[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 73 (Friday, May 21, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E949-E951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             IN RECOGNITION OF PRESIDENT H. PATRICK SWYGERT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 20, 2004

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge and submit for the 
Congressional Record a speech delivered by H. Patrick Swygert, the 
President of Howard University at a meeting called by President Enrique 
Iglesias of the Inter-American Development Bank to examine the 
challenge of social inclusion in economic development in the Western 
Hemisphere. President Swygert's speech points out not only the 
destructivity of social exclusion, more importantly he emphasizes the 
need for social inclusion as a means to break barriers, build bridges, 
and create networks as a means to achieve economic development.
  I would also like to commend President Iglesias and the Inter-
American Development Bank for understanding and beginning to take

[[Page E950]]

the necessary steps towards a more social inclusive global community, 
and for affording President Swygert a forum to discuss and accelerate 
dialog regarding this important initiative.
  It is essential in the period of economic surplus that we recognize 
the fact that as our wealth grows, the gap between rich and poor 
widens. Eventually those on the lower end of the spectrum get left 
behind and have very few means to catch up to their counterparts. 
Social inclusion, as President Swygert eloquently points out, aims to 
intervene in the perpetual cycle of poverty that exclusion creates.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank President Swygert for his efforts to 
alert us all to the growing economic inequality that is the end result 
of social exclusion and for his visionary leadership in advocating 
social inclusion as the means to achieve the alleviation of poverty in 
the Western Hemisphere.

  Social Inclusion, Education Health and Culture: Breaking Barriers, 
                 Building Bridges and Creating Networks

                   (By President H. Patrick Swygert)

       The IADB President--Mr. Enrique Iglesias, Other Officials 
     of the Bank, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentleman, 
     Greetings. First, let me congratulate the Inter-American 
     Development Bank for this impressive effort today to 
     accelerate the dialogue on social inclusion.
       Inclusion of course, implies exclusion, its opposite. 
     Certainly, without the recognition that the issue of 
     exclusion is a problem and a growing one, there would not be 
     the need for this dialogue today. I regard this meeting, 
     therefore, as an effort to understand both sides of an issue 
     that is destructive in the case of the one, and productive, 
     harmonious and highly desirable in the other.
       It is indeed commendable that this institution, a 
     development bank, is leading this initiative to enhance our 
     understanding of the importance of inclusiveness among the 
     various human components of our societies and, conversely, 
     that you are examining the nature of exclusion and how it 
     thwarts the development process by relegating some people--
     the best resources of any society--to the fringes where they 
     are unable to realize their ambitions as fully functioning 
     members of the society.
       This undertaking, therefore, is both significant and 
     challenging because the issues that militate against the 
     inclusion that we seek are centuries old and are as pervasive 
     as they are persistent. And now, studies are showing that the 
     process of globalization which, at one level, ironically 
     enough, is bringing the world closer together, is at another 
     level, fostering deeper divisions between the peoples of the 
     world, and reinforcing the familiar and painful dichotomies 
     of powerful and powerless, haves and havenots, and increasing 
     the wretchedness of the wretched of the earth.
       In this still brand new millennium, our failure to build a 
     more just world and to fully harness, arguably the bulk of 
     the human capital into the process of building better 
     societies, better nations and a better world, remains one of 
     the greatest failures of this civilization.
       To this extent, dialogues like these are critical because 
     they are the necessary first steps on the pathway to a 
     greater understanding, appreciation and acceptance of our 
     common humanity and the building of the bridges we so badly 
     need.
       For me, this is a particularly interesting time to reflect 
     on the need for inclusion at all levels and the painful 
     lessons that we eventually learn when we pursue policies and 
     pathways that are exclusive and divisive.
       Come May 17, this year, Howard University will join the 
     NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Educational Fund 
     in a gala event at Constitution Hall to celebrate the 50th 
     Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 
     Supreme Court ruling that desegregated public education in 
     America and began this nation's transformation toward a more 
     inclusive society.
       As you can imagine, the Supreme Court ruling was a great 
     day for African Americans who made their entrance to this 
     continent in chains and struggled for centuries against the 
     denial of their humanity, and their exclusion from all else 
     except the forced labor that generated wealth for the 
     masters.
       The eventual end of slavery would not be the end of the 
     struggle for them it was soon followed by Jim Crow and the 
     segregation that ended officially only 50 years ago. Again, 
     the end of segregation merely heralded a new struggle--that 
     to have the society treat them as equal in accordance with 
     the new law of the land. It would take years of agitation 
     among civil rights groups and activists and the sacrifices of 
     people like Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before 
     the society finally began to implement changes at all levels.
       The process continues today. We have made tremendous 
     progress but we are nowhere near a fully integrated society. 
     It is still a daily struggle for African Americans and other 
     minorities to get others to look beyond the color of their 
     skins and see a fellow human being rather than a stereotype.
       Howard University, my alma mater, played a critical role in 
     the successful Brown case. The University was the training 
     ground for the attorneys who represented Brown and most of 
     them were faculty at our school of law. And, it was one of 
     our graduates, Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case before 
     the Supreme Court.
       Howard University is proud of this legacy. Proud of its 
     commitment to a philosophy of equality and justice for all 
     people. Proud of its dedication to help create an environment 
     that affirms the value of all humanity; that uplifts 
     everyone and oppresses no one.
       Throughout this academic year, the University has hosted 
     several events commemorating the Brown anniversary. The 
     dialogue has been about social exclusion and inclusion, 
     because that was at the heart of the case. African Americans 
     in this country know about exclusion. They know it was wrong 
     400 years ago and it is wrong today in whatever form it 
     comes.
       It is out of this history of suffering perhaps, has come 
     the instinctive revulsion of these kinds of artificial 
     barriers among African Americans. They seem to know 
     intuitively that divisions of the kind that they experienced 
     are morally offensive; they are socially disruptive, 
     economically unproductive and they form the breeding ground 
     for conflict and instability in any society.
       The basis of the exclusion that we speak of today is not 
     limited to social class, but gender, sexuality, physical or 
     emotional disabilities, ethnicity, race, skin color.
       In so many countries of the world, humanity seems divided 
     by these artificial barriers--barriers that do little except 
     to blind us to the reality of our common bonds. With both our 
     hearts and our intellect, we know that as citizens of the 
     universe, we are far more alike than we are different, yet by 
     our own attitudes or lack of action, many of us reinforce old 
     stereotypes that ultimately become obstacles to progress and 
     the pursuit of meaningful interactions.
       Samuel L. Johnson, the great 18th century British essayist, 
     and poet, suffered from all kinds of physical disabilities. 
     His sight was poor. His hearing was poor. His face was 
     scarred by a skin disease and he suffered from Tourette 
     syndrome. You bet that he too knew the meaning of social 
     exclusion. In a ringing appeal for acceptance, Johnson wrote. 
     ``Men, however distinguished by external accidents or 
     intrinsic qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, 
     and, as far as the senses are concerned, the same pleasures. 
     We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the 
     same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, 
     entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.''
       As human beings, we cherish a common desire to satisfy our 
     basic needs, and beyond that to pursue what we believe will 
     bring us a sense of fulfillment. For many of us, this often 
     means reaching out beyond ourselves in service to others and 
     this is where many of us truly absorb that the world is 
     bigger than the sum total of any single individual's needs.
       The truth is, our fundamental desires, with little 
     exceptions are grounded in our humanity, not in our race, 
     religion, ethnicity or any other such variables. Yet we 
     persist in our creation of all kinds of false dichotomies, 
     even as many of us embrace the notion of a Fatherhood of God. 
     Somehow, we have failed to accept that this fatherhood of God 
     extends itself to a brotherhood and a sisterhood of 
     humankind.
       Rather than such acceptance and the equality that it 
     implies, we have not just subdivided humanity but we have 
     stratified it as well. People of color--non white people--are 
     at the low end of this hierarchy. The farther one departs 
     from the Eurocentric ideals, which tops the hierarchy of 
     course, the less value is ascribed to one's talents, wisdoms, 
     cultures, contributions to civilization, needs and desires--
     one's humanity.
       This is certainly true of the Americas. Five decades after 
     Brown, for example, many of our schools remain deeply 
     segregated. Black and Latino children disproportionately 
     attend schools that are in high poverty areas. These schools 
     are under-funded, under-performing and naturally turn out 
     graduates that are ill-equipped to move forward and help 
     their families free themselves from the shackles of poverty.
       Eighty percent of black and Latino children in segregated 
     schools are in high poverty areas, compared to five per cent 
     of their white counterparts in similar schools. Many schools 
     remain segregated, or at best minimally integrated, at both 
     the level of the student body and the staff. In states such 
     as Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and 
     California, the pattern is now too pronounced to ignore.
       The outcome of this kind of segregation is the 
     underperformance among the children who attend them; the high 
     drop out rates; significantly reduced chances of post high-
     school success, and the eventual spiral into drugs and 
     violence among too many children who end up with life on the 
     streets as their vocation.
       In health care, the disparities are just as obvious. 
     According to the American Medical Association, racial 
     disparities in healthcare in the United States, remain 
     ``chronic'' with minorities benefiting the least from what it 
     described as ``marked by advances in medicine and health 
     care.'' Among some of the more interesting statistics:
       Thirty-one percent of minority adults, ages 18-64, do not 
     have insurance, compared with 14 percent of white adults in 
     the same age group.
       Minority adults report more problems with receiving health 
     care.
       Forty percent say they have ``a major problem with having 
     to pay too much for care,'' compared to 26 percent of white 
     adults.

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       Further, low-income persons, regardless of race, spend more 
     out-of-pocket income--about 7-11 percent--on medical expenses 
     than higher income Americans who typically only spend about 
     1-2 percent of their income on medical care.
       The infant mortality rate in the last forty years has 
     declined faster for whites than for blacks, with the 
     longstanding disparity actually increasing from 1.6 times the 
     rate for whites in 1950 to 2.2 times the rates in 1991.
       Black women are twice as likely as white women to obtain 
     late or no prenatal care; Hispanic women are three times as 
     likely to obtain inadequate or no prenatal care as non-
     Hispanic white women; and American Indian women are more 
     likely than either white or black women to obtain late or no 
     prenatal care at all.
       Overall, African Americans tend to receive lower quality 
     healthcare than whites for everything from cancer, heart 
     disease and HIV/AIDS to diabetes and mental health.
       There is less evidence examining disparities involving 
     Hispanics and other minority groups.
       Here in America, the disparities are obvious. The 
     availability of data and the high visibility of the society 
     make it much easier for us to point fingers at what is 
     happening here. And, it is true that because of the vast 
     wealth of this country, these inequalities seem more 
     egregious.
       The truth is though, that the disadvantaged status of 
     minority groups extends into all reaches of the Americas. 
     Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Hondurans, Afro-Colombians, Afro-
     Nicaraguans, Afro-Ecuadorians, all experience the same sense 
     of despair born from the knowledge of their marginalized 
     status in countries where they are minorities; where their 
     worth has been determined by their ethnicity and skin color, 
     and their sense that nothing will change because, after all, 
     they cannot change who they are. Whether it is the Creoles in 
     Belize, the Gari-fun-as of Guatemala, The Arawaks of Guyana, 
     the Caribs in St. Lucia or the Rez-a-(i)les of San Andres 
     Islands, the same sense of hopeless and alienation 
     characterize their existence in the Americas, though most of 
     these populations have existed here for hundreds of years, 
     some of them even pre-dating Christopher Columbus. While they 
     suffer through lives of quiet desperation, they remain 
     largely invisible to a world that barely acknowledges that 
     they are there.
       Bringing marginalized groups into the mainstream of 
     development is an imperative for the corporate world, as it 
     is for institutions like yours, and mine. On the surface, it 
     may seem like a difficult and costly undertaking, but it will 
     be less expensive than the price of conflict, malnutrition, 
     communicable and non-communicable diseases, political 
     instability and the absence of buying power in the market 
     place.
       Beyond the societal and economic benefits, bringing 
     marginalized groups into mainstream society is a recognition 
     of our acceptance of a common humanity and our embrace of 
     such as the source of our sustenance and the basis of our 
     quest for peace, harmony and respect for human dignity 
     throughout the world.
       In the words of Kenneth B. Clarke, the Howard University 
     graduate, whose research supported the attorneys on the Brown 
     Case: ``. . . segregation (read, exclusion), like all other 
     forms of cruelty and tyranny, debases all human being--those 
     who are its victims, those who victimize, and in quite subtle 
     ways those who are mere accessories.''
       Our dialogue today recognizes the veracity of those words. 
     So, despite what seems like a painfully fractured world, we 
     must continue to strive for the ideals of co-existence and 
     community, and the strengthening of relationships among 
     disparate groups in the pursuit of peace, harmony and 
     prosperity. The struggle for these ideals is the only basis 
     of our hope for peace, justice and freedom from oppression.
       Like the IADB, my institution is dedicated to preserving 
     and promoting the ideals of inclusion in the Americas, and to 
     the extent that our influence reaches, beyond.
       Through institutions like the Ralph J. Bunche International 
     Affairs Center which encourages greater participation in 
     global issues among the students and faculty; the Moorland 
     Spingarn Research Center, the largest collection of research 
     material on African heritage next to the Schomburg Center; 
     the U.S.-Brazil project on Race, Development and Social 
     Inequality and the ongoing study and preservation of art, 
     music, dance, language, history and other characteristics of 
     cultures, Howard continues to make a sterling contribution to 
     an informed understanding of the benefits of an inclusive 
     society.
       Our programs in Health Sciences, meanwhile, are dedicated 
     not just to the provision of quality care to the under-
     served, but to a discovery of causes and development of cures 
     to the diseases that disproportionately affect those 
     communities. Our Hispanic and multicultural affairs program 
     and the International healthcare program, are significant 
     efforts in this direction.
       Finally, in all of our efforts, the fight for civil rights 
     remains central. Howard University was founded on this very 
     notion that all people, regardless of their race, deserve the 
     right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the 
     right to live with dignity and respect.
       For 138 years, we have remained committed to reinforcing 
     these principles and pursue these ideals toward the 
     advancement of the human race.
       I would like to commend the IADB for being an ally in this 
     process and I look forward to a growing relationship as we 
     pursue our common goals. Thank you.

                          ____________________