A White Boy’s Perspective on Something Being Swept up Under the Rug: don’t get bamboozled again

Over the last week or so I’ve had numerous conversations with folk – kin, fellow southerners, and friends – about the events that took place with Harvard’s Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley. Within the demographic with whom I spoke, what happened was either because of: a) blatant, stereotypical, and unjust profiling by the part of Sergeant Crowley or b) inappropriate behavior and bad citizenship by the part of Professor Gates. I wonder, however, how we might take a different approach in trying to dissect this occurrence. Instead of becoming polarized by our own individual infatuation with having the answer or resolution to this incident, let us examine how and why we arrived at this place of societal insecurity in America.

The real point of interest, in fact, is not in this one incident, but it is in trying to understand this with regard to historical significance with race relations in America. How did we arrive at this point of difference? That is the true meat of this issue. The current dialogue that is circulating is misdirected and misguided. Whether Crowley acted stupidly or is a racist or if Gates was simply uncooperative or unfairly profiled is a very small portion of a much larger picture that needs to be redrawn – the underlying social structures in America.

Gates’ story is not a unique one. This happens daily to men and women of color across America with not only our law enforcement, but within our school system, our court system, our health care system – virtually every realm of American society. What is happening now is that sides are being taken to judge this one incident. Our energy is focused on trying to decide the fate of this one particular event, rather than attempting to address this on a more intimate level. This is what often happens in America and within the American media. Our energy will be exhausted, because no one definitive answer will surface and thus, again, the greater issue at hand – the importance of redefining social structures in America – will be swept under the rug while the next, new scandal or news bit circulates.

This teachable moment is one that should be embraced by individuals, families, schools, churches, community centers, libraries, mosques, synagogues, passersby at the job water-cooler or coffee machine, the American news and media. How can we have a sincere and honest discourse about the differing social and societal experiences and causes of them on an intimate and personal level? Until we do this with an open mind and heart, the many unfair and unjust social structures that are engrained in our culture will continue to reign in America.

This is certainly not the first teachable moment presented to us. Remember Katrina? That was a prime opportunity to explore these issues of societal and racial differences in America. Our "leadership" at that time, however, flopped (big time). More significant insight and true coverage of reality came out of Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke.

President Obama is right in stating that this is a teachable moment. I hope, however, that it becomes more than a beer date. How can our youth be involved in this heart-to-heart conversation? How can our adults lead and facilitate a discussion in which we challenge ourselves and our kids to break down the stereotypes, tensions, confusions, misunderstandings, feelings of rage that so many of us possess with regards to race, religion, politics, education, the past, the present, and the future of societal America? That's what is truly at stake here.