Dr. Boyce: 911 Call on Henry Louis Gates Released - Obama's Having Beer

This was an interesting week for me, as I've been engaging in the impossible task of finding ways to entertain my teenage daughter, who came to visit me in New York. I also found myself on CNN and many other networks discussing the case of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. My position on the case left me stuck in that purgatory between righteous black power and Uncle Tom-ism. People were wondering why I would not take sides on the case without knowing all the facts.

Sorry, I just don't do that. Black, white or anything else, I need to know what I am talking about before I start accusing anyone of anything.

Like a newborn baby growing into adulthood and then old age, I saw the news cycle peak and plummet, as everyone camped out on their personal view on whether the professor had been arrested unjustly or was simply out of line. Recently, there was the release of the 911 tapes of the incident, which puts further speculation on the table, so the truth is that we may never know exactly what happened. All we know is that the president is going to have a beer with two citizens, while the rest of us are still left with the age-old problem of race, which politicians won't touch with a 10-foot pole.

Alrighty then.

As facts are released, all of the players have made adjustments. Even the conversation I had with Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and Charles Ogletree was a matter of resolving and focusing on the bigger issue, which is far better than pointing fingers. Ogletree has backed away from almost any conversation on racial profiling, and I haven't heard a peep out of Henry Louis Gates for the past several days.

All sides are now pointing to this elusive "teachable moment." So, as a black scholar myself, I think that we can have a true teachable moment here on AOL Black Voices, one that goes beyond the political posturing that we are accustomed to seeing from politicians and those who stand to make money by manipulating our minds. By recapping how this situation got out of control, we can learn a little bit about how uncontroversial issues become controversial in the media. Let's go through the sequence of events, shall we?

1) Gates was arrested and allegations were made.

At this point, I didn't jump to conclusions. The temptation as a black man who has had horrible run-ins with police is to presume that Gates was the good guy in all of this. My first question, however, was "what happened?" After assessing the facts of the situation, I then started to consider all the possibilities. Unfortunately, some members of the black American public allowed their disdain for police officers and their respect for black scholars to lead them to immediately believe that the officer did something wrong. There were those on the other end who have no idea what it's like going through life with a fear of law enforcement, so they were convinced that the black man must have done something to deserve his arrest. The blue line runs thick, so I expected the black officers to support their colleague, so their testimony didn't mean very much to me. You must be careful about allowing others to manipulate your thinking. My goal is not to tell you what to think; it is to simply make sure that you actually use your mind to fully understand what's going on around you.

2) The media ran with the story, and Obama dropped a bombshell.

I would not be surprised if Dr. Gates played a role in pushing this story out to the media. Stories like this do not spontaneously combust. Someone must be working the phones to tell the media to cover it. Dr. Gates has extensive contacts in the national media, corporate America and politics, so it is not unlikely that he began to exact his revenge on the officer as soon as he was released. CNN may have found the story quite intriguing in light of the fact that it was simultaneously airing its new special, 'Black in America 2.' This fact likely put gasoline on the campfire and made it into a bonfire. Then, when President Obama chose to turn a simple health care conference into an ad hoc freestyle on race relations in America, that was like throwing dynamite onto the bonfire, making it into a forest fire. I've been begging Obama to discuss race in America, but only when he knows the facts.

3) The officers strike back.

After being dissed on national television, the testosterone started to kick in for the officers. That is when the tide started to turn, as the police officers union stood boldly by Crowley's side (I honestly wonder if their approach would have been the same had the president not spoken so strongly the night before). Black officers started to stand up for him as well, which was persuasive to an American public that doesn't understand the natural inclination of many police officers to make excuses for their buddies. Finally, Crowley himself began doing media appearances to tell his side of the story. I am not sure if Dr. Gates expected the officer that he punched to start punching back. By that point, it had become a slugfest, with the Obama comment fueling the rage of police officers across America.

4) More facts start to emerge.

Who would have guessed that the man being accused of racism is an expert in racial sensitivity? What's even more intriguing is that he was appointed to the position by a black police chief. Now, this certainly does not imply that he is immune to the disease of racism (I know a long list of liberals here at Syracuse University who are far more racist than country folks I knew growing up in Kentucky), but you've got to laugh at the irony of it all. I hardly doubt that Crowley would have been chosen to teach classes in racial sensitivity if he were known to enjoy falsely arresting black men on a regular basis. He isn't exactly Mark Furman. The second note about Gates' home being burglarized while he was gone gave credibility to the idea that the professor overreacted to the officer's desire to keep him safe.

5) Let's solve the problem with alcohol.

Realizing that he needed to find a way to get the giant shoe out of his mouth, our great president de-escalates the situation to a "teachable moment." That phrase might be a code for saying, "We lost our battle, and we just want to get this thing over with as soon as possible." The problem is that politicians are far better at posturing than actually getting things done, which is why they analogize having a beer in the White House to mean that we've actually accomplished something. But then again, who wouldn't want to have some alcohol after dealing with all this craziness? Even I wanted a beer, and I don't even drink.

6) Wait, there's something about those 911 tapes

Some didn't realize that there is one unsolved discrepancy in the police report. The woman who made the original call to police made no mention in the recorded audio of the 911 call that the two alleged suspects were African American. Her spokesperson, who was on 'Anderson Cooper 360' with me, also claims that her client did not mention the race of either offender when the officer arrived on the scene. However, in the police report turned in by Sgt. Crowley, he mentions that he spoke with the woman before entering the house, and that she told him that the two men were black. Someone is lying, and it is my hope that there is an investigation to try to find out what happened. This discrepancy re-opens the door to the possibility of racial profiling, and what will likely happen is that most Americans will make their assessment based upon preconceived notions of race and how much they trust the police. Cops can only blame themselves for this distrust, since they've undermined their credibility with the public by committing egregious injustices in the past.

In the audio below, I speak with renowned political science expert Dr. Wilmer Leon at Howard University who is also the host of the Sirius/XM Satellite Show, 'On with Leon.' The goal is not to jump to conclusions, since there are things about this case we will never know. The truth is that there is serious doubt as to whether the Gates case is a clear case of racial profiling. It could have also been some kind of race-neutral police abuse or a situation created by the huge ego of a Harvard professor. At the end of the day, our personal opinions are going to be viewed through the racialized glasses we've been wearing since birth, for racial divisions will continue to cripple our nation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a professor at Syracuse University and author of 'What if George Bush were a Black Man?' To have his commentary delivered directly to your e-mail, click here.