"Cheers" to Kindness

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Yesterday when I was watching the Glenn Beck program, I saw a picture that truly was worth a thousand words, and then some. I hope that most of you are aware of what happened over the past couple of weeks involving the Cambridge police, mainly Sergeant James Crowley, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and President Barack Obama. If you are unaware, then you can read in general what happened here.

So now let's fast forward to the actual Beer Summit. We have Sergeant Crowley, an accused racist who "acted stupidly" when arresting Professor Gates, we have Professor Gates himself, who accused Sergeant Crowley of racial profiling, and we have the President of the United States who felt the need to become involved and accuse Sergeant Crowley of acting stupidly, coming to the aid of friend Professor Gates, even when the President didn't know all of the facts, and admitted it later on. Now that the background has been given, here is a picture that was placed on the White House blog, showing these three men walking to the table where they would talk over a couple beers.

And thus come the thousand words that this picture shows. Professor Gates who apparently has trouble walking down the steps is helped by the man he accused of being a racist, while his "friend" President Obama, walks generally unconcerned in front of them. I have just one question: who is the true friend of Professor Gates? We have all heard the story of the Good Samaritan, and although this Beer Summit had nothing to do with life or death, I think we can find the same moral to the story with Sergeant James Crowley. This picture immediately vindicates him from all former accusations, and yet this was never his intention. The rest of the story finally makes sense. He never racially profiled anyone, but rather we see he has a genuine concern for his fellow man, one that I wish I would have if I was ever in his situation.

And this is as far as I will go, as I don't want to make President Obama the center of attention, because he gets his fair share from everybody else. All I want to do is to show the selflessness of a person that I have not seen recently. Maybe I am overexaggerating this, and maybe this was just a photo-op, but I still felt the need to give credit where credit is due. So thank you Sergeant Crowley for being the better man, and for teaching me a lesson that I have forgotten about as of late. I hope to have the same humility that you showed if I am ever in a similar situation.