Politics

From our own David Swerdlick, originally published in the NY Daily News: After two weeks of controversy over the arrest of Harvard‘s Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge Police Department‘s Sgt. James Crowley, I could really go for a cold brew. Couldn’t you? But that Bud Light at the White House last night wasn’t for…

Miller Time at the White House came and went. Most black people and police critics are still shouting, “Tastes great.” White people and police supporters are still shouting, “Less filling.” The deep problem beneath the surface of the Gates-Crowley encounter has not changed at all. Let the teaching begin. The issue now is the future,…

It’s been weeks since his arrest, but here we are still shouting about what happened that fateful day in Cambridge, Mass. And while it is somewhat striking that the murders of Oscar Grant and Sean Bell failed to generate anywhere near the same level of national attention as the Gates-Crowley affair, it is not surprising…

WASHINGTON (AP) — With mugs of beer and more-carefully chosen words, President Barack Obama tried to push himself and the nation beyond a political uproar, hailing a “friendly, thoughtful” conversation with the black professor and white policeman whose dispute had ignited a fierce debate over race in America. “I have always believed that what brings…

We’ve heard President Barack Obama say that the Gates incident is a “teachable moment.” As an attorney and educator, I love teachable moments. However, as a black mother of 24- and 19-year-old sons, I’m confused about what it is that we’re learning. In particular, what lessons will the Cambridge police—and police officers across the nation—learn…

The woman whose 911 call brought the Cambridge police to the home of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. said the last two weeks have been an emotional ordeal in which she feared for her safety after being vilified as a racist. In her first public statement since the incident, Lucia Whalen said she had…

If there’s a silver lining to the otherwise cloudy controversy surrounding the arrest of The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., it’s that when Gates and Crowley meet President Barack Obama at the White House for a beer Thursday, it’ll be the ultimate race-relations role reversal. Instead of a black emissary like Booker T.…

After weeks of uncertainty and anticipation, the White House Office of Urban Affairs has rolled off the assembly line. The office is designed to facilitate and coordinate programs that improve the lives of city dwellers, from the food served in urban classrooms to the bolts that gird subway lines. President Barack Obama has finally addressed…

Lawd, have muh-cy, we are going down that road again. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was right when he said that his nasty run-in with the Cambridge police would trigger a “racial narrative.” It’s the same one that has been unreeled since the videotaped beating of Rodney King, the trial of O.J. Simpson and the shooting…

Mistaken identity? The woman’s statement — corroborated by the police commissioner — means that much of the media commentary over the last week about the incident has been based on a faulty premise: that the police report is accurate. Moreover, tapes of the 911 call were released midday Monday. “One thing the tapes didn’t show:…