It was more than “a beer at the White House” moment when
President Barack Obama rolled up his sleeves and sat down
with Henry “Skip” Gates and James Crowley in the back garden.
Gates was the president’s African American friend from
Harvard arrested a few weeks earlier on his own front porch
in Cambridge, and Crowley was the white arresting offi cer
from the Cambridge Police Department. The White House invitation
was atonement for the president, in a rare moment of
recklessness, remarking to the press that the Cambridge police
had behaved “stupidly.” The meticulously scripted and fl awlessly
staged photo opportunity, with its soothing message of
reconciliation dubbed in advance the “beer summit,” displayed
in a politely confected way just how highly politicized
the joined issues of race, class, crime, and punishment have
become in America. The parties agreed before meeting that the
event would be entirely social, although Gates and Crowley
promised there would be substantive conversations to follow.