THIS ISSUE OF RACE COMES TO A HEAD

I’m pretty sure the world, as I know it, has come to an abrupt end. When? I’m not sure. Sometime in the past week or so, evidently...probably while I was sleeping.
No, it’s not quite Armageddon, but perhaps a precursor. You see, in the old days, in my world, when a policeman arrested a citizen for disorderly conduct, that was pretty much the end of it.
I’m sure there were some injustices back in those days. And, I’m sure there were a lot more perceived injustices. I was ticketed by a black police officer once for going around a vehicle that had stopped in front of me and was waiting to change lanes. The driver (a lovely woman, I’m sure) even waved me to go around. The policeman accused me of reckless driving because I had crossed a yellow line. I thought he was an idiot, but it never occurred to me that it was a racial thing.
Something else that didn’t occur to me, back in that old world, was to ask the President to invite both me and the police officer to sit around and drink beer so we could all get over it. Therein, my friends, is the big change, the point of demarcation between the old world and this wacky new world.
The old world, which now looks a lot more sane than it did when I lived in it, did not include Presidential press conferences that included questions about disorderly conduct charges. I blame Bill Clinton a bit. He and Monica changed the accepted topics of conversation in press conferences forever.
In the old world, the Presidents didn’t involve themselves in such mundane issues, nor did they publicly accuse police officers of being stupid, especially with no more than a TV news version of what had happened to go on. Ah, life was so good, back then, back in my old world.
One thing that has crossed over into this new world is the appearance of such big mouths as Jesse Jackson and the like. Speaking of whom, did you notice how Jackson evidently sees himself as the sixth Jackson from the way he was hamming it up on stage at Michael Jackson’s memorial service. The good Reverend is very buzzard-like in swooping down at virtually every media event.
But let’s get back to this whole thing with the police officer and the professor. Even if the officer made a “bad arrest,” as it’s been termed, why would the President invite both sides to the White House for a beer? Does that strike you as ludicrous, or is it just me? What’s next? Maybe the President will invite O.J. and Mark Furhman over for tea.
If you want to make this a race issue, then I think every black man who has ever been mistreated by a police officer deserves a beer. Maybe a six-pack should be included in this whole reparations thing.
But, is this really a race issue at all? The professor was, from accounts of eyewitnesses, hostile. The police officer arrested him. No one was beaten mercilessly. There were no racial slurs. I haven’t even heard an accusation that the officer called Professor Gates, “boy.”
The guy was taken to the jail, booked, and shortly thereafter released. When one considers all the truly brutal treatment blacks have suffered at the hands of real racists through the centuries, it doesn’t seem as if this is an event that warrants all the conversation. It would be like when that lady astronaut strapped on the diaper and went to attack the other astronaut. Suppose the media had used that event as an excuse to indict the space program or to reevaluate the space program. Where’s the relevancy?
But, what do I know? I’m just saying the world has changed. But you know, come to think of it, turning the Oval Office into a cozy little pub where persons of all races and ideologies can gather to share a brew or two, isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe it can even help the nation raise a little much-needed revenue. Hold on! I might like this new world.