by JOHN SEXTON 1 hour ago 11 POST A COMMENT
In an April 3rd appearance on the left-wing Democracy Now TV show, Van Jones has offered his own behind-the-scenes take on an incident that made race a political issue three years before the Trayvon Martin case. As Jones describes it, the infamous "beer summit" on the White House lawn was a case where President Obama was "forced" into a meeting with a "racist" police officer.
In July 2009, while Jones was working at the White House, Sgt. James Crowley responded to a call of a possible break-in at a Cambridge, MA home. In reality, the person a neighbor thought might be a burglar was the homeowner, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, with another man helping him enter the house.
When Sgt. Crowley arrived at the home he asked Professor Gates for ID. Gates reportedly responded "Why? Because I'm a black man in America." Gates initially refused to produced an ID. Once he did, the police report indicates Crowley left the home. However, Professor Gates followed him outside and continued to "yell" at Sgt. Crowley. Crowley claims to have warned Gates in front of several neighborhood witnesses before arresting Gates for disorderly conduct.
After word of the arrest broke, the President weighed in during a press conference saying that while he didn't have all the facts, "the Cambridge police acted stupidly." The White House quickly tried to walk back the remark and eventually proposed a meeting on the White House grounds which came to be known as the "beer summit." No reporters were present, but photos of the President, Vice President Biden, Prof. Gates, and Sgt. Crowley sharing a beer were widely circulated.
While neither side agreed to apologize to the other at the time of the beer summit, several months later Professor Gates appeared on the Oprah television show and told the host that he and Sgt. Crowley had developed a "really good relationship." Crowley gave Gates the handcuffs used in the arrest and Gates said he planned to donate them to the Smithsonian. A report issued one year after the arrest placed blame on both Gates and Crowley for failing to de-escalate the situation.
But according to Van Jones, the beer summit was not a chance for both sides of the disagreement to take stock but a media event forced the President to "sit humbly" across from a "racist" police officer:
Van Jones: The right wing and the law enforcement establishment brought the wrath of God down on the White House, I was there, and suddenly he's forced to do a beer summit to sit eye to eye with a racist police officer... as a black man, even the most powerful man in the world, can not speak about race and if he does he's then forced to sit humbly across the table from a racist police officer.
Jones goes on to describe the beer summit as a "terrifying, shocking" revelation about the state of race relations in America. At this point, the Democracy Now host attempts to draw Jones out further about what advice he gave the President. Jones declines, saying he doesn't want to talk "out of school."
This is quite a different perspective on the story than the one the White House presented to the media at the time. In 2009, the President called the beer summit a "teachable moment" and clearly wanted to be seen as someone who could bring the two sides together after the firestorm caused by his initial remarks. But apparently, that view was not shared by everyone in the White House.
Did the President himself agree with his employee Jones' private assessment of Sgt. Crowley? Was the beer summit something the President felt forced into by "the right wing and the law enforcement establishment"? These questions might be worth asking now that the White House is once again taking sides in a case with obvious racial overtones.
