Remember the infamous Beer Summit at the White House this summer? The overly-reported event brought together black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and white Cambridge, Mass. police Sgt. James Crowley. Gates accused Crowley of racial profiling after he arrested him as he tried to enter his home, while Crowley said he was simply doing his job and following up on a report of a break-in. Obama sided with Gates, and chaos ensued until all three guys sat down for a beer at the White House.
Well, it appears we had beer summit part two this week, but without Obama and the White House backdrop. WBZ in Boston reports that Crowley and Gates were spotted together at a pub in Cambridge Wednesday night.
The owner of “River Gods” (does that name seem oddly symbolic, or is it just me?) told WBZ the pair sat in a booth together and talked for about an hour.
The meeting demonstrates yet another step in the right direction for these two men, who were hardly on chummy terms when this story first broke months ago. Back then, Gates wasn’t exactly feeling friendly toward Crowley, who arrested him for disorderly conduct. Likewise, Crowley didn’t take too kindly to being labeled a racist who simply arrested Gates because he was black.
There’s no word on what the two men discussed Wednesday, but the sheer length of the conversation is a positive sign. They met without the media glare and didn’t cause talk show hosts to chatter for hours on end about what beer they might drink.
They simply sat down and calmly communicated, which seems like a pretty good way to handle race relations to me.
Photo courtesy of Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons.
