Denial, continued

Dear Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Well, it’s been almost a month and one beer summit ago, but here’s what you still need to know, OK? It’s Not About Race. It’s Never About Race. We admit that there are still racial problems in this society, and that even white people very occasionally have them. But no individual act is ever About Race. Rodney King was drunk. Amadou Diallo could have had a Glock in his wallet. What happened subsequently to all of them, therefore, was Not About Race. It was about bad tempers, or class distinctions, or human frailty. But not About Race, because it Never Is. So when you got busted for being inside your home in circumstances that made passersby nervous, it was Not About Race. This was explained to us, at length, by plucky little tabloids, by the Metco-gorilla boys on one radio station, and by a guy on another who’s apparently going to spend the better part of the decade whining about his maltreatment at the hands of the Registry of Motor Vehicles. And, of course, it’s Not About Race because the officer in question once gave mouth-to-mouth to a dying Reggie Lewis. See? If it were About Race, the officer would have stood there and done nothing while a famous and beloved local athlete gasped his last breath. That’s the bar for what’s About Race today. In 2009. Hope this clears things up for you.