Obama, Gates and Crowley Beer Bash

(MSNBC) With mugs of beer and a few minutes of conversation, President Barack Obama tried to pull himself and the nation beyond an uproar over race, sitting on his big back lawn with the black professor and the white policeman whose dispute had ignited a week of fierce debate.

Under the canopy of a magnolia tree Thursday evening, a shirt-sleeved Obama joined the other players in a story that had knocked the White House off message: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley. Vice President Joe Biden was also with them on a Rose Garden patio.

The men were seen chatting with each other, each with a mug of beer. The media were stationed far away, out of earshot.

The arrest of Harvard Law Professor Henry Gates has sparked an emotional debate over racial bias in law enforcement. LBN host Scott Drake attempts to get clear and well-reasoned analysis of the issues involved from LBN senior correspondent and expert on diversity -- lawyer, author, and frequent lecturer Sean Carter.