Academic

Gates, Crowley, and Obama: A Teachable Moment

By Jacqueline Lipton

I think I read somewhere in the New York Times this weekend that President Obama described the incident involving the arrest of his friend, Harvard Prof Henry Gates and its aftermath as a "teachable moment" - a phrase I only came to know and love after moving to the United States strangely enough.  Don't think we Aussies describe "moments" as "teachable", perhaps suggesting that we suffer from a deplorable lack of intellectual curiosity.

In any event, being a teacher, and not wanting to let the moment slip away, I started thinking of hypotheticals that, if I could answer them, might illustrate something about race relations and the appropriate role of the president in this context.

- What if Obama had said that the police "acted unfortunately", rather than "stupidly"?  Or the police "may have overreacted"?  Would this have raised less consternation?

- What if the police had been called to the house of a white Harvard professor?  Would they have arrested him (assuming a man rather than a woman for fear of getting into gender relations as well)?

- What if the president had been a white man or white woman (oops - slipped back into gender there) and said the police had "acted stupidly"?  Would this have gained the same traction as the first black president having used those words in this context?

I'm sure there's a million more hypos one could come up with .....

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on July 26, 2009 (boomark / email).