that that conclusion is at least debatable.
Well, Steve, hasn't Officer Crowley led us to believe that he assumes Gates was clearly NOT the victim of racial profiling, without any acknowledgment that that conclusion is at least debatable?
I don't understand (and this goes to others here as well) how this notion can be clear as crystal when you're thinking about one side, and so hard to wrap your brain around when applied to the other side. It's just puzzling to me.
the point is larger than that.</b?
You forgot “its for the children.”
I don't think I have seen it described better than it just was by adelinesdad -
have you spent much time considering how your listening skills stack up? Because from what I've seen, compared to other bloggers, you are pretty sure of your own view and one of the least likely to try to understand where someone who disagrees with you is coming from. You are also one of the quickest to ascribe ulterior motives to anyone who disagrees with your world view.
Well put, indeed.
This isn't directed at me at all, is it? Honest question.
No, that one wasn't, although I can see that you might think I think it applies to you. You weren't in my mind when I wrote that. It was entirely a reaction to DaGoat's comment. I usually try to remember to say when I'm aiming a comment at more than one person, although I can slip sometimes.
Because from what I've seen, compared to other bloggers, you are pretty sure of your own view and one of the least likely to try to understand where someone who disagrees with you is coming from. You are also one of the quickest to ascribe ulterior motives to anyone who disagrees with your world view.
Well, I'm not a moderate or a centrist. I have strong left-liberal views and I express them. I'm very opinionated, and if that's a fault (and maybe it is), I own up to it. I think you have a point about being quick to ascribe ulterior motives, too. I'm aware of that and it's definitely something I need to work on. I *am* sure of my own view, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but Ialso think I can change my mind, maybe not on an entire issue but certainly on specific points, if I'm given a reason I find persuasive. I actually did that on this very issue, although maybe the shift did not get conveyed from my head onto the page as well as it should have. Basically, I read some things that made me more sympathetic to the officer's position — not that he was right and Gates was wrong, but that both contributed to making the situation what it became, and also I read one specific article that made a point I hadn't thought of at all — that part of the reason for how things escalated might be because of the tension that exists, under the surface, between “Ivy Leaguers” like Gates and working class professionals like the police. There's resentment there, and I have no doubt it's not entirely undeserved. And that has nothing to do with color. After I read that I began to think about Crowley in a more nuanced way.
So if you were Sgt. Crowley, would you object to being made the poster-boy for racial profiling?
Sgt. Crowley is not being made the poster boy for racial profiling. That is not an accurate framing or interpretation of what's going on here.
Would you feel OK with people saying, “Well, we don't know if you really engage in racial profiling, but we'll still use this incident to educate the public about the evils of racial profiling. And we'll have the guy you arrested by the principle spokesperson”.
Nobody has said that or implied that. That's an interpretation, and I don't think it's accurate. I don't know what else to say. I mean, Pres. Obama spoke to this very point you're making so eloquently, and I can't do any better than he did, but again, like I said to DaGoat, what he said does not seem to have coalesced in your mind to the point where you could apply it to this concern you have and understand why this incident becomes an example of the issue of racial profiling even if Crowley had no such thing in mind and even if Gates saw racial profiling where it didn't exist.
Plus, I'm wondering if anyone accused of racial profiling would actually agree that he or she had engaged in it. Who *should* we use, or what incident *should* we take as an opportunity to teach about a real, genuine, serious underlying issue that is larger than that single incident? We have to take our teachable moments where we find them. As the parent of a small child, you've got to be aware of that already.
As I said in another thread, I respect what Obama said and I agree with most of it. My issue is not with him. And like I said in my first comment, this can be a teaching moment if it is not all one sided. I disagree with you that this is not being framed as “let's use this incident to teach about racial profiling.” I'd maybe agree that we should use this incident to teach about race relations in general and what happens when two different world-views collide, or how two good people can end up in a bad situation if they are not both careful about how their actions are perceived by the other. But there are certainly many people, most importantly Gates, who want this to be about racial profiling only, which implies that Sgt. Crowley must be a racial profiler. If I were in his shoes, I would not be OK with that. And I'll also throw out there that the only person that really knows if this was racial profiling is Sgt. Crowley. So he is justified in defending himself if he knows he's telling the truth. Gates is not as justified in assuming he knows the intentions of another person. Gates can only *think* he was the victim of racial profiling. He can't know it as he implies he does. Sgt Crowley can know. So I would not expect him to issue a statement saying, “I don't think I racially profiled, but who knows?”.
Thank you, by the way, for taking my criticism as I intended it, and not letting it get you upset. I appreciate your measured response.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. There are more important things for me to attend to at the moment.
if Professor Gates and Officer Crowley meet, it will carry far more weight if they do it privately and without any press releases or bs after. It's between two men. The fore part might have been public. It will be hard to keep it from looking like lotd of covert agendasif it turns out to be another vapid reason for another week of newscycle folderol as stirred by all sides. Teachable moment works better on finding commonality in all directions by both men, and learning… by both men. That;'s hard to do if the agenda is to vindicate or lord, or crow, or avoid more bs by pretending. Just my two cents worth
dr.e
If anyone other than Barack Obama had been president, he or she would not have criticized a police officer without having the facts.
If anyone other than Barack Obama had been president, he or she would not have criticized a police officer without having the facts.
What about criticizing Henry Louis Gates, Jr., without having all the facts? Is it somehow worse to criticize a police officer without all the facts than to criticize a private citizen who may have been unjustly treated by that police officer without all the facts?
The very same people who have been yelling at Obama for saying Crowley “acted stupidly” without having all the facts have not, apparently, felt it necessary to exercise the same caution about judging the intentions, behavior, and motivations of Prof. Gates.
There's a double standard and a one-sidedness to this stance I'm hearing about “getting all the facts” before voicing an opinion that very much disturbs me.
Let me try to summarize the case as it exists on the national stage (which is completely different from the actual situation on the ground):
1) One group of people needed no facts to decide Gates was right, but they did need facts to see Crowley's side.
2) The second group of people needed no facts to decide Crowley was right, but they did need facts to see Gates' side.
3) A certain portion of each of those groups will never see the other side, period.
4) Even after the case is entirely resolved and both parties meet in private to make their peace, a number of people will continue to beat this dead horse for weeks because it makes a political point they want to make, not because they give a darn about Crowley or Gates, police treatment or racial history.
I think Pacatrue's last statement is about right, and in regard to Kathy's question about whether or not it is worse to presume guilt on the part of the police officer vs. presuming guilt on the part of Gates- I think the point is that the POTUS should know better than to do either one, and (a) is the one he actually did. He has since walked back on it somewhat, but has stopped short of actually saying that the police officer acted completely in accordance with his training so there remains some accusation that Obama made initially which hasn't been rescinded. I suppose some people still dispute the latter parts of the incident which led to the arrest, and I think there's some reasonable debate on that part (though like many, many other white citizens, my own personal feeling is that we ALL live by the 'code' that says you don't talk smack to a police officer, and that has nothing to do with race. And again, reasonable people can agree that this shouldn't be so, that we shouldn't be so deferential when it enables some police officers to misuse their authority- but that still doesn't make it racial.)
Well, Steve, hasn't Officer Crowley led us to believe that he assumes Gates was clearly NOT the victim of racial profiling, without any acknowledgment that that conclusion is at least debatable? I don't see how that point is debatable at all at this point.
For one thing, first define racial profiling. The only way you can make that charge stick in this situation is to define it as “a feeling that a minority person gets that they've been unfairly targeted by police.” That's really not a reasonable standard for police officers to use in assessing their own actions.
Really, think about it. There's no doubt that racial profiling happens, and that it's a problem. But what it consists of is an officer randomly suspecting a minority citizen of a crime, and pulling him/her over or questioning him/her without a reasonable rationale for treating that person as a suspect with probable cause.
There was nothing even remotely like that in this situation, unless you perhaps want to pin it on the passerby who saw two black men breaking into a home and assumed that it was a burglary without considering the alternate explanation that the resident was breaking into his own home. But would we want people to be so concerned about accusations of racial profiling that they fail to report incidents which they witness which have a high probability of being crimes in progress?
The second part of the incident which apparently is contentious was that the officer asked Prof. Gates to step out of his home. Multiple sources familiar with police protocol confirm though, that this is SOP when responding to calls of home invasions. The perfectly logical reasons include the possibilities of a resident who is unaware that burglars may be in his home (which would clearly put him in danger) or that there could be either a hostage or domestic dispute in progress which is leading the person to come to the door and tell the police that there's no problem and they're not needed (a claim obviously which could be made under coercion and duress.)
Prof. Gates, judging by his reaction, seemed to assume that this request was disrespectful to him and based on his race.
Obama's more recent comments on teachable moments suggest that he might see one part of that 'teaching' relating to the way black citizens might at times be overreacting to standard police actions by presuming that they are being treated differently than white citizens. If so, that would be a positive step IMO, because the facts of this case as they have been reported suggest that Prof. Gates' overreaction at that early moment of the interaction led to the escalation. And there may be something for people on both sides of those incidents to learn- that black people shouldn't assume racist intent when it is not there (as all citizens are asked to cooperate and comply with certain requests from police officers performing their duties), and that perhaps police officers ought to explain their requests if the other person involved seems resistant to them.