Cheers is Back!

This news story goes from bad to worse and now to beer. Let me see if I understand “the facts.”

A White police officer arrests a Black Harvard professor in his own home because the professor yelled at him. Everything I have read so far says that one can yell at a police officer in one’s own home, especially if one feels that one’s rights are being violated, which the professor did feel. I have also read many commentaries on how one should not yell at police officers. I agree that it is not so smart to yell at officers even in one’s own home, although I think it should be more than okay to do so, in fact, it is protected speech under the Constitution – remember that document we kept saying Bush – Cheney ignored when they weren’t busy shredding it? But I digress.

To continue: The professor had shown his ID and proved that he lived there. He was not a burglar. The Caller who dialed 911 said that he could be a resident of that house. She could not say for sure that he was an intruder. In the 911 tapes that is clear. No one has contested this fact. But the Professor kept yelling (according to the police) and was arrested for disorderly conduct. The Professor says he was not yelling. The charges were later dropped. So, no charges, no problem, right?

Well, the President of the United States of America weighed in when asked a question about the arrest and said, “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” I agree with that, but what was the President thinking to let that inside voice out? Did the President think he could actually speak his outrage out loud as a person of color? Didn’t his friend over at Harvard just get arrested for that?

Next day, lots of back tracking and talk on “calibrating words” from the President. That was really a bummer because I thought for once he had said something right out of his own anger (without a speech writer) about race and racism. But, he is the President and he was not supposed to comment or worse yet, get angry over a “local issue.” The police were upset because the President didn’t have all the facts of the case before he spoke out.

Today, the Caller says that she disagrees with the police report because she said NOTHING about race to him. NOT A WORD. The only word the Caller ever uttered about race was while being questioned by the 911 Dispatcher. She answered that one of the men might be "Hispanic" (I’ll write about that another day).

The Caller has not been invited to this new multicultural post-racial (huh?) all-male version of Cheers. I guess she would complicate the staging. She was level headed in her 911 call, her attorney says she doesn't like beer and, oh, yeah, she's a woman. Although, in Cheers it usually turned out to be the (two) women (out of seven main characters) who knew what was going on.

All the facts?

Guys, maybe the beer should wait until racial profiling is a thing of the past. Cheers was a make believe TV series, remember?

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Check out what the Caller said at a news conference today. The 911 audio file is here as well:

Caller in Gates Case Says She Didn’t Mention Race
By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: July 30, 2009
Lucia Whalen, the 911 caller, presented a version of events that contradicts the report by Sgt. James Crowley.

And in neighboring Boston the Mayor has another problem and says it's "a cancer." Get out the cooler:

Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail