[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H7470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               LABOR DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this week we celebrated Labor 
Day, and I believe that it is important to acknowledge the working men 
and women of America, for it is on their good and hard work, their 
tenacity and determination, their appreciation for excellence and 
equality that this Nation was built.
  So if I might, Mr. Speaker, let me pay tribute to all of America's 
workers, men and women, single parents, senior citizens, young people 
who go to work every day and make this country a better place.
  All over the Nation we celebrate Labor Day in many different ways. 
Families gather together. And I thought it was important to bring to 
the attention of this body maybe something that is not particularly 
associated with Labor Day, people working, but to emphasize how we can 
improve this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I live in Houston, Texas, near the coast, so many 
celebrate Labor Day by going to their beloved Gulf waters. This past 
weekend a family from Beaumont went to those waters to celebrate Labor 
Day. The family of four enjoying an outing out together happened to be 
African-American. Those family members joined on what was claimed to be 
a flimsy raft and went out into the rough waters seeking to have a good 
time.

                              {time}  1800

  I think there is nothing wrong with a family having a good time. 
Tragically, the raft overturned. But I would like to pay tribute to 
Holly Shaffer, a white woman in Galveston. I say that for a reason. For 
quoting from the Houston Chronicle, here are Holly Shaffer's words,

       ``Shaffer said she was sitting in her pick up truck 
     watching two families go in and out of the surf when one 
     group began struggling. She said other help might have 
     arrived sooner, but a man she asked to call for help on his 
     cellular telephone refused to do so. The man remarked they 
     are black, they are probably drunk, she said. He got out of 
     his car and stood there for 5 minutes, she added. I was 
     seeing red by then. Holly then had to run across the street 
     to a restaurant to seek help. Then she ran back across the 
     street to get whatever she had out of her car and ran down 
     the rugged rocks to be able to save one of the people who had 
     overturned.''
  I say that because it is important for us to uplift the goodness of 
America, and Holly Shaffer emphasizes that. How tragic it is that, in 
1998, on a day when we celebrate working Americans of all hues and 
colors and ethnic backgrounds, this quote in Texas signifies the cancer 
that still plagues America.
  That is why I think it is important to note and say thank you to two 
very fine scholars, William Bowen of Princeton University and Darek Bok 
of Harvard University who today have presented a report that should end 
and silence forever those who want to kill affirmative action and civil 
rights in America.
  The study says affirmative action created black middle class. There 
is no doubt, with absolute documentation, finite research to indicate 
that those African-Americans who were able to be race-based admitted 
into institutions of higher learning, elitist institutions like Yale 
and Harvard and Princeton in the 1970s and 1980s clearly carved out the 
path of black middle class in America.
  In fact, the article goes on to say that, more than their 
counterparts, and a Hispanic study will follow, those individuals 
became civic leaders. They became doctors and lawyers. They became 
active and contributors in their community.
  The shape of the report draws upon data about students who entered 
college in 1976 and 1989. It emphasizes in particular that race neutral 
admissions policy would be disastrous for American society, reducing 
black percentages to top schools to less than 2 percent.
  As an illustration of what that would mean, they constructed a rough 
profile of 700 black students admitted in 1976 under race conscious 
policies. Of the 700, 225 doctorates, 70 are now medical doctors, 60 
are lawyers, 125 are business executives, and more than 300 are civic 
leaders. Their average annual salary are $71,000, as reported from the 
New York Times, as I am reading from the Houston Chronicle, Wednesday, 
September 9, 1998.
  Mr. Speaker, I think this puts to rest, I hope, as we begin the 
debate in the years to come and the future months as we listen to the 
courts, looking at cases in Michigan and elsewhere around this Nation, 
we cannot snuff out the opportunities for African-Americans, women, and 
other minorities because someone believes that we have enough.
  Because we hear comments like they are drunk and probably black when 
people are losing their lives in the rough waters off the Gulf of 
Mexico, I think it is clear that we have a cancer in this community 
that we need to address.
  This Congress must come on the side or come down on the side of 
affirmative action. We must support those who believe in equal 
opportunity.
  The documentation by William Bowen and Derek Bok are clear deciding 
factors that suggest, without affirmative action in the 1960s and 1970s 
and 1980s, the affirmative action would not have created the black 
middle class that now serves and contributes to America. I hope we can 
stand for once on the side of equality and opportunity and carve out 
the cancer of racism for once and for all as we move into the 21st 
Century.

                          ____________________