Gatesgate 0
I glanced at the stories regarding the recent report on Gatesgate and they did not stir my blogging nerve. Today, Joan Vennochi’s column in the Boston Globe helped me figure out why:
Skin color.
That’s what made it international news. That’s what drew in President Obama, who got caught up in the story when he said the Cambridge police acted “stupidly’’ and then wiggled out of it by hosting a White House beer summit.
But the 60-page report on the show-down between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley barely mentions race. Instead, it’s all about respect and the need for more of it from citizens and law enforcement officials.
It is not just that color is what made it news.
It is very likely that color–a white cop and a black citizen–was a big part of what made it happen in the first place.
The flour, sugar, salt, and water in the recipe may have come from other sources, but I am certain that race was the yeast without which the loaf would not have risen.
Any “analysis” that avoided the issue of race was no analysis at all.
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