US President Barack Obama (R) sits down for a beer with Professor Henry Louis Gates (2nd L), police Sergeant James Crowley (2nd R) and Vice President Joe Biden to try to start a dialogue on better race relations in the Rose Garden at the White House on July 30.
Obama and Biden were in shirtsleeves, Sgt Crowley and Prof Gates wore suits. The beer was in mugs. Obama had a Bud Lite, Sgt Crowley had Blue Moon, Prof Gates drank Sam Adams Light and Biden, who does not drink, had a Buckler nonalcoholic beer. The four men munched peanuts and pretzels out of small silver bowls.
‘Beer summit’ serves up cordiality but no apology
They came, they met, they drank. They did not apologise.The much-anticipated beer summit of United States President Barack Obama, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr, and Sergeant James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts took place on Thursday night, accompanied by minute-by-minute reporting from the White House press corps, countdown clocks from the cable news networks, and a last-minute addition by the White House in the form of Vice-President Joe Biden.
“What you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue,” a poised and smooth Sgt Crowley, 42, said during a 15-minute press conference after the session. “We didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the past, and we decided to look forward.”
Professor Gates, 58, said he and Sgt Crowley now must foster sympathy among Americans about “the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand”.
The two men, accompanied by their families, first met each other in the White House library while each group was on individual tours of the White House.
“Nobody knew what to do,” Prof Gates said. “So I walked over, stuck out my hand and said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ That broke the awkwardness.”
Sgt Crowley added that the families “had continued the tour as a group”. He described the interaction as very cordial.
Prof Gates concurred, saying: “We hit it off right from the beginning. When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likeable guy.By the time the two men met Obama, they could already report progress and told the President that they had made plans to lunch together soon.
“I am thankful to Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley for joining me...for a friendly, thoughtful conversation,” Obama said in a statement.
“I noticed this has been called the beer summit,” said the President before the meeting. “It’s a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys. This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other.”
However , Gates's Daughter: Beer Summit Made 'Little Sense'.Elizabeth Gates, who joined her father at the White House, writes in "What I Saw at the Beer Summit" that the gathering "seemed to make little sense at all."
Police came together against President Obama statement that said police "acted stupidly" in arrest of Professor Gates in his own house.
Sgt. James Crowley the arresting police officer.
Professor Gates being arrested.
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