CITTA: ‘Beer Summit’ distracts from real issues

So I heard this great joke: A Cambridge police sergeant, a Harvard professor and a president walk into a bar...

The punch line? Some dude in Pennsylvania is still denied health coverage by his HMO and dies of pancreatic cancer. Oh, and the economy still sucks.

All right, the ending needs some work and I probably won't be opening for Second City anytime soon, but I'm an observational comedian. I write about what's real on the streets, just like The Game or 50 Cent.

The aforementioned joke about presidents and bars is based on a real life incident. On July 16, Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard professor, returned from China to his quaint home in Cambridge Massachusetts. Unfortunately, his front door was jammed shut. Both Gates and his driver, in what must have been a spectacular tag-team method, pried the stubborn door loose.

Unfortunately, breaking and entering—even if it's into your own house—can still attract attention from the nosy elderly woman who seems to come standard with any neighborhood that's been in existence for the last ten years. Thus, the nosy old woman informs a forty-something woman (Lucia Whalen) who then calls in the fuzz.

It does seem cliché that the incident was seen by an elderly woman. At times I just feel as if America's been secretly infiltrated by a horde of septuagenarians, bent on knowing everybody's business. But like most good jokes, you can't make this stuff up.

The police arrive in the form of Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, to sort the whole mess out. But the sorting out portion of this story apparently means that Professor Gates is arrested. The circumstances surrounding the cause for arrest are murky (a game of he-said-he-said has since been ignited), but this joke still has one kicker left in it.

In a twist that only the likes of (pre Sixth Sense) M. Night Shyamalan could foresee, President Barack Obama commented on the incident during a July 24 press conference, saying that the Cambridge police force "acted stupidly." This comment instigated a maelstrom of controversy over politics and the state of the American minority in our society.

Now here's where things get weird. To iron out the wrinkles that this story has brought to the surface, President Obama asked Crowley and Gates to meet at the White House and discuss the incident over a beer. Both men accepted.

It's at this point that I'll ask if Chris Angel is around, because I think I've just been mind-freaked.

What's interesting isn't the meditation on race that this incident brings up. It isn't the unlikely confrontation of professional politics, academia and the everyman in one massive, head-first collision. It isn't even a deconstruction on old women and nosiness.

What's interesting is that all of life's problems - be it world hunger, overpopulation or terrorism - no matter how grandiose or inconsequential, no matter how insanely intricate or inanely effortless, every problem has the same solution: beer.

As if a glass of the sauce helped Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan better understand walls. Or a cup of sake between Hirohito and a B-29 taught mutual lessons about nuclear fission and vaporizing human bodies. Or a pint of liquid courage gave Americans the bravado to dump a crap-load of tea into the water.

Arguably, the last speculation might actually be legitimate. Although I never thought about it before, I can easily picture the Sons of Liberty being pretty wasted on that fateful night.

But beer has constantly been touted as the ultimate mediator between disagreeing parties. If you get into a fight with your best friend, the agreed upon method of saying sorry is with a pitcher of beer. As if the amber tinged liquid holds an arcane mystique that's perfectly suited for bolstering the mutual respect of individuals and ideas.

And spousal abuse. Don't forget about spousal abuse.

But it all seems clear now. If only Jesus had a case of Bud, this whole crucifixion thing would probably never of happened. Maybe a couple awkward moments, a few laughs, jokes, some tears and apologies between Romans.

It all seems so simple in retrospect.

I'm not saying that the White House rendezvous was an inherently terrible idea. Nor do I think it's destined for failure—the Tea Party thing worked after all (and I'm sticking with my theory on that one). The meeting is meant to discuss a misunderstanding between two men and a nosy president who clearly didn't come standard with the neighborhood. It's only a microcosm for a greater metaphor on race relations as it pertains to American society if you want it to be.

There's just an air of déjà vu to all of this. Specifically a certain president who ran on a platform as the guy you'd want to "have a beer with." A guy who could appeal to the everyman in us all and solve problems in their most basic simplicity. Kind of like beer: simple, easy and universal to all.

Which clearly ended well for our country.

But as Obama, Crowley and Gates meet over a tiff between two men, our health care system is still disintegrating before our eyes; our economy is still eroding almost to an unfathomable tipping point, and people still think Nickelback is cool.

If the press-dubbed, "Beer Summit," actually comes out with a solution, then it won't be because of the beer. It will be because three men got together, talked through their problems and found viable solutions.

Unless they all decide to go on a bender and crash a modern day tea party. That would be because of the beer. And that would also be completely awesome.

Kyle Citta is a junior Woodchuck taste tester. Reach him at kylecitta@dailynebraskan.com