    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [December 3, 1997]
    [Pages 1695-1704]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Townhall Meeting on Race in Akron
    December 3, 1997

    [University of Akron student McHughson Chambers stated that he was
    biracial and described his encounters with discrimination.]

        The President. Our second student, Jonathan Morgan. Jonathan, what
    do you think about what he said? Do you think there is still
    discrimination here at this school or in this community or in the
    country? And do you think that most people want to live in an integrated
    society?

    [Mr. Morgan responded that there were still a lot of prejudiced people,
    particularly in the older generations.]

        The President. Maybe we need a panel on ageism instead of racism.
    [Laughter]
        Mr. Morgan. I apologize. [Laughter]
        The President. That makes it worse. Don't do that. [Laughter]

    [Mr. Morgan said he believed that his own generation had worked out
    their prejudices.]

        The President. Do you think it's because of personal experiences, do
    you think it's because you've had more direct personal experience with
    people from different age groups? Or do you think it's because you grew
    up in a different time where the climate, the legal and the political
    and the social climate, was different?
        Mr. Morgan. I think it was because I grew up in a different time. We
    grew up watching television. ``The Cosby Show'' was my favorite show.
    [Laughter]
        The President. So, therefore, if you worked at a bank and a black
    person came in with a check you wouldn't necessarily think it ought to
    be held because you saw Bill Cosby, and he was a good role model?
    [Laughter] No, this is important. No, no, this is important.
        Mr. Morgan. Yes, I don't think I would give him a hard time. But at
    the same time, I have my own prejudices, whereas if I'm walking downtown
    on a street and I see a black man walking towards me that's not dressed
    as well, I might be a little bit scared. So, I mean, at the same time I
    have those prejudices.
        The President. Do you think that's because of television crime
    shows, or because of your personal experience?
        Mr. Morgan. It would have nothing to do with my personal experience.
    Just from the media, television shows, and things that I have heard.
        The President. Christina Ibarra, what do you think about that? Do
    you believe that attitudes are better among young people? Do you think
    that there is still discrimination today? Is it worse for African-
    Americans than it is for other minority groups; is it different? What do
    you think?

    [Student Christina Ibarra agreed that older people were more prejudiced
    but said that young people raised in prejudiced environments changed
    after they interacted with a more diverse group of people at the
    university.]

        The President. So do you believe--let me ask you this--do you
    believe that having an integrated educational environment is the primary
    reason that young people have better attitudes, more open attitudes than
    older people--because

    [[Page 1696]]

    they have been able to go to school with people of different races?

    [Ms. Ibarra responded that the educational environment was beneficial,
    but that an open attitude was a matter of personal choice.]

        The President. Let me ask you just one other question. Then I want
    to go on to--back to our moderator who's here to talk about the next
    group of folks. There's a big difference, even in college campuses,
    between the racial composition of the student body and the daily lives
    of the students, at least in a lot of places. That is, there are a lot
    of places where the student body is integrated but social life is
    largely segregated.
        Is that always a bad thing? What about that, what about that here,
    and what do you think about that? Our institutions of worship are
    largely segregated on Sunday. Is that a bad thing, or not? Is it a good
    thing? What should be our--in other words, one of the things that I want
    to try to get America to think about is, how do we define success here?
    I don't personally think it's a bad thing that there is--that people in
    many ways like to be with other people of their own racial and ethnic
    group any more than their own religious group. But on the other hand, it
    could become a very bad thing if it goes too far, as we've seen in other
    countries. So how do you know whether the environment is working for you
    and for other people? How much integration is enough? How much--what
    kind of segregation is acceptable if it's voluntary? How do you deal
    with all that? Have you ever thought about it in that way?
        Go ahead.

    [At this point, the discussion continued, and moderator Dave Liebarth
    then introduced three authors who were the next participants in the
    discussion.]

        The President. I'd like to just start very briefly by giving the
    authors a chance to comment on how what they've heard from these
    students today meshes with what they heard when they were preparing
    their recent books.
        And David, maybe we ought to start with you.

    [David K. Shipler, former New York Times reporter and author of ``A
    Country of Strangers: Black and White in America,'' stated that
    discrimination had become more subtle and gave several examples.]

        The President. Let me just briefly--first of all, thank you very
    much. The reason that I wanted to do this, and a lot of these things, is
    that I believe there are in any given community literally millions of
    instances like this where we're not ever fully aware of the motivations
    behind what we do or where other people will perceive there may be a
    racial motivation where there isn't one, which is also just as bad
    because you have the same net bottom-line result, which is the drifting
    apart of people. And I don't think there is any legal policy answer to
    this. I think that this is something we've really got to work our way
    through.
        Jonathan, I was really proud of you for saying that if you were
    walking and spotted Bill Cosby--and all of your classmates--you were
    walking down the street alone at night and you saw a black man coming at
    you and you were better dressed than he was, you might be scared,
    because that's a pretty gutsy thing for you to admit, but that's the
    kind of stuff we've got to get out on the table. We need to get this
    out.
        But just parenthetically, David, I had a group of African-American
    journalists in to see me a couple of months ago. Every journalist, all
    of them with college degrees, all of them quite successful--every single
    man in the crowd had been stopped by a police officer for no apparent
    reason, every one of them, 100 percent of them--I asked them. So these
    are things we have to get out there and discuss.
        Abigail. She has a rosier view, and I hope she's got the guts to say
    it out here now. [Laughter] Come on.

    [Abigail Thernstrom, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who
    coauthored ``America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible'' with
    her husband, Steven, the Winthrop professor of history at Harvard,
    stated that she disliked racial preferences or racial classifications.
    Saying that African-American progress was here to stay, she gave
    examples and concluded by quoting Coretta Scott King that Martin Luther
    King's dream of equality had become deeply embedded in the fabric of
    America.]

        The President. Thank you. Let me just say, I believe that it's a lot
    better. I grew up in the segregated South, so I have personal experience
    of how it's changed, since I'm one of those older people Jonathan talked
    about. [Laughter] I've actually gotten kind of used to it now.

    [[Page 1697]]

        But to me, that makes this effort all the more important because
    what I want the American people to do is to have confidence. We know now
    we can make our economy work. We know now we can have the crime rate go
    down. We know now we can actually reduce the number of people on welfare
    and have more people at work. We know things that we didn't know just a
    few years ago, and we do know we can make progress on this whole complex
    of issues.
        But I think it's also important to point out that there is a lot of
    residue there, like what McHughson told, the little bank story, and that
    progress should give us energy for the work ahead, not put us into
    denial about it. That's the only thing that I want to make sure we don't
    do.
        Go ahead. What would you like to say about this?

    [Beverly Daniel Tatum, psychologist and professor at Mount Holyoke
    College, South Hadley, MA, and author of ``Why Are All the Black Kids
    Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, and Other Conversations About Race,''
    described her course on the psychology of racism and other efforts to
    establish an honest discussion on race, and the role of fear in
    hampering that dialog.]

        The President. Abigail.

    [Ms. Thernstrom stated that people opposed to racial preferences were
    often accused of being too optimistic and believing that racism had
    disappeared. She indicated that while America still had a long way to
    go, it should proceed on the basis of optimism rather than pessimism.]

        The President. I agree with that. If I could just make one other
    point. Then I'll call on David.
        One reason I think all this talking business is more important than
    ever before is that if you posit the fact--if you look at the growth in
    educational attainment, the growth of the middle class among African-
    Americans or--you can say, well, things have gotten a lot better. And
    then if you identify what the continuing problems are, like what
    McHughson said about--and the examples David cited, you can say, these
    things require changes in human perception, human heart, you've got to
    have more talking.
        I think the thing that's more profound is, when you look at these
    communities that have--there are several counties in America with people
    from more than 100 different racial and ethnic groups now, and they're
    all different in many ways. They have different perceptions and
    different cultural patterns.
        I know, after the Los Angeles riots, I went out and walked the
    streets, and I was so stunned by the gulf between Korean grocers and
    their African-American customers. And I've been in other cities where
    there were Arab-American merchants and their Hispanic customers or
    African-American customers--all these things are proliferating. That's
    the kind of thing that you see eating other countries alive from the
    inside out.
        And that's why we have to begin to deal with this, because a lot of
    you have got to bring the insights you have from your own not only
    personal but historic experiences to bear on a whole different America.
    It's a new thing out there where there's somebody from everyplace out
    there with a family and a community and a culture and a set of
    perceptions that they will bring to bear on all their interactions.
        Go ahead, David.

    [Mr. Shipler said that optimism was too close to complacency and
    pessimism was too close to resignation. Mr. Liebarth then introduced the
    next participants. Rev. Knute Larson, white pastor of the Chapel in
    Akron, described growing up in a racist environment and then introduced
    his friend Rev. Ronald Fowler, black pastor of the Arlington Church of
    God. Reverend Fowler stated that whites had always had preferential
    treatment and therefore the Nation should intentionally provide
    incentives and opportunities for minorities, as it did for World War II
    veterans. He concluded that he and Reverend Larson had worked together
    to create an atmosphere for free discussion of racial issues.]

        The President. Let me ask you something. What impact has your
    relationship had on the people in your churches? I mean, it's all very
    well--preachers are supposed to do the right thing. [Laughter] I mean,
    come on. What impact has it had on people in your churches?

    [Reverend Larson stated that the impact had been good but that the
    effort had to be intentional, and he urged the President to continue to
    model that kind of behavior. He concluded that humor helps, joking that
    his church was

    [[Page 1698]]

    teaching Reverend Fowler's how to sing. Reverend Fowler responded that
    his church had never done country music well.]

        The President. You'll probably get a wire from Charley Pride this
    afternoon. [Laughter]

    [Reverend Fowler continued that the pastors' joint efforts had created a
    climate of acceptance and an inclusive spirit and that other
    organizations in Akron were following their example.]

        The President. Let me ask you just one other question and we'll go
    to the next group. I'll be the cynic now, just for purposes of argument.
    I'll say, okay this is really nice. You've got two churches, and you
    pray on Sunday and everybody is nice to each other and you make fun
    about each other's music. And I know which is the real beneficiary
    here--that's okay. [Laughter] We do all that kind of stuff. How is it
    changing these people's lives? How is it changing the life in Akron? How
    does it result in less discrimination in the workplace or in the school
    or people helping each other to succeed in school or at work? Can you
    give us any examples about what it's done other than make people feel
    good for an hour on Sunday or some other church event?

    [Reverend Fowler stated that members of the congregations, though
    initially doubtful, now were able to discuss issues more openly and
    disagree without attributing each other's views to racism.]

        The President. That's the big issue, by the way--having people feel
    free to disagree with people of different races without having somebody
    draw a racial inference, that's a huge thing. That's one of the
    benchmarks when you know you're getting where you need to be.

    [Reverend Larson stressed the importance of listening and intentional
    social interaction. Mr. Liebarth then introduced the topic of
    interracial relationships, and high school student Erica Sanders
    expressed her desire to be seen as an individual, rather than as a
    member of the black community at home and church or as a spokesperson
    for black America at her white school. Student Erica Wright stressed the
    importance of her parents' guidance in shaping her choices in life. Mr.
    Liebarth then introduced D.J. Beatty, a black University of Akron
    student, who described growing up in a multiracial household and stated
    that though he shared certain cultural styles with his white social
    circle, his political views were much more those of the black liberal.]

        The President. Why do you think white people are more conservative
    than black people?

    [Mr. Beatty stated that economic differences, such as most whites
    dealing with banks and many blacks dealing with public assistance,
    resulted in different viewpoints. He stated that without an activist
    Government and the social movement, blacks would be far behind.]

        The President. I agree with that, but let me say--let me make the
    more sophisticated argument against affirmative action. Let's deal with
    that a minute. Hardly anybody thinks that we shouldn't have laws against
    discrimination on the books, and some people think they should be on the
    books but not enforced, so I've had a hard time getting Congress to give
    me the money to clean out the backlog of the Equal Employment
    Opportunity Commission. But nonetheless, everybody just about--there is
    almost--literally over 80 percent of the people in America, if you took
    a poll, would say, we should enforce the existing civil rights laws
    against discrimination.
        Now, then the question is, what affirmative steps are necessary to
    really give everybody an equal chance and hopefully to reduce ultimately
    the racial disparities in income and educational level and all these
    other things?
        The argument against affirmative action is partly that it doesn't
    even work, that basically the main beneficiaries of it have been middle
    class minorities who were well educated and could tap into it, and that
    what we really need to do is to go back to Lyndon Johnson's other
    emphasis and have an economics-based social program that offers better
    educational opportunity to everybody, offers more job opportunities to
    everybody, and tries to get rid of the dramatically increasing economic
    disparity of the last 20 years.
        This is a very important point. The difference for all you younger
    people--my generation, after World War II until the mid-seventies, all
    America grew together, and in fact the poorest Americans actually had
    their income increase by a slightly higher percentage than the
    wealthiest Americans. Then for about 20 years, because of the
    globalization of the economy, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the rise
    of service jobs,

    [[Page 1699]]

    the rise in importance of education, what happened was the people in the
    upper 20 percent, their incomes rose like crazy for 20 years; the people
    in the bottom 40 percent were stagnant to dropping--more education-
    related than anything else, but it had something to do with where people
    lived and what their connections and ties were.
        So there is a lot of argument that, basically, that affirmative
    action has gotten in trouble for two reasons. One is it's not really
    answering the real problem, which is the economic problem. The other is
    that people believe that if someone gets something based on their race,
    then someone is losing something, someone is not--it's a zero-sum game.
    Someone is losing out who otherwise would have gotten an opportunity to
    which they're entitled.
        Now, I don't subscribe to this. I believe that you can have properly
    tailored affirmative action programs which can command broad majority
    support. We'll get back to that if you want. But I just think that--
    there is no question, however, that the biggest problems that minorities
    have in this country today are problems that are shared with
    disadvantaged white people too--access to education, access to jobs--and
    that we've got to find a way somehow to talk to each other and to work
    on this so that we're coming together.
        And I think that's what you were trying to say. But I'd like to hear
    you talk a little bit about that and the affirmative action thing. And
    then maybe you want to open it up to some other people.

    [Mr. Beatty stated that there was a rising tide of classism in America
    which was linked to the race issue and that there should be policies to
    address the class issue as well.]

        The President. Let me just--no, no, I agree with what you said, but
    let me--[laughter]--I don't mean that. I agree with what you said. We
    have actually seen some evidence in the last 2 years that inequality may
    be declining again for the first time in 20 years, that incomes are
    rising--after-tax incomes are rising for the bottom 40 percent and maybe
    in a way that will not only cause incomes to rise for the first time in
    20 years for that group of people, relative to inflation, but to
    diminish inequality a little.
        And we've had a strategy of changing the tax system, changing the
    investment incentives, increasing educational opportunity, giving more--
    spending a lot more money to help retrain people who lose their jobs,
    that I think are contributing to that.
        So I think the real issue is--although we haven't done nearly as
    much as I would like to, and we're going to work on that some more--the
    real issue is, if you had, to use the modern jargon, a class-based
    affirmative opportunity agenda, not race-based but class-based, which
    might disproportionately benefit minorities if they were
    disproportionately poor, for example, or disproportionately isolated or
    disproportionately in bad schools--if you had that, would there still be
    an argument for any kind of affirmative action admissions policies to
    various colleges and universities or any kind of affirmative action
    problems when it comes to Government contracting because there are so
    few African-Americans in certain kinds of businesses? I think that's the
    question.
        I want to let you go on and call on some more people, but I think
    that's really the nub of the affirmative action debate. If you get rid
    of the--politically and substantively you'll help more people and build
    more unity by having an economic basis for social policy now.

    [Mr. Liebarth introduced University of Akron pre-med student Anna
    Arroyo, who said that as a light-skinned Puerto Rican, she was often
    perceived as white, but then treated differently after disclosing her
    race. She concluded that people should realize the range of diversity
    among Hispanic-Americans, discard preconceived notions about racial
    characteristics, and accept others for who they are.]

        The President. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe that most
    non-Hispanics understand the real difference between Puerto Ricans and
    Mexican-Americans, for example?

    [Ms. Arroyo responded that people generally did not understand that each
    Hispanic country had its own unique culture. Mr. Liebarth then
    introduced University of Akron student Jason Kessler, who complained
    about some religions teaching that poor is bad, thus placing a stigma on
    poor people.]

        The President. Let me push this a little more. They don't really do
    that--and what they really act like is that if you're poor it's your own
    fault, right?

    [[Page 1700]]

        Mr. Kessler. In a way. And it's like a sign that God is putting
    something bad on you. At least--maybe this is just an isolated incident,
    but I have come in contact with this--that this is a sign from God that
    because you're poor, you are going to hell.

    [Mr. Liebarth introduced family violence program coordinator Vanesa
    Cordero, who noted that America was no longer just black and white but a
    cultural mix including Hispanic-Americans. She stated that blacks and
    Hispanics were treated differently in court than whites, and having an
    advocate made a difference, particularly for non-English speakers.]

        The President. Wait, wait, wait. You mean, if they have an advocate,
    they do better?
        Ms. Cordero. Yes, they do.
        The President. But are they treated differently in what the judges
    do to them by race, or are they just treated differently in terms of how
    they're treated in the court setting?

    [Ms. Cordero said that in her experience, the system was often harder on
    Hispanic juveniles than on whites.]

        The President. But you do think that Hispanic kids have a harder
    time in the court system.

    [Ms. Cordero responded that her son was discriminated against because he
    was Hispanic and said that she also felt discrimination before she
    worked her way up from welfare to being a professional with a college
    degree.]

        The President. Let me just say very briefly, one of the things that
    I like about the Chicago school experience--you heard me mention the
    Chicago school experiment--is they used to be known for one thing only:
    They had a teachers' strike every year whether they needed one or not.
    At the beginning of every school year, there was always a teachers'
    strike, and there was a picture of the Governor's school-age child
    crawling around on the floor, playing games in the Governor's office
    while the teachers' strike went on.
        Now, what they're trying to do is to change--I think maybe the most
    important thing they're trying to do is to change the expectations,
    school by school, so that they have the same high expectations of all
    children without regard to their racial or ethnic group. If they get
    that done, I predict they'll change the performance results as well. But
    that's--anyway, I just wanted to support you for what you did.

    [Noting that the last part of the discussion was to focus on looking
    forward, Mr. Liebarth introduced Samir Gibara, chairman and chief
    executive officer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Mr. Gibara indicated
    that a diverse workplace population pursuing common business goals and
    objectives and sharing success or failure would create bonds that went
    beyond racial tensions; stated that diversity provided a competitive
    advantage for expansion to other countries; and listed his company's
    values: integrity and honesty, a diverse work force, and training and
    education.]

        The President. Let me just follow up. I believe myself that what you
    just said is not only true but is the answer to a lot of the next steps.
    That is, just as you heard all these young people say they thought that
    there was less discrimination among young people, partly because they
    all go to school together, the more people we have working together,
    succeeding together, doing something constructive together, helping
    their own families together, the less problems we're going to have. I
    don't think there is any question about that.
        Let me ask you, before we run out of time--and I'll call on you next
    because you've been having your hand up--but I want you to think about
    this, and I want you to be blunt and brief--blunt and brief. What do you
    think is the most important thing we should be doing about this issue
    today? Whether you think I should do it, or you should do it, or
    somebody else should do it--I'll try to call on as many people as I can,
    as quickly as I can. Raise your hand, the most important thing. You go
    first.

    [At this point, participants offered suggestions, including confronting
    family members who make racist comments and addressing the Hispanic high
    school dropout rate.]

        The President. We're going to run out of time. We don't have time to
    talk about this, but I want all of you to think about it, especially the
    Hispanics here. For the last 30 years, Hispanics had higher work force
    participation rates than African-Americans, and often left school to go
    to work to support the family. It was a real cultural thing. Now
    African-American high school graduation rates are almost equal to
    whites; they're almost statistically indistinguishable. But the high
    school dropout rate among

    [[Page 1701]]

    Hispanics is still very high. Apparently, for good cultural reasons,
    they think they've got to get out and help the family and all, but it's
    a disaster in the modern economy. We need to figure out what to do about
    it.
        But what's the most important thing to do? Go ahead. Let's go back
    to the main question. Go ahead.

    [Other participants suggested establishing education opportunity zones,
    taking the risk of an honest dialog, avoiding racial jokes and slurs,
    and including the underclass in the racial dialog.]

        The President. So what's the most important thing we can do for the
    underclass?
        Participant. Well, that's what I was hoping to get from you. That
    was my question I was going to ask. [Laughter]
        The President. I'll tell you what I think. What we're trying to do
    is to reestablish vibrant living communities where really poor people
    live. We're trying to mix housing now between middle class and poor
    people in the neighborhoods. We're trying to give special tax incentives
    for people who invest to put jobs back there. We're trying to make bank
    loans more available, and we're trying to overhaul the schools.
        I think you've got to put life back together. This is an economic
    problem, and it does not exclusively affect minorities, so it is not a
    race-based problem although minorities are disproportionately affected
    by the large underclass in America. It's very hard to keep a country
    together if 20 percent of the people, no matter how hard they work, are
    still going to fall further and further behind.
        Go ahead.

    [A participant suggested culturally specific programs to overcome the
    perceptions of white superiority and black inferiority.]

        The President. Before we run out of time, is there any Asian-
    American who wants to be heard? Go ahead.

    [Participant David Flores stressed the importance of education, moral
    values, and the family.]

        The President. Very briefly--since I have been President, my
    Education Secretary, Secretary Riley, who is here with us today, has
    done a lot of work to try to support schools that introduce character
    education programs into the curriculum. Do you think that's a good
    thing? I gather what you say is you not only think it's a good thing,
    but you think that the absence of prejudice is one of the virtues we
    ought to be trying to promote on a uniform basis throughout the country,
    and it ought to be part of the school curriculum.
        Mr. Flores. Yes, exactly.
        The President. You agree with that.

    [Mr. Flores agreed but pointed out that money was limited and school
    buildings were old.]

        The President. Briefly--I tried to pass a school construction
    initiative, and we'll come back to that in some forum. But the other
    thing I wanted to say is there was money appropriated by the Congress in
    two different bills this year to give the school districts for after-
    school programs, partly because the vast majority of juvenile crime is
    committed between 3 o'clock in the afternoon and 7 o'clock at night. And
    young people need something positive to do, and this could be a part of
    what could be done.
        So all of you who are here from school districts, look at what the
    Congress did. I just signed two bills with two different pots of money
    to help the schools stay open after hours so you could do positive
    things and get young people involved in constructive activities.

    [An Asian-American student stated that schools should promote cultural
    diversity, because often families could not, and advocated more
    roundtable discussions. Mr. Liebarth then asked the President to
    summarize the discussion.]

        The President. My summary is going to be, I'll hear from two more
    people. Go ahead. [Laughter] And the lady with the gloves, I like your
    gloves. Go ahead.

    [Other participants suggested fostering leadership among multiracial
    youth and including multicultural education as part of the history
    curriculum. Mayor Donald Plusquellic of Akron then thanked the President
    for his example in holding the meeting.]

        The President. I believe that education is a big part of this. And I
    believe that the economics is a big part of this. And I've spent most of
    my public life--more than 20 years--working on those two things. But let
    me also tell you, there are a lot of highly intelligent people with a
    lot of money who still have bigoted hearts or who at least are
    insensitive to it. This is

    [[Page 1702]]

    more than education and economics. That's why we're here. That's why I
    asked the two ministers to talk more than once--because I believe that--
    I agree with you.
        You know, it's easy--people get preoccupied with their own problems.
    But when this is over, you guys got to keep doing this. And the people
    at these other 100 sites have got to keep doing this. This is not a
    day's battle. We have to change the way we live in America and the way
    we relate to each other because of the global economy, because of the
    workplace, and because of the people that are in our own neighborhoods.
    We can't possibly answer all this.
        This sort of thing needs to become a normal part of daily life in
    every community in America that crosses political and racial and ethnic
    and religious and every other lines. The society is too complex, too
    diverse, and it's changing too fast for anybody to be able to sit off in
    a corner and give everybody else a bunch of rules about how we're going
    to do things. This is what we have to do in America. We have to change
    the way we govern ourselves, literally, at the grassroots level, to do
    this.
        I'm convinced if you have more of this--I'm convinced if we had 4
    hours, I could sit here and listen to you all, and I'd never get tired
    of it, and we would go on and on, and then you'd want to do more. And
    that ought to tell you something. Everybody has still got their hand up.
    That ought to tell you something. We should be doing this in America on
    a systematic, disciplined basis, community by community. That's the way
    we ought to run our lives.
        So, one more. Go ahead. Quick. Everybody's got to be quick. Go
    ahead.

    [Participants suggested following the Golden Rule and educating someone
    else about one's own culture and heritage.]

        The President. Our moderator will either have a heart attack or cut
    me off in a minute here. [Laughter] Be quick, everybody.

    [Participants advocated teaching love, respect, and manners in the home,
    and basic workplace attitudes of reliability, teamwork, communication,
    and willingness to continue learning.]

        The President. I guess what I would--I'd like to go back to what he
    said, though. I think you've got to help us do that. There is a huge
    labor shortage today of people in the technical skills. We could do a
    lot--if you think there's an economic basis to racial differences in
    America today, there ought to be a national effort to train people who
    are poor and who are isolated to take these jobs. This is maddening to
    me. Even though the unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, there are hundreds
    of thousands of jobs going begging in America today that would
    immediately make people middle class people.
        Go ahead.

    [Fannie Brown, director, Coming Together Project, said the answer was in
    the pain of talking about differences and giving each side the
    opportunity to present their viewpoint. Other participants then
    explained how their home environment prepared them to be tolerant and
    understanding adults.]

        The President. Let me say, I'm very sympathetic with what all of you
    have said about your home environment. It had a big impact on me. So--I
    mean, I had a grandfather with a sixth-grade education who was a poor
    white Southerner who believed in integration. I don't know why. But he
    did, and he had a big impact on me. So I agree with that.
        But I want to say again, when you look to the future, you must--and
    we do all that--you must find a way to organize--that's why I like this
    Coming Together Project--you must find a way to organize a continuing
    mechanism where people of good will can come together and deal with
    this.
        Let me just give you an example. We talked about old people, young
    people--Denver is plagued--you've probably seen--with these horrible
    recent killings by skinheads of people because of their race. Now,
    Denver is a city that's only 12 percent black, that's got a black mayor.
    It is not a racist city. It's a remarkable thing. But even there they
    have this problem. Now, they've got to figure out how they're going to
    deal with this--and not just go prosecute the people that committed the
    crime but what's going on in the community, how are they going to deal
    with it, and how are they going to come together.
        I'm exhilarated by what I see from all of you today, but you have to
    make a commitment in some form or fashion to continue this in a
    disciplined way, because something will come up, things will continue to
    come up, and this is an ongoing effort. It's not just a one-shot deal.
    Yes.

    [[Page 1703]]

    [A participant raised the issue of social segregation, saying that
    people should not be comfortable about only associating with members of
    their own race. Another participant said he hoped for progress to the
    point that his grandchildren would not relate to the term ``hate
    crime.'']

        The President. And what's the most important thing we can do about
    it?
        Participant. I think that we have to make it possible for all
    individuals, whatever race, to be part of our neighborhoods and know
    them as human beings.

    [Marion Ruebel, president, University of Akron, emphasized that
    universities have an obligation to open minds and teach students
    teamwork, respect, civility, justice, and tolerance, in addition to
    high-tech skills.]

        Mr. Liebarth. Mr. President, we're being asked for your closing
    remarks on this program now. [Laughter]
        The President. I don't have any--my closing remarks are, this is the
    beginning, not the end. My closing remarks are that--there ought to be a
    strategy to deal with the economic underclass; there ought to be a
    middle class strategy, too, that embraces people across different races.
    We have left open the question of affirmative action.
        Just curiously, how many of you believe we should continue some sort
    of affirmative action policy with regard to admissions to colleges and
    universities? [Applause] Okay, how many of you don't believe we should?
    What about out here? [Applause]
        Ms. Thernstrom. Change it to preferences. Racial preferences is
    different than affirmative action.
        The President. That's right--racial preferences are. It's a loaded
    word.
        Ms. Thernstrom. Americans believe in affirmative action. They don't
    believe in preferences.
        The President. Abigail, do you favor the United States Army
    abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell--
    yes or no? Yes or no? I get asked all these hard questions all the time.
    I want to do it.
        Ms. Thernstrom. I do not think that it is racial preferences that
    made Colin Powell----
        The President. He thinks he was helped by it.
        Ms. Thernstrom. ----the overwhelming majority of Americans want
    American citizens to be treated as individuals. And we've heard the
    voice here of----
        The President. Should we abolish the Army's affirmative action
    program, yes or no?
        Ms. Thernstrom. We should--the Army does one thing very, very right;
    it prepares kids--it takes kids before the Army, and it prepares them to
    compete equally. That's what you're talking about when you're talking
    about American education.
        Let us have real equality of education. These preferences disguise
    the problem. The real problem is the racial skills gap, and we ignore it
    when we----
        The President. Well, then the real problem may be the criteria for
    why we admit people to college, too--how we do it.
        One more here and then Congressman Sawyer.

    [A participant stated that there was an opportunity gap, not a racial
    skills gap, and encouraged people to be aware of racism in their
    communities and to help those hurt by it.]

        The President. I agree with that, but let me--to be fair to
    Abigail--now, let me explain. Now, wait a minute. I think it's
    important--I'm going to call on Congressman Sawyer, but I think you all
    need to understand about this, because this affirmative action debate,
    you know, that's all the press wants to write about anyway. They'll
    probably ignore the fact that we did the rest of this here, which was--
    and the rest of this is the important part that we did here.
        But let me explain what the difference is. The military affirmative
    action program does try to get results by race. But it simultaneously
    prepares people. So that if--what they try to do is they have these
    education and training programs, and then they hope when you go from
    lieutenant to captain that there will be a group of the captain pool, of
    potential captains, that reflect the racial composition of the lower
    rank as well. But they do prepare people.
        The problem is that you have different schools. When you go from
    high school to college, the college doesn't have control over the
    seniors in high school to do that. If they did that, you could have
    exactly the same program and we wouldn't have this anxiety. Instead we
    have a system where we assume that the only reliable predictor of
    success in college is how

    [[Page 1704]]

    you did on the SAT or how you did on the grades. So the trick is, since
    I think our schools would be much poorer if there were no racial
    diversity--look around here at the schools here--the trick is to find a
    way of doing this that people believe is merit-based and that--so they
    don't think someone is getting something they're not entitled to and,
    not only that, knocking somebody out of a spot to which they are
    entitled.
        But I think it's very important. A lot of people haven't analyzed
    this--no one criticizes--very few people criticize the Army program.
    It's given us the highest quality Army in the world. The only real
    differences between the Army program and college admissions is that
    you're in continuously in the Army program, whereas you go from a high
    school that may or may not be adequate into college with the affirmative
    action program. We need to really think this through as a country. And
    that's why I dropped the bomb at the end, because we can't possibly
    resolve it today anyway.
        Congressman, do you want to go? And then we'll quit.

    [Representative Thomas Sawyer thanked the President for participating in
    the discussion and stated that the initiative was an important start to
    the process of improving race relations in the country.]

        The President. Thank you.
        I would like to--I'd like to thank our scholars, David and Abigail
    and Beverly. I would like to thank the students who spoke in the
    beginning and all the people on the panel.
        To me this is a simple issue that has all kinds of complex
    manifestations. But the simple issue is, we live in a country that is
    the longest lasting democracy in human history, founded on the
    elementary proposition that we are created equal by God. That's what the
    Constitution says. And we have never lived that way perfectly, but the
    whole history of America is in large measure the story of our attempt to
    give a more perfect meaning to the thing we started with, the
    Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
        And now we have been given this enormous new world to live in with
    these enormous opportunities, in which, as you heard our business
    executive say, we do not have a person to waste. We're given a world
    that is much more interesting and exciting if we know and relate to
    people of different racial and other backgrounds. And it's up to us to
    decide what to do with it.
        Our country has never really dealt with the race issue before except
    in an atmosphere of crisis and conflict and riots in the cities. So a
    lot of people, I will say again, think I am nuts to be doing this. You
    know, what's the end, what's the point? The point is, making a more
    perfect Union. The point is, proving we can have one America. The point
    is, it will be a lot more interesting, a lot more fun, and far more
    noble if we do it right.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at approximately 12:10 p.m. in the E.J. Thomas
    Performing Arts Hall at the University of Akron. In his remarks, he
    referred to Mayor Wellington E. Webb of Denver, CO; and Gen. Colin L.
    Powell, USA (Ret.), former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.