President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden shared a few cold ones at the White House on Thursday with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the racist cop who falsely arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department. The stated purpose of the “Beer Summit” was to “promote dialogue” between Gates and Crowley. There would be no discussion about the unconscionable murder rate of black males by the police, or the systemic racism that is prevalent within law enforcement. The president wanted for Gates and Crowley to hurry up and make nice already, because they were distracting Americans from his health care reform initiative.

Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and countless other black males who have died at the hands of trigger happy cops can’t drink beer with the president or anybody else. A golden opportunity to shine a light on the culture of racism within police departments was squandered for political expediency. Right now, a black male whose name we will never know is being brutalized by the police. Meanwhile, Crowley basks in the glow of fifteen minute celebrity courtesy of President Obama, even as the news came out this week that he lied on his police report by stating that Lucia Whalen, the woman who made the 911 call to police, told him that “two black males” were breaking into Gates’ home. A tape of Whalen’s call & a vehement denial by Whalen herself have proven Crowley to be full of crap.

So the racist cop gets an apology from the president while refusing to apologize for being a racist. Most likely, he will have more televised beerfests with Sean Hannity and other rightwing talking heads. Meanwhile, Boston police officer Justin Barrett has been placed on administrative leave for referring to Gates as a “banana eating monkey” in a mass email to his colleagues and may be fired. I’ll drink to that.