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Henry Louis Gates “happy to oblige” as Obama suggests a meeting with Sergeant Crowley

Barack Obama Suggests a Meeting with Sergeant Crowley

Henry Louis Gates

In attempt to quell the controversy in which he has become reluctantly embroiled, President Barack Obama has suggested that Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Massachusetts police Sergeant James Crowley  meet  at the White House “for a beer”, and for his part Gates says he would be “happy to oblige”.

On the website TheRoot.com Gates writes of his phone call with Obama that discussed his July 16^th arrest and the resulting fallout. According to the post “I am pleased that [Obama] is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, And if meeting Sgt. Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige”

This comes at the end of a week when President Obama was drawn into the kind of debate he went to great lengths to avoid while on the campaign trail in 2008 – a discourse on race and racial profiling.

The Gates story began on July 16^th in conservative Cambridge, Massachusetts when the much decorated Harvard stalwart was arrested outside the home that he rents from the college after a neighbor had called police under the misguided impression that an intruder was breaking into the two story home. In actuality the “burglar” was Professor Gates himself, attempting to open a door that had become jammed shut . When police arrived a confrontation arose between Gates and veteran Cambridge police office Sergeant James Crowley, resulting in the black professor’s arrest for disorderly conduct.

The charges were quickly dropped, but not before a national debate had been ignited about the continuing practice of “racial profiling “by law enforcement officers in “Obama’s America.”

The President himself joined the fray when he told reporters that in his estimation the police officers had “acted stupidly.” A group of enraged police officers went on the offensive in support of Sergeant Crowley and on Friday President Obama admitted that he regretted how he had chosen to phrase his opinion, but has not issued the full apology that the Cambridge officers had demanded on their colleague’s behalf.

Sergeant Crowley has yet to comment upon the White House invitation but he too has spoken with the President via telephone, a conversation during which Crowley says he apologized that the arrest and its fallout had distracted from far more pressing issues, such as Obama’s continuing battle to pass his health care reform measures.