Race, class and testosterone

Maureen Dowd on the Professor Gates/Officer Crowley affair:

President Obama was right the first time, that the encounter had a stupid ending, and the second time, that both Gates and Crowley overreacted. His soothing assessment that two good people got snared in a bad moment seems on target.

It escalated into a clash of egos — the hard-working white cop vs. the globe-trotting black scholar, the town vs. the gown, the Lowell Police Academy vs. the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

. . .

From Shakespeare to Hitchcock, mistaken identity makes for a powerful narrative.

A police officer who’s proud of his reputation for getting along with black officers, and for teaching cadets to avoid racial profiling, feels maligned to be cast as a racist white Boston cop.

A famous professor who studies identity and summers in Martha’s Vineyard feels maligned to be cast as a black burglar with backpack and crowbar.

Race, class and testosterone will always be a combustible brew. Our first African-American president will try to make the peace with Gates (who supported Hillary) and Crowley (whose father voted for Obama).

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Frankly, I have more sympathy with the cop than the academic but that's because of my class, not my race. That doesn't change the fact that many ordinary non-celebrity African-Americans are arrested or pulled over under circumstances that a comparable Anglo wouldn't. A friend of mine (who's a Christian rap artist) has had it happen to him more than once. Obama was hasty in his initial comments, but what a brilliant idea to invite the cop and the professor to the White House for a beer. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.