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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 gt ey IS ; Since 1981 é A Walker Group Publication ;1143 Laney Walker Blvd. ' iy Give your favorite non-profit . ~ organization a unique gift; buy it ad space in the Augusta Focus. Call 724-7855 to arrange 1 your purchases. _AUGUSTA FOCUS 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 F. Pass the hot sauce, N .- y mama, this is gonna X ""'* = ¥ begood! N > [ ol ' iy 4 T 3 5| 7): A - B 4N O ’ 2N YAz Vo X / BN )l ' ./,/, W '.‘ )ok &Y. | B==S e —— — ‘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. |