The arrest of Henry Louis Gates, and all that has followed it provides countless different angles to explore, but I want to just focus attention on the following. First is the little-known fact that this wasn't an isolated incident. There's a persistent problem with blacks at Harvard suffering from police harrassment. From the Boston Globe last August: (H/T Jesse Taylor at Pandagon)
It was the quintessential college scene: dozens of students from the Harvard Black Men's Forum and the Association of Black Harvard Women picnicking on the Radcliffe Quad, playing capture-the-flag and running relay races at their end-of-the-year field day.
But just an hour into the festivities on the sunny afternoon in May 2007, the fun screeched to a halt. Two campus police officers rode up on motorcycles. Were they students, the officers asked. Did they have permission to be there?
The young men and women, dressed in Harvard T-shirts, would discover that a fellow student in a nearby dorm had mistaken them for trespassers, according to students who were there and whose account was confirmed by Harvard officials.
The incident, which ignited criticism from black students and faculty, highlighted the prejudices that many black students say they continue to face at Harvard, not only from police, but from classmates, as well.
More from that article on the flip, including some brief descriptions of other such incidents.
Second, is the fact that Obama's initial response was refreshingly honest and real: For the police to arrest someone in their own home, just because the person is upset? Calling it "stupidity" is kind.
But, third, that momentary honesty doesn't really accomplish anything, beyond giving us a rush. That's why I--someone who's generally infuriated by the walk-back routine--am actually quite pleased with Obama's followup. The fact is, Gates may very well have been wrong about the officer--but only because the most widespread problem we face today is "Racism Without Racists" (aka "colorblind racism"--see the book by the same name by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva here.), the persistence of subconscious racial attitudes that have a pervasive, pernicious impact on black, Latino and other minorities' lives, without any conscious animosity on the part of whites who harbor such attitudes. And anything that helps us make some headway in sorting through the deceptive intricacies of colorblind racism is a good thing.
Fourth, special bonus points for outing the plain old-fashioned racism that still lurks in many parts of the GOP/conservative establishment, trying to exploit the persistence of colorblind racism. (See, for example, "Gates arrest: GOP congressman still on political warpath.") As Obama's sudden shift in tone struck a chord with the police involved in the incident, and presumably with many millions more white Americans, the hatred-fanning GOP/conservative dinosaurs were caught flat-footed. And that's a very good thing, indeed.
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