The Gates of Political Distraction

The essential point about Gates-gate, or the tempest over last week's arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., is this: Most liberal commentary on the subject has taken race as its theme. Conservative commentators, by contrast, have furiously hit the class button.

Liberals, by and large, immediately plugged the event into their unfair-racial-profiling template, and proceeded to call for blacks and whites to "listen to each other's narratives" and other such anodyne niceties even after it started to seem that police racism was probably not what caused the incident.

Conservatives, meanwhile, were following their own "narrative," the one in which racism is often exaggerated and the real victim is the unassuming common man scorned by the deference-demanding "liberal elite." Commentators on the right zeroed in on the fact that Mr. Gates is an "Ivy League big shot," a "limousine liberal," and a star professor at Harvard, an institution they regard with special loathing. They pointed out that Mr. Gates allegedly addressed the cop with that deathless snob phrase, "You don't know who you're messing with"; they reminded us that Cambridge, Mass., is home to a particularly obnoxious combination of left-wing orthodoxy and upper-class entitlement; and they boiled over Mr. Gates's demand that the officer "beg my forgiveness."

"Don't you just love a rich guy who summers on the Vineyard asking a working-class cop to 'beg'? How perfectly Cambridge," wrote the right-wing radio talker Michael Graham in the Boston Herald.

Conservatives won this round in the culture wars, not merely because most of the facts broke their way, but because their grievance is one that a certain species of liberal never seems to grasp. Whether the issue is abortion, evolution or recycling, these liberal patricians are forever astonished to discover that the professions and institutions and attitudes that they revere are seen by others as arrogance and affectation.

The "elitism" narrative routinely blind-sides them, takes them by surprise again and again. There they are, feeling good about their solidarity with the coffee-growers of Guatemala, and then they find themselves on the receiving end of criticism from, say, the plumbers of Ohio.

The Gates incident was a trap that could not have been better crafted to ensnare President Barack Obama, who is himself a loyal son of academia's most prestigious reaches, and to whom it was immediately obvious, even without benefit of the facts, that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in the situation.

Mr. Obama's way of backing out of his gaffe was just as telling: He invited Mr. Gates and the policeman who arrested him to the White House for a beer, the beverage so often a gauge of a politician's blue-collar bona fides. One symbolic gesture, hopefully, can exorcise another.

Class is always an ironic issue in American politics, and the irony this time is particularly poignant. We are in the midst of a great national debate about how to make health care affordable; almost nothing is more important to working-class Americans. "For the health of the nation, both physically and economically, we need a system with a public option," Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, wrote recently in the Huffington Post. "And we need it now."

But whether working families get it now depends to a large degree on Mr. Obama's personal popularity. And now comes Gates-gate, this latest burst of fake populism from the right. Waving the banner of the long-suffering working class, the tax-cutting friends of the top 2% have managed to dent the president's credibility, to momentarily halt his forward movement on the health care issue.

Umbrage at a Harvard professor's class snobbery, in other words, might derail this generation's greatest hope for actually mitigating the class divide.

Another irony: Long before he became a hostage to the culture wars, Henry Louis Gates had another career as a pithy commentator on the culture wars. The false appeal of victimization was something he understood well. In Loose Canons, his 1992 book on the subject, he joked that his colleagues should "award a prize at the end [of a conference] for the panelist, respondent, or contestant most oppressed."

But when he sits down for that can of beer in the White House, it is another passage from his book that I hope Mr. Gates remembers. Speaking for liberal academics, he wrote in 1992 that "success has spoiled us; the right has robbed us of our dyspepsia; and the routinized production of righteous indignation is allowed to substitute for critical rigor."

Today the cranking out of righteous indignation is a robust growth industry, and it threatens to do far worse than cloud our critical faculties. Help us to put the culture wars aside, Professor Gates. Too much is on the line these days.

Read other articles at the Opinion Journal:
It's Crunch Time for Israel on Iran
Let's Break Up the Fed

Comments

[MrWebster]

I am not sure if the Gates incident helps the right wing in the class conflict of the culture war, but it ain't good for the liberal side. And here is the resentment which nobody will talk about because the correct victimology is about race, not class status: many middle class and lower class whites will resent that police abuse only matters when it is done to rich black people (black people in general in most cases.)

I have read many commentators and posters proclaim with utter moral certitude that such an outrage would never happen to a white person. In this particular fantasy, white cops are cuddly and nice, but only go beserk when confronted with a black male. Hey, the Gates type of abuse happens everyday to white people all around the country.

Now this does not paritcularily play into the obedience to certain types of authority the culture warriors pimp--the "law and order" stuff if you will. But the resentments are there about how poorer or average white people abused by the police don't or can't get their justice, or even get it noticed. And now along comes an "elitist" who gets roughed up, and suddenly it matters to even the President.

What develops is an underground seething resentment which right wing culture war pimps can use and re-direct against "them, the liberal power structure".

[Jazzman323]

It is obvious reading these posts that the left want to perpetuate the supposed racial divide in the country. What would they do if the Gates case was just a police call on a possible break-in, with a policeman and an uncooperative man. I bet there are hundreds of these calls everyday in this country that are resolved without a problem.

[S1m0n]

What fact broke 'their way"?

[henryberry]

I think the basic fact was the 911 call by Whalen. This evidences beyond any doubt that the incident did not have arbitrary origins--i. e., did not have its origins in racial profiling. Unarguably, Gates was not singled out on the basis of race. Race may have come into the picture, probably did in some respects on both sides. There are now arguments and controversies over discrepancies in the 911 tapes and the police report and specifics of details of officer Crowley's and Gates' behavior. Yet one cannot get away from the fact that the incident and how it unfolded (which will be long debated) had its origin in the 911 call; which had more to do with an ordinary citizen with a "neighborhood watch" mentality and nothing to do with racial profiling. No matter where Crowley and Gates went with the incident once they were brought together, its origin was not racial profiling. Thus--as Franks is getting at so I think--to see the incident essentialy as racial profiling is distorting it.

[TheSpecter]

Officer Crowley CLEARLY violated Professor Gates' Civil Rights. The FBI needs to investigate, a Federal Court needs to convict, and Officer Crowley needs to do time in a Federal Penitentiary.

The Police in America need to be put on notice; if they violate the Constitution of the United States of America the Justice Department will come down on them hard and swiftly to uphold the Civil Rights of the American Citizenry, and to punish severely those who violate them.

[SouljahBoy]

If Officer Crowley and the arrest is so right. Why isn't Professor Gates out on bail? Why were the charges dropped?

[Jazzman323]

Often people are arrested for thei conduct and charges are dropped later. Crowley had to diffuse the stiuation. He was following police procedure. Ask his superior.

[TheSpecter]

I hope he like orange.

[nash2]

I'm a (Boston Irish lower-middle class) liberal and I look at this primarily a class issue based on the specific facts. You state that conservatives won this round because most of the facts "broke their way."

That's the point. Too many people (like Obama) focused on the initial reports which featured the professor's side of the story which they then used as the basis for a debate on racial profiling. Later accounts such as those offered by a black police sergeant who was at the scene gave the cop's side of the story and shifted the discussion to what happens when people at a possible crime scene refuse to cooperate with a police investigation and hurl (elitist and obscene) abuse upon a law enforcement professional just trying to do his job.

Don't you just hate it when the facts don't "break your way"?

By the way, Gates has a new lawyer who was on TV last night hinting that Gates might sue the Cambridge PD and officer Crowley.

This may not be over.

[Jazzman323]

If there is not an apology to Crowley after the beer summit, there will definitely be lower approval points for Obama.

[TheSpecter]

He needs to be perp walked, just like he did to Gates.

[shockjock]

This could have been much worse. If Professor Gates was not a Harvard Professor he could very likely be dead right now. As evidenced by:

Black man shot at his bachelor party.4 NYPD cops shoot 50 rounds at unarmed men.Undercover police had never identified themselves. (Sean Bell)
Black man shot in the Bronx. 41 shots while reaching for his ID (Amadou Diallo)
Black man did not show "due deference" to NYPD cops and he was raped with a plunger in the Precinct bathroom by 4 cops and 1 watching the door (Abner Louima).

BTW, Two out of three of these gentlemen were immigrants. Is that the kind of immigration control Lou Dobbs is drooling for?

Post racial society - I think not.
Black men have nothing to fear from the police. Please
We live in a color blind society (the cry of Pat Buchanan and the Anti-Affirmative action crowd). Give me a break.
Racial profiling does not exist or is over-stated. - Misguided, wrong, and contrary to the facts.

[Texas4Obama]

There is so much misinformation and confusion about this matter that it has become the most ridiculous thing on the internet!

1) Sgt. Crowley wrote what Lucia Whalen told him at the scene outside of the house NOT what Lucia said when she called 911. There was also another woman there with Lucia that saw the men - I think that that woman could have told Lucia 'after' Lucia made the 911 call that the two men were black and that is why Lucia told Sgt. Crowley that when he arrived at the scene. Someone needs to find that other woman and get her side of the story.

2) When Officer Figueroa arrived at the scene he went into the house and heard some of Mr. Gates ranting and raving, so it was not only Sgt. Crowley that heard the hollering.

3) Mr. Gates was NOT arrested for being disrespectful to a cop or for the racial things he was saying.
Mr. Gates was arrested OUTSIDE of his house - NOT in his home. He was arrested for Disorderly Conduct for YELLING OUTSIDE in PUBLIC. That IS an arrestable offense. Even Officer Lashley, who is an African-American, said that he would have arrested Mr. Gates for Disorderly Conduct that had taken place outside.

[Texas4Obama]

Also,

Sgt. Crowley did tell Mr. Gates that he was there responding to a 911 call regarding a possible break in because Mr. Gates said something about 'a white woman calling the police on him'.

Mr. Gates first gave Sgt. Crowley his Harvard ID which only had a photo and name, NO ADDRESS.
When Sgt. Crowley asked for additional ID with an address - Mr. Gates got more angry. Sgt. Crowley was just doing his job and following procedure.

When Sgt. Crowley first arrived at Mr. Gates house he asked Mr. Gates to step outside and as we know Mr. Gates refused. BUT when Sgt. Crowley was leaving the house Mr. Gates followed him outside by his own decision and then proceeded to 'yell very loudly' on the porch in public.

Regarding the folks that are upset with Sgt. Crowley putting in his police report that Lucia was 'white' --- this to me is a non-issue. Lucia is also an Italian name and Italian-Americans in the USA are considered to be 'white'. Sgt. Crowley was not there to focus on Lucia's ethnicity, he was there to investigate a possible break-in. I am an Italian-American and my skin color is darker than that of Lucia's and I am considered white -- so in my opinion saying that she was white is not far off base. So Crowley should get a pass on that one.

[gvnn688]

It appears; by the 9-11 caller; Officer Crowley may have lied in his report. I found it odd the City Manager at the news conference let it be known disciplinary actions would not be recommended or taken. Which made me believe they had concluded Officer Crowley violated Professor Gates civil rights. I apologize to Mr. Gates for calling him pompous. Officer Crowley should apologize and both should move on.

[Texas4Obama]

What Sgt. Crowley put in his report was what Lucia told him at the scene outside of the house, NOT what Lucia told the 811 call center.
There are two separate issues here. And one does not have to do with the other.
There is absolutely nothing that suggests that Sgt. Crowley lied.
I believe Mr. Gates owes Sgt. Crowley an apology for playing the race card when it had nothing to do with race. I also believe that if Mr. Gates does not apologize then Sgt. Crowley should file a defamation suit against Mr. Gates.

[provgrays]

Call it what it is on all sides.
Race hustling.

[ThePeacemakers]

Mr Frank,

The conservatives are making a good point, but not one they even realize they are making.
I would take the word "liberal" out of the equation, however.

Police officers could tell us stories, I'm sure, that would make our hair stand up on our heads of the dirty deeds done by the wealthy and elite, whether liberal or conservati­ve...deeds they had to let slide because they were messing with the "masters of the universe" so to speak.
I'm sure the frustration builds and builds.
I wonder how many times over the years in Cambridge the cops have had to grovel at the feet of a delinquent student/son of a wealthy donor to Harvard? Or get treated with disrespect by other elites, responded in a similar manner as the way the response was by Crowley, only to have the Cambridge Police higher ups and others make them apologize?

The problem is they most likely take this out on the people still perceived to be lower down on the privilege ladder - no matter what their accomplishments or current status?

[julianne]

I don't believe there is much to compare with the greedy, violent, monarchial­-theorcrat­ic-fascist white leadership we've been experiencing in the U.S. That said, as a liberal Democrat, I would request that Gates read the past 10 years of FBI statistics on black-on-white crimes, particularly the tens of thousands of rapes, so he might understand why many real-world white people have had it with alot of today's black "culture" and black leaders. Our life experience and that of every police officer in the United States tells us that two black males with backpacks on the front porch of a home in a predominately white neighborhood- when the homeowners have also been out of town - informs us that (they) aren't selling bibles. Most white people wanted real affirmative action for black citizens and, I'll say it again - that it is too bad that black leaders such as Gates handed over their people's affirmative action to millions and millions of illegal aliens from Mexico and their millions and millions of neverending children simply because their skin was "brown".

[Citizen-Jane]

What Officer Crowley did is an important issue what he "wrote"on July 16,2009 is a false report. And no -moving on is not the answer.....It is not a distraction people can disagree with some issues and agree on other issue at the same time. And to blame President Obama for speaking his mind a "gaffe" stated and be held responsible for something that was already national news or Professor Gates for something he wrote in 1992???? as if to say that he deserves what he got is ludacris.

You may have capitulated and gave this one to the conservatives based on your bias, but the this story deserves more scrutiny than it is getting now.

On health Care your problem is not with the President and this distraction it is with the Blue Dogs period.

[mitsie]

I have more problems with the Cop, who went there knowing that the caller had said the people might have lived there because they had suitcases. When's the last time you saw a robber bringing his jammies with him?

[SusanStoHelit]

It's not uncommon - smart thieves know stupid people will see them walking with suitcases, and ignore the robbery. Pack the valuables in the suitcases, walk out, and if you're lucky, if the people are complacent and stupid - the police won't even be called.

[Texas4Obama]

Sgt Crowley was not at the 911 call center, he was not the person that answered the phone when the 911 call came in. The only information he had was what he was told when he was responding to the call to go and check out the possible 'burglary in progress' - and no one told him about any suitcases.
People need to understand that the person that answers the phones at the 911 call centers are not the cops that are out there on the scene.

[darquelourd]

Wow, getting arrested in your own home is "elitist", gee I never would have thunk!

Of course, the real problem here might not just be that the police will arrest a person JUST because they don't like their attitude? It seems like Frank has no problem with a bunch of resources and money being wasted dealing with something that wasn't even actually a CRIME?

Mr. Frank has played the tired whiny Conservative victim card again - the poor policemen (who actually make more than blue collar workers do and have better benefits, in case Mr. Frank ever wanted RESEARCH something before stating it as FACT), are once again the victim of an over educated uppity man of color! I feel SOOOOOOO sorry for the cops like they were out something because of this.