THE professor, the policeman and the president are ready to share a beer — and maybe a few thoughts about race and law enforcement in the US.

The gathering, set for tomorrow night, might help President Barack Obama write a sudsy but happy ending to an arrest that has triggered a fierce debate about race relations and briefly knocked him off his stride.

An administration official said Obama would host the two main characters in the unlikely Boston drama: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr and Sergeant James Crowley, of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police department.

Crowley, who is white, arrested Gates, who is black. The police had been called to the Gates home by a neighbour who suspected a burglary was in progress. The burglar turned out to be Gates.

There was a heated exchange between Crowley and Gates at the latter’s home.

When Obama said that the police had acted “stupidly”, the national debate over racial profiling become so fierce that the president had to intercede to get the public’s attention back to his healthcare agenda.

Obama phoned Crowley, who suggested that the three men sit down for a beer at the White House. The president said he liked the idea and Gates concurred.

By Staff reporter and agencies