At the mCapitol offices, we like to keep ourselves apprised of the news, so CNN is often on in the front lobby. I had to cover the front desk for a few hours last week, and, in that time, witnessed the infuriating coverage of the whole Henry Gates/Cambridge police fiasco. It really began to tick me off, and work had slowed down a bit because of the recess, so I managed to vent my frustration onto paper throughout the afternoon.

So, as promised, I am posting one of my many rants about current events. Enjoy, and feel free to comment!

As Barry, Joe, Jim and Skip sat down last night, over chilled mugs and salted snacks, the nation breathed a collective sigh of relief. The tense two weeks of “Gates-gate” are finally coming to a close.

So, after inches of column space and hours airtime have been devoted to discussing this incident, something positive has to come of this, right? Something to help us sleep soundly tonight? Something to let us know that we haven’t hopelessly squandered another opportunity to honestly confront one of America’s greatest ills? We should learn something valuable, but every time we attempt “the race talk”, we become snagged on disagreements on its very existence. People still want to know: Is race still an issue in the United States?

The arrest of Dr. Gates hasn’t seemed to prove to the general American public that discrimination still pervades our society. But neither did the Jena 6, or Hurricane Katrina, or those Philadelphia kids denied access to a pool, or the shooting of Amadou Dialou, or Rodney King or even the indisputable statistics that illustrate gaping divides between the experiences of minorities and the rest of America. We look for an answer to our question in each of these instances, yet to learn the truth, we need only look to our actions and reactions in the aftermath.

Throughout the last two weeks, many Americans have bristled at the mere suggestion that race could potentially be a factor in Dr. Gates’ arrest, and then scrambled to find any other factor that may be at work. This isn’t unusual, as minorities often tell of others scoffing at the idea of racial inequality, and going to great lengths to prove, mostly to themselves, that we no longer have this issue to deal with. Disproving and discrediting accounts of racism seems to have become a national pastime, and it’s one that makes minorities feel ignored, dismissed, angry and not trusted.

Others, often conservatives, complain that racial sensitivity has somehow transformed our country into a hyper-politically correct society, where speaking your mind has you labeled as a racist. You can’t call black women “nappy headed hoes?” What has this country come to? Barack the Magic Negro isn’t an appropriate song to play on the radio? We might as well be under Stalin!

Yet, even as minorities are blamed for the supposed over-censoring of American racial dialogue, we hold little power in it. Think about it, in America, being labeled as a racist is now considered a more egregious adversity than actually suffering the injustices of racism. Anyone who dares bring up an instance of discrimination is scorned and told to stop “playing the race card,” while those suspected of prejudice are coddled and comforted. Minorities are now hesitant to even allude to racism, for fear of the backlash they will endure. Think of how many legitimate, life damaging instances of discrimination we ignore by assuming any claim of prejudice is overreaction and exaggeration?

And look at the outpouring of support for officer Crowley and Lucia Whalens, who publicly defended themselves against charges of racism. That support isn’t nearly matched for the man who had his basic civil rights violated.

An astonishing NBC/WSJ poll makes clear the public’s thinking on Dr. Gates’ arrest. Overall, 27% of Americans believe that professor Gates was at fault for this incident, while only 11% blame Sgt. Crowley. Broken down by race, only 4% of African Americans blame Dr. Gates, and 30% blame Officer Crowley. For whites, the results are almost the exact opposite, with 32% finding Gates at fault, and 7% blaming Crowley.

I’m not sure if my jaw had actually ever dropped at anything before, but to this it fell to the floor. Nothing proves that a problem exists here more than this obvious chasm in the worldviews of white and black Americans.

Whether you support Gates’ reaction to Officer Crowley, or you think it was an overreaction, the Cambridge police department has acknowledged the charges made against Gates were false, and that his arrest was unlawful. Yet, somehow, the public still believes Gates to be at fault in this incident. An officer clearly over-steps his boundaries and makes an unlawful arrest, and he can be absolved of all guilt, yet the man who is arrested in his own home for not breaking the law is made out to be the bad guy? In the words of Bill Cosby: Come on, people!

How has the national debate on race become so backwards, so ignorant of the issues? Why is it that journalists, politicians and media personalities capable of speaking expertly on health care and climate change, become stupefied and inept when it comes to race?

How are we at a point where the first black president and the supposed first Latina Supreme Court Justice are both labeled as racists, without national outrage? How can a Boston police officer publicly call Dr. Gates a “banana eating Jungle Monkey,” without convincing anyone that we still have serious issues to deal with?

And to add to his statements, this police officer has publicly stated that he is not a racist…Let me repeat, he believes, in his heart, that he is not a racist. That defies all logic and reason! If making statements like that doesn’t earn you the title of racist, then I’d be afraid to see what does.

Maybe that’s our problem, though. We’ve lost control of the meaning of the word racism. It’s gotten so convoluted, so weighed down with emotional baggage on each side that people think just because I can walk down the street assured that I won’t be found strung from a tree the next morning, it doesn’t mean that I will never be called a Nigger, or equally considered for a job, or treated with respect by the police.

Given our long and troubled history with racism in this country, why is it so hard for us to believe that we are still dealing with it? What would lead us to think that this nation has been magically cured of its four century long ailment?

To say that there are structural and institutional inequities does not change the fact that America is a great country, it just means that we’ve still got work to do. To propose that Officer Crowley may have had a subconsciously prejudiced response to Dr. Gates does not mean that he is a hateful person. It means that we live in a country where race has been an issue for hundreds of years, and not one single person, not even law enforcement officials, is free from the influence of that legacy.

We all have racial prejudices, many of which we are unaware of. We think racism requires a pointed hood, or a swastika tatoo. It doesn’t. Well intentioned people can discriminate too. We must acknowledge the persistence of those sentiments, and work to honestly confront them, so that when we do unconsciously pass them on to our children, as older generations did to us, their impact will be minimized.

No one would deny that progress has not been made since the darkest days of slavery, Jim Crow, and other injustices. All Americans are proud of this fact. We just witnessed the election of the first black President, a triumph that brought the entire country together. Don’t we want more victories like that? Don’t we want to look forward to celebrating the disappearance of more long standing inequalities?

If the answer is yes, then complacency is not an option. We cannot stagnate in the wake of recent successes. Progress must still be made. Racism and discrimination is a cancer, an infection. Open conversation, activism, and public policy changes are the antibiotic. Even if some of us may be feeling a bit better, we all know that we need to finish the prescription in order to rid ourselves of the disease.