By now, most of the pundits have weighed on Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested on the porch of his own home on July 16. Just in case you’ve been on vacation on a remote Atoll and have missed this debacle, while many facts are still in dispute, these are the facts that both sides agree upon:

Gates arrived home from a trip to China, had trouble getting the door of his house open and forced it. Someone called 911 to report breaking and entering. A police officer approached Gates’ home and asked him to step outside. Gates declined. The officer went into the home where Gates showed him an ID that proved he lived there. Gates asked the officer for his name and badge number and did not get them.

The officer then asked Gates to step out on his porch. Gates started yelling. The officer handcuffed and arrested him. After the rumbling of an uproar began, the Cambridge police dropped the arrest.

Gates is 58 years old, walking with a cane because of hip surgery. What both Gates and the officer said is the subject of much discussion and confusion. What’s not confused is the law. The Supremes wrote in 1987 in Houston v. Hill “The freedoms of individual verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

The mere fact that someone’s yelling at an officer is not enough; they must use words that count as “fighting words.” The Supremes have established that even profanity with a cop is not sufficient for an arrest.

While Obama has invited the participants to the White House tonight for a symbolic beer, you may be left wondering how to talk to your co-workers about this or any other racial incident. Can you talk about race at work without being arrested? The answer is yes, if you do it with respect and awareness. Here’s what you need to know.

Do ask questions of your co-workers who are of different ethnic or racial backgrounds. What questions are okay? Open ended ones that start with who, what, where, and when. “What do you think of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest” is okay. “That professor was nuts for taking on the police,” will probably just lead to a fight.

Do listen carefully to their answers.

Don’t stereotype. Don’t assume that someone will hold a certain position just because they appear to have a certain racial or ethnic background. People’s views are a messy stew of their own personal history, education level and life experience. Their views may surprise you.

Do ask respectful questions about their own experience. “Have you ever had any experiences with the police?” is fine. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to take on the police” is not.

Do ask respectful and open-ended questions about their background. “What was it like growing up in Oklahoma” is fine. “It must have been hard growing up on the reservation” is not.

Don’t label someone as racist, sexist or homophobic. Do talk about the specific behavior involved, how it makes you feel, and whether you believe it’s respectful.

Here’s what some of my own associates had to say about the Gates issue when I asked them what they thought:

Bonita Patterson: “The core issue seems to be that both sides felt disrespected, and responded based on those emotions. Possibly had cooler head prevailed, this situation might have been avoided.”

Denise Materre: “How is it that a Harvard Law Professor (or any one for that matter) is arrested for breaking and entering their own home? The answer I believe lies in part with not pointing fingers or blame, but rather how do we see each other? I speak as a woman of color who has sat in the car while her husband has been falsely and belligerently accused of a moving violation and potential DUI, on multiple occasions; and as the mother of a son who has been stopped late at night, spoken to harshly and told ‘you better not be lyin’ to me boy’ an on another occasion, ‘called our of a party’ because his car looked like the vehicle of someone they were looking for; both were very wrong assumptions. I say we support the Police Officer and Dr. Gates, by taking a look at ourselves. What stereotypes do I hold about other groups of people? And, how do those stereotypes alter, or trigger my behavior?”

As I wrote in my books: We Need to Talk; Tough Conversations with Your Boss and We Need to Talk; Tough Conversations with Your Employee, discussing issues of discrimination at work is not easy, but sometimes a must.

Our respectful dialogue about race is long overdue, it’s not always comfortable but it can happen. How about we sit down with a beer and begin?