The Beer Summit

The sensational news in Washington in the last week of July was not suicide bombing in Iraq, Taliban invasion in Afghan or economic recession. The sensation was the arrest of a professor and the reason it made headlines was that the professor was black and the officer a white.

Gates was a professor specializing In African American history. On the fateful night he was returning tour to China. The cab driver was a black too. On reaching home Prof. Gates discovered that his door was jammed and there was no one else at home. And it was too late to search for an alternative option. So Professor decides to break into his own home with a little help from the cabbie. Don’t know if the cabbie had prior experience. As they went on with their ‘perfectly legal’ house-breaking, a neighbor was watching all these. It seems now that the neighbor didn’t know who was staying next door. She called up the police.

Cometh the second hero, Sergeant Crawley.

Sgt. Crawley like all efficient officers arrives at the scene in a jiffy. What happened thereafter remains a mystery to this day.
Crawley claims he asked the professor for identification which he refused at the same time showering choice words at him.
Gates says he showed the officer his identification papers proving that it was his house. But Crawley refused in his arrogant style and detained him.

But one thing is for sure. Professor Gates was arrested for breaking into his own home.
The humiliated Gates claimed that he was detained because he was black and the sergeant could not come to terms with the fact that a black person could own a house in a posh neighborhood. The entire NYPD sided along with Crawley claiming Gates was trying to distract the investigation by giving it a racial color.

The third world media saw this as an opportunity for America bashing and chance for a dent in ‘equal opportunity’ image. I rejoiced on seeing the agonized face of Gates, I hate self righteous nations like USA. At least here is our answer to allegation by US based human rights organizations that in India there was no religious freedom for minorities.

The incident would have remained in the newspapers had not our chocolate boy hero Obama headed into the scene with his take on the incident. Obama remarked that Crawley had acted ‘stupidly’. NYPD was not sure if it has to stick with its earlier stand or stand with their president and in the process sacrificing one of their faithful. This turned in to a national issue and a potential racial misunderstanding. It seems that Americans have not come to terms that they have elected a black to be their president.
So this became an international issue with people like me eagerly waiting for a racial riot or something of that sort.

Then the bad boy played the good boy too. Obama called both the main characters of the story for a coveted visit to white house. Well, if he had called them to a bar or a park they could have refused... But here is a chance no one would have the guts to refuse and which won’t obviously come again.
The two men met in the white house just as they were about to begin their tour. After some awkward moments the air cooled and it didn’t take much time for them to become friends. Gates remarked ‘when Crawley isn’t arresting you he is a good guy’. They agreed to meet over lunch some time

Later along with Obama and Biden they shared some beer and munched on nuts. The media dubbed this exercise as ‘The Beer Summit’.

Barack Obama is in a peculiar situation. The whole America is watching if he can cut across racial divides and reach out to all people and thus become an icon for whole world. Therefore he won’t get the privilege George Bush got, to be treated as another dumb kid in the white house. He is expected to do a lot.
Whatever he is going to say or do will attain a racial profile. So ultimately each and every statement he makes will be judged based on the racial impact it is going to make. People watch if he is biased and in the process compromising on the values.

What I love about the man is his ability to judge the situation and make the apt decisions. Even in this case when both the men met no one was asked to make an apology. The president wanted to set up a platform for them to meet and listen to each other. And both couldn’t ask for a better venue than the White House. And both spoke to each other without anyone to meddle in between.
‘We stated our perceptions and stuck on to it. We decided to revisit our perceptions some time later.’ this is what they said about the meetings.

This is what I loved about it. If anyone was asked to compromise on his statement it would have been equivalent to humiliation and a racial hurt. But they were asked to listen to each other. The first step for any kind of reconciliation is dialogue.

When Obama was elected to office there was a book that caught the attention of the world. It was Irving Wallace’s ‘The Man’. It was published in 1964. It’s the story about a black man becoming the president by accident. It was written before the 25th amendment of constitution. At that time the order of succession when a president dies was Vice president, Speaker, President Pro Tempore of the senate. Vice President was already dead. The president and speaker get killed in a freak accident. To their utter shock they discover that next in line was a black man, Dilman, who was elected as the President Pro Tempore of the senate as it was a namesake seat and that would give an impression of racial equality to the government.

In fact this book caused such uproar that the copies were burnt and it had to be pulled off the shelf. This was published when segregation still existed and all blacks were considered as crooks.. The advisers of Dilman hoped he would be a push-over and they could pull the strings. But at a crucial point Dilman sticks to his stand. They conspire to bring him down.

Dilman had appointed as his secretary a white lady, Sally, who had a troubled past. Sally joins with the conspirers and frames a sexual harassment against Dilman. They bring in an impeachment motion against Dilman.
But as the impeachment draws to a close Dilman gets inconclusive evidence that the charges against him were falsely framed. But he refuses to present it before the committee because that would reveal that Sally is a mental patient.

When I read about the Beer summit in the newspapers, this was the book that came into my mind. What we need in this world divided by race and religion may not be a stubborn stand but a tough stand covered by the softness of love. The courage to admit that you were wrong when you said or did something.

Hope Obama lives up to our expectation….