Tom Avila is a contributing writer to Metro Weekly news magazine and a staffer for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA).

 
I know that we’re all sick of hearing about it, but I have to talk a bit longer about the so-called “Beer Summit.”

To his credit, President Obama called out the fact that while it was “… a clever term…” the “Beer Summit” was not a summit.
 
But I take issue with how Obama went on to explain the meeting. “This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day, and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other. And that's really all it is.”
Okay. Sure. 
Though in all the years that I’ve lived in Washington, DC no one from the White House has called me over for a casual happy hour, even when I’ve had a good deal to talk about. And on those evenings when I do get together with friends for that drink at the end of the day, there usually isn’t press standing to the left of frame.
Which doesn’t even touch on the fact that there were numerous places these three regular guys could have had a beer and a chat that didn’t involve any kind of public display. (And one of those alternative locations might have involved air conditioning or, at the very least, excused Gates and Crowley from keeping their jackets on in the summer swelter of DC in late July.)
At the end of the day the “Beer Summit” was a photo op. More than that, the not-really-a-summit “Beer Summit” was actually an apology – a bit of political maneuvering after Obama said that the police who arrested Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his own home acted stupidly.
So why didn’t the press call it what it was?
Perhaps more importantly, how did the storyline transform from an investigation into a police action that has raised a number of questions about race in our apparently not so post-race America to ruffled feathers over the kinds of beer the participants selected to drink?
Was it because it gave a nice ending visual to a story that asks so many complicated and uncomfortable questions about complicated and uncomfortable subjects? We can now step away, self-assured by the fact that there is photo-documentation that the case is closed? We’re back to being post-race, move along, nothing more to discuss here. 
Compare it to another incident that’s been in the news, though not to the degree of the Gates’ case.
On July 17 the now quite aptly-named online mega-store Amazon deleted some editions of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from readers’ Kindles. It seems the publisher of these particular editions removed permission for Amazon to sell them and so, thanks to a ghost in the Kindle machine many didn’t know was there, the retail giant erased the Orwell books by remote. (Yes Virginia, that’s called irony.)
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos issued an almost unheard of kind of apology for what happened. To all you “mistakes were made” types in the audience, this is what an apology actually looks like.
Bezos said, in part, “Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received.” 
What’s interesting to me about the Amazon case is that the apology didn’t end the discussion.
Questions continue to be raised about what this incident means for those who purchase digital content. Are they buying or simply leasing use? How was what Amazon did any different than going into someone’s home and removing a physical item that they had purchased? (Or showing up on your front porch and demanding that you bring them out to you.)
But more to the point of this discussion, no one dubbed the Bezos’ apology anything. This act of public relations was seen for what it was, an apology issued by a corporate executive for a bad decision.
I’ve written before in this space about my belief that talking about race is not the same thing as talking about diversity, but my concerns with this nationally televised happy hour are that we seem so focused on keeping discussions of race and difference so very tidy. We trivialize the larger issues that this story raised by branding them instead of digging past the “he said/he said” narrative and discovering what actual news content rests beyond.
“Beer Summit” might be clever, but it’s detrimental to the big picture discussion.

What beer the men at the table were drinking might be a great marketing opportunity for the companies whose names are on the cans (though, as a friend pointed out to me, it seems regular guys at the White House only drink out of mugs), but it doesn’t expand the story or inform the public.
Obama bringing Gates and Crowley to the patio table might mean something to the three of them, but probably not to the still anonymous men and women who believe their race or ethnicity or sexual orientation have made and continue to make them targets of the police. It certainly didn’t signal the beginning of a serious-minded national discussion about the sometimes fatal tensions that exist between some communities and law enforcement.
I’ll admit without hesitation that I was weary of this story by the time the White House meeting took place. I was ready to move on because what I believed was important and deserved attention – how someone trying to get into their own home after a long trip had spiraled into a prominent member of the community being arrested and spending time in jail – had fallen away and what remained in its place was a pale shadow.
Product placement. Photo ops. A homey “aw shucks, we’re just a bunch of guys getting together for a drink” slogan.

What was most critical had been deleted.
Don’t worry though. I’m not waiting for an apology.

The thoughts and opinions in this essay are Tom Avila’s and do not belong to his employer or, to the best of his knowledge, any online retailer. He has no plans of deleting them from your computer.