[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 40 (Thursday, April 14, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       HONORING WILLIAM RASPBERRY

  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate one of 
the most valuable journalists we have in America--William Raspberry of 
the Washington Post--on the occasion of his Pulitzer Prize.
  I think this recognition is not only richly deserved--it is in fact 
long overdue. I have been a Raspberry fan for many years, and I would 
like to share with my colleagues the chief reasons why.
  Anyone who believes in a reasoned, thoughtful approach to our 
national problems can only have watched in dismay the trend in our 
political discourse in recent years. Never in America's history have 
public issues been talked about so much--with so little intelligence 
and illumination.
  I like to refer to it as the ``Crossfirization'' of politics. On any 
issue, there are two and only two sides. We determine which side is 
right by judging the slogans on their bumper stickers. Because pretty 
much everybody today has clever media consultants, the slogans tend to 
be of a uniform quality--so we need a tiebreaker. The tiebreaker is, 
who can shout the slogans loudest on TV.
  It is against this background that the eminence of William Raspberry 
takes on its true dimensions. Diogenes--the Greek philosopher of the 
4th century B.C.--walked around in the daylight with a lantern ``in 
search of an honest man.'' Today, he would have to look no further than 
William Raspberry.
  The truth is an iceberg, and Raspberry recognizes this. A poor 
columnist lacks insight entirely. A good columnist provides some 
insight. A great columnist--like Raspberry--uses an original insight as 
a springboard for a full-scale investigation into the heart of social 
and political reality.
  Earlier this week, Raspberry did something characteristic. He began a 
column about the rage of professional African-Americans who confront 
bigotry in their daily lives. In the middle of the column, Raspberry 
stopped: ``(I)f I were smart, I'd simply acknowledge the truth of the 
thesis . . . and let it go at that. Instead, I'm about to turn a no-
brainer into one of the most difficult columns I've ever written.'' He 
admitted that he personally didn't share that rage--and the rest of the 
column was devoted to his attempt to understand it in others.
  A lesser columnist would have made the easy point about 
discrimination--and avoided the personal admission that ostensibly 
undercuts it. William Raspberry--in contrast--recognizes that 
scrupulous honesty increases the credibility and seriousness of one's 
arguments.
  This approach animates the work of William Raspberry from start to 
finish. When he writes about social disintegration and the crisis of 
values, he writes in the voice of one who lives with these issues and 
takes them seriously. He is a man who listens--and a voice to be 
listened to.
  I congratulate Mr. Raspberry on his Pulitzer. He deserves it. And I 
hope that the journalists of tomorrow take note of William Raspberry's 
example: Good guys can finish first.
  I ask unanimous consent that a selection of excerpts from Raspberry's 
work--from the Washington Post of April 13--be included in the Record 
at the conclusion of my remarks.
  There being no objection, the excerpts were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        Prize-Winning Thoughts on Race, Rapprochment, Redemption

       Following are excerpts from Washington Post columnist 
     William Raspberry's Pulitzer Prize-winning entry:
       On a Supreme Court desegregation decision, likely to result 
     in the closure of at least one predominately-black 
     Mississippi college (1/29/93):
       ``It's impossible to grow up as I did--as a poor, black 
     Mississippian forced into segregated and third-rate schools--
     and not admire the man most responsible for bringing an end 
     to school desegregation. . . .
       ``But if the death of Thurgood Marshall prompts these 
     thoughts, the threatened death of a tiny college in the 
     Mississippi delta prompts other, contradictory notions, among 
     them this question: Must integration be the overriding 
     priority for those who care about the education of young 
     African Americans?''
       On the birthday of black abolitionist Frederick Douglass 
     (2/22/93):
       ``What would Frederick Douglass say . . . now? Wouldn't he 
     be overjoyed to see college attendance rates for blacks 
     approaching those of whites? Wouldn't he smile in 
     satisfaction to see the growth of the black middle class, in 
     affluence and influence . . . in knowing that the top 
     military man in America is Colin Powell, a black man. . . .
       ``What would Frederick Douglass say if you seated him in 
     the parlor of the Executive Mansion in Virginia--Virginia--
     and bade him sit while you fetched the governor, and then you 
     walked in with Doug Wilder? . . .
       ``Suppose you ticked off the academic and political 
     accomplishments of the grandchildren of slaves, even while 
     informing him that there were still in America those who were 
     indifferent, even hostile, to the advancement of his people. 
     . . .
       ``And then suppose you put him in the governor's limousine 
     and drove him through the slums of Richmond, or Washington or 
     Los Angeles and let him see what my wife and I have seen too 
     many times: the aimless drifters, the homeless in their 
     cardboard shelters, the bullet-riddled walls, the vandalized 
     schools, the pitifully undereducated children, the drug 
     dealers and their prey.
       ``What would Frederick Douglass say?
       ``I think he would say nothing at all. I think that . . . 
     Frederick Douglass would simply cry.''
       On gangsta rap and violence (6/2/93):
       ``My generation worried about racial segregation, mean 
     southern sheriffs and the lynching of Emmett Till, but we 
     sang about young love. My children's generation worries about 
     being `dissed' and sings about killing cops. . . .
       ``I wish their songs could be more like ours.
       ``But . . . I wish their world could be more like ours--
     that we could come together across the generations to reduce 
     the amount of violence and despair in their lives. It'll take 
     a lot more than censorship to get us there.''
       On reports that President Clinton planned to drop Lani 
     Guinier's nomination as assistant general for civil rights 
     (6/4/93):
       ``Something other than principle is at stake in the get-
     Guinier campaign. And something besides newly discovered 
     information has led Cuban to confide that he doesn't agree 
     with `all' of her writings. Of course he doesn't. I don't 
     either. I doubt that she does, no matter how serious she may 
     have been when she wrote them.
       ``There are some things I'd like to hear her on. I'd like 
     to know, for instance, how many of the proposals . . . would 
     require new legislation and . . . in her view, are doable 
     under the voting rights legislation she would interpret and 
     administer as assistant attorney general.
       ``Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee are the 
     place to get these matters cleared up. . . .
       ``Bork may have added a new verb (`to Bork') to our 
     vocabulary. But at least Bork had his hearing. Ronald Reagan 
     insisted upon it.
       ``Can't Clinton muster the guts to do as much for his 
     nominee?''
       On the long-term prospects for ``rapprochement'' between 
     the Nation of Islam headed by Louis Farrakhan and mainstream 
     black leaders troubled by his ``baggage of antisemitism'' (2/
     20/93):
       ``For Farrakhan, all this may be a sign of wimpishness. . . 
     . For the black political-civil rights establishment, on the 
     other hand, Jewish support is critical . . . most of them 
     simply don't subscribe to Farrakhan's notions about Jews, and 
     they are troubled by his apparent fixation with Jews.
       ``But they are also intrigued by the prospect of a unity 
     that could link mainstream activists with the disaffected 
     masses that Farrakhan can . . . turn out by the thousands. 
     Can they bring Farrakhan into the camp without triggering the 
     defection of other critical allies?
       ``My guess is that they can't. . . . If he insists on going 
     his own unreformed way, taking his occasional shot at Jews 
     and equating black disconfiture with wimpishness, it's hard 
     to see how last week's shining show of unity can turn out to 
     be more than just another flash in the pan.
       Repeating his call, first made in 1989, to ``bring out the 
     troops'' in Washington (9/29/93):
       ``I believe we need to deal with the depression and despair 
     of our young people--their joblessness, their hopelessness, 
     their empty vision of the future. But I also believe that 
     none of this is possible unless our children's homes and 
     schools and playgrounds are safe places. We're got to do what 
     it takes to make our cities safe again: with federal help and 
     with federal troops, if necessary.''
       On Jesse L. Jackson's call for the black community to take 
     as stand against violence (10/6/93):
       ``It does not absolve America of its racism. It does not 
     contend that racism is no longer of much importance. It 
     simply gives voice to what all of us know but have so much 
     trouble talking about: that the major forces that threaten 
     black America--family deterioration, teen pregnancy, drugs, 
     violence--are things that have to be dealt with from the 
     inside.''
       On stiffer sentences in the new crime bill (10/27/83):
       ``The crime that may lead to frightened America to take a 
     chance on this flawed bill has its roots no in inadequate 
     punishment but in unformed consciences. The rest of us may 
     violate societal rules whose validity we nonetheless accept. 
     The youngsters we so fear are not backsliders from an 
     accepted faith; they are social infidels. Our values are not 
     their values, our expectations are not their expectations, 
     our fears are not their fears.
       ``None of this means that we shouldn't punish--even 
     severely--those who violate the law. It means only that the 
     problem--and any hope for solution--begins much, much 
     earlier. . . .
       ``Maybe it's too much to expect a nation petrified by crime 
     to do different things a different way--by undertaking 
     serious prevention and, yes, redemption.''

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