Newspaper Page Text
8A
. JANUARY 8, 1998
. TO BE EQUAL By Hugh B. Price
Just who is an
American, anyway?
story in the December 14th
New York Times declared
A that a joint Times/CBS
i News poll had found, as
! the headline put it, “Americans
Reject Means But Not Ends of
« Racial Diversity.”
4 The report, which included
» ; Braphs and adiscussion of the pos
#,sible meaning of some of the sta
o tistics, said that “Americans to
,‘d&y endorse the goal of racial di
o Versity in schools and offices, but
t, reject some of the main methods
«, used so far to achieve it.”
ot Yet, in my view, this poll was not
quite what it seemed — even to the
Times/CBS News pollsters; and
stherefore its findings must be re
-Barded in a different, more com
4,Plex way
¢ For one thing, the headline is
»,Wrong. Americans do not “reject”
p-the means to achieve diversity:
‘-{'White Americans oppose those
means, generally speaking, by sig
g-nificant margins. Black Americans
Support them, generally speaking,
4Py even more significant margins.
« For example, 57 percent of
»WVhitessaid that affirmative action
gPrograms weren’t needed to en
«pure that businesses have diverse
work forces; 80 percent of blacks
_';‘&aid they were. Only 35 percent of
svhites agreed that affirmative ac
;‘Hon programs should be contin
ed “for the foreseeable future;”
'fiut 80 percent of blacks said they
‘!phould.
. Even when blacks and whites
¢ :
.agreed on a survey question, the
ofßps were striking: 82 to 95 per-
Jcent of blacks supported special
educational and job-training pro
jgrams for minorities, and laws to
them,against discrimina
‘fi?ms% Femotian, The
_percentage of Y ?fifl who agreed
ranged from 59 to 65 percent.
, But, despite those gaps, that
Apgreement does exist suggests that
#Americans have a more complex
Jyiewof the means to achieve diver-
Sity than that headline acknowl
f£dges. That may be because the
foll is skewed by a serious flaw: it
ocuses only on blacks and whites.
Yet the statistics of employment
gnd college- and graduate school
fiimiasion show that white women,
ispanic Americans, and Asian
Americans have also benefited sig
nificantly from affirmative action.
The views of and about those
groups — significant actors in our
iverse society — are absent from
is survey.
*)Nonetheless, the survey is valu
le.
+ What can be said is that, on the
j’ne hand, 61 percent of whites feel
ffirmative action programs
should be either ended now, or
phased out in the next few years,
while, on the other, nearly 66 per
cpnt agree that there should be
iecial preparatory educational
d job programs (which many
c?nservatives would likely classify
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4 L 4 v
as affirmative action) to help m
norities,
This seeming contradiction doe
reflect what the two major refer
enda to this date on affirmativ
action —the California electorate’
approval of a ban on affirmativ
action in 1996; the Housto
electorate’s choosing last mont)
to continue that city’s affirmativ:
action program -- haveshown: Hov
affirmative action programs ar
operated, and how affirmative ac
tion is explained is crucial
whether a majority of whites wil
support it.
The gap between white suppor
for racial diversity and their objec
tion to the means to achieve it has
existed since the founding of th
nation. Indeed, a Gallup poll, taker
just before the 1963 March or
Washington, found that 63 per
cent of those surveyed disapprovec
of it, and that 38 percent felt that
the civil rights movement was be
ing too assertive in pushing so
bedrock civil rights for blacks it
the South.
The present survey does con
firm, again, that a significant seg
ment of white America has close
some of the distance between th
ideals we all pledge allegiance t.
and the practices it will pledge to
support. That is progress.
We who believe affirmative ac
tion is a proper mechanism to
achieve inclusion must intensify
our grassroots efforts to stem the
spread of anti-affirmative action
referenda to other jurisdictions
and to Congress. We also must
strengthen the arguments on our
side and discard those outmoded,
flawed and legally risky practices
that have undermined affirmative
action’s ¢redibility.
We must make clear that affir
mative action is actually two
things.
First,it’s a set of tools to remedy
discrimination.
Second, it’s a philosophy which
declares that inclusion is a moral,
economic, political and demo
graphic imperative too vital to our
nation’s future to be left entirely
to chance. Whether by happen
stance or design, tokenism or,
worse, exclusion, cannot be op
tions for the most robustly diverse
society in the history of human
kind.
When you strip away all the dis
putes over statistics and missteps,
the fundamental question facing
our nation is the one that has
alwaysencompassed the centuries
old American debate about free
dom and equality of opportunity
about inclusion: Do we intend to
make certain that all Americans
share in the American Dream?
The lesson of American history
— of all the groupsin America, not
just African Americans — is that,
whatever the opposition of the
moment, the long term answer
will be yes.
Charles W. Walker
Publisher
Frederick Benjamin
Managing Editor
Dot T. Ealy
Marketing Director
Sheila Jones
Office Manager
Lillian Wan
Copy Editor
Debby Rivera
Advertising Production
Christy Allen
News Correspondent
Loretta LaGrone
Account Representative
~ Nicole Collins
Account Representative
Kditorial
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— ‘QS
GUEST COLUMN By Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchison
The racial realities in America that
conservatives don’t want to hear
rom the moment that Presi
dent Clinton announced his
race initiative program,
Newt Gingrich and other
Republicans pounded on him to
include conservatives in the dia
logue. Clinton got the message.
Before the Akron Town Hall meet
ing in early. December he said he
would listen to what conservatives
like Ward Connerly had to say.
While I agree that conservatives
should be included in Clinton’s
dialogue, my guess is that the sum
of their contribution will be to
pawn off the same tired litany of
racial stereotypes and slanders
about African Americans.
The nub of their argument is
that whites are sick and tired of
hearing Blacks blame racism, eco
nomic inequality, and an unjust
criminal justice system for their
failures. But these are the reali
ties that many conservatives don’t
want to hear. The majority of
violent crime in America is com
mitted by whites. The majority of
drug users and abusers are white.
The majority of welfare recipients
and poor are white. Sociologist
Joe Feagin inLiving with Racism,
has thoroughly documented the
sneaky storehouse of racist dodges
and tactics many bankers, corpo
rate officials, real estate lenders,
FOCUS IN SOUTH CAROLINA By Lawrence Harrison
The times before and the times ahead
r.d. Philip Waring proved
that the pen is indeed
mightier than the sword.
He taught us about his
tory ... our history. As we look
ahead, we should look. back to
where we have come from. African
Americans have come from a
“mighty longways.” Reflectionand
hope are the focus for a New Year.
We have to take to imagining
more television programs that de
picts African Americans positively
and realistically. Mine would be
about a group of young African
Americans who had the ability to
gobackin time. Not toworry, they
would return to the present at the
end of each episode. It would be a
hour-longdrama. Thetitle? Imag
ine for yourself.
Oneepisode has them going back
to the early 19405. A couple of the
young men ponder a future in pro
fessional baseball. Of course, there
is no such thing. Depression, be
hotels, restaurants, and cab driv
ers still use to perpetuate racial
discrimination.
The prisons are increasingly
jammed with poor, young Blacks
due to draconian drug laws that
target African Americans. The
U.S. Sentencing Commission
pointed to the blatant inequity in
the criminal justice system when
it recommended that the harsh
sentences handed out for drug
possession to Black offenders and
thelight har:d slap sentences given
to white offenders be modified “or
equalized.” Clinton and Attorney
General Janet Reno agreed. Con
gressrefused to make any changes.
And what are the job prospects
for those Blacks when they are
released from prison? A study by
the California Commission on the
Status of The Black Male in 1996
revealed that one-sixth of
California’s 625,000 Black males
age 16 and older were arrested
yearly and concluded that the ar
rest, “thereby create police records
which hinder later job prospects.”
Also the perception that Blacks
are inherently prone to crime and
violence is fed by much of the
media’s continued obsession with
crime-drug-violence-gang-in
ghetto features and news stories.
This almost certainly makes many
wilderment are some of their emo
tions. The Negro League becomes
more than a lost curiosity. Still,
the understandingis not complete.
They long for their tima», the real
ity of at least sports acceptance.
After convincing one of the female
stars, who has the key for their
return, to stop living the life of her
mother and grandmother and care
about darker African Americans
(it's TV), they do return. She
finally remembers it's President
Clinton, not Roosevelt.
Another episode would have our
adventurers going back before
America. They are in an Africa
not of tribes (not even an African
word), but of family groups, kin
ship, and nations. The disagree
ments that do exist are no better
or worse then those in Europe or
anywhere else of the known world.
The surprise and revelation lead
ul)e tears for some of our time-trav
elers.
employers believe that Black com
munities are vast wastelands of
rot, and that Blacks are chronic
social and educational failures, and
not fit to be hired.
They are not. In 1996, accord
ingtothe National Urban League’s
State of Black America report, 80
percent of African Americans
graduated from high school and
nearly 30 percent were enrolled in
college (many in historically Black
colleges). Contrary to popular
belief, the high school drop out
rate for African Americans was no
greater than for whites. But this
was back page stuff in the papers,
if reported at all.
The bad news is that many
Blacks who want college degrees
are losing ground. Since 1994 fund
ing cuts, elimination of scholar
ships, grants and financial assis
tance, and the pulverizing of affir
mative action have badly thinned
the ranks of Blacks and Latinos
admitted to medical and law
schools at several University of
California campuses. While con
servatives lecture Blacks to get an
education and solve their own
problems, they are stone silent
about segregation and the gaping
fundingshortfallsthat keep ghetto
schools Blacker and poorer.
And that brings me to affirma-
It is overwhelming ... but only
the beginning. No dramatic sur
prise, our group is captured by
slavers. Whether it’s blacks or
whites hardly makes a difference.
In fantasy, we can escape the slave
ships or the suffering if only for a
fixed time. Ifwe are humaneatall,
the message of man’s inhumanity
to man is timeless. our lucky TV
group escapes by returning to their
time. There is no laughter at the
end, the thoughts of our charac
ters are left up to the viewers at
fade out.
Episode three (not necessarily
the third) centers on the mid
-19605. Our youngest character is
fsatured. Before, the “White only
and Colored only” signs was just
old stuffof history booksand bl,u:k
and white television. Now, it's
not. The lesson: We only a i
ate what we don't have. g:t, it
was 80 hard for our character to
tiveaction. Thisisthe handsdown
favorite issue conservatives use to
bludgeon Clinton and liberalsinto
political submission. They dangle
horrific visions before the public
of hordes of unqualified minori
ties and women driving qualified
white males from jobs.
Other than a few highly-publi
cized and anecdotal cases of whites
complainingabout losing their jobs
to a minority worker, there is not
ashred of evidence that whites are
being displaced en masse by mi
norities. Corporate America is the
proof. In 1994, there were fewer
than a half dozen Black CEOs at
the Fortune Magazine's top 1000
companies. Conservatives have
doneeverything they could to bully
and badger Clinton into packing
his town hall meetings on race and
anti-affirmative action hired guns
like Ward Connerly. Now that
they’ve gotten their wish and con
servatives will be at Clinton’s race
table, let’s see how they hold up
when confronted by the realities
of racism and economic inequality
that they pretend no longer exist.
Dr. Earll Ofari Hutchison is the
author of The Assassination of the
Black Male Image and the forth
coming The Crisis in Black and
Black.email:ehutchi344@aol.com
understand; fire hoses, name call
ing, all because a person of a differ
ent hue wanted to sit in a place to
eat or in a school to learn. There
was plenty fpity togoaround. As
our group returns to 1998, a Bap- |
tist minister, Rev. Martin Luther |
King Jr. is becoming nationally |
known and there is a court deci- |
sion namedßrown vs. the Board of |
Education.” Fade out. |
The final episode of our imag- |
ined TV series find our characters |
in the not-so-distant past. They |
areimpartingtheir learned knowl- |
edgetoothers, orat least tryingto. |
Thetotal history of a people. Some |
listen, some don’t. The future, |
however, can only be about im- |
proving the past. It is who our |
charactersare, it is whoweall are. |
Although critically acclaimed, :
our series was canceled because of |
lack of viewership. It wasreplaced |
by two half-hour comedies. |