The date's set: Thursday at the White House. Beer, Crowley, Gates and Obama.
Obama's doing that empathy thing again.
It was wrong for Sgt. Crowley to arrest Gates but it doesn't appear that Crowley was doing so because Gates was black. It's looking like emotions flared on both sides and neither managed to be the bigger person. With a history of cops targeting black people, Gates immediately jumped to the conclusion that Crowley was racist.
But ultimately, it is the cop, the person with authority, who should be able to calm a situation. If Crowley had been more sensitive, he could've calmed Gates down.
I think Obama's trying to say that if both sides are empathetic, flare ups like these don't need to happen.
Sadly, both Crowley and Gates already have been demonized on the Internet. People have already taken up sides, which merely perpetuates racism. Sometimes, both sides are wrong. It will be interesting to see how their meeting plays out.
Colin Powell suggests "Skip" could've kept his cool:
