    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [July 17, 1997]
    [Pages 973-981]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the National Association
    of Black Journalists in Chicago, Illinois
    July 17, 1997

        The President.  Thank you very much. I must say, when Arthur was
    speaking, I thought to myself that he sounded like a President.
    [Laughter] And I said to myself, if I had a voice like that, I could run
    for a third term, even though the--[laughter].
        I enjoyed meeting with your board members and JoAnne Lyons Wooten,
    your executive director, backstage. I met Vanessa Williams, who said,
    ``You know, I'm the president-elect; have you got any advice for me on
    being president?'' True story. I said, ``I do. Always act like you know
    what you're doing.'' [Laughter]
        I want to say to you, I'm delighted to be joined here tonight by a
    distinguished group of people from our White House and from the
    administration, including the Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman, and the
    Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, and a number of others from the
    White House. Where is my White House crew? Would you all stand up,
    everybody here from the administration, Department of Education,
    Department of Labor.
        I don't know whether he is here or not, but I understand Congressman
    Bobby Rush was here earlier today, and I know there are some other local
    officials from Chicago who are here. And this is a great place to come.
    Chicago is such a wonderful city that there was an article this morning
    in the New York Times bragging on Chicago. And I saw the mayor today; he
    said, ``I know we have finally arrived. If they're bragging on us in New
    York, we have made it.'' And I congratulate all the people here on the
    remarkable improvements they've made in this magnificent city in the
    last few years.
        I'd also like to say a special word of thanks to Reverend Jesse
    Jackson. I see him here in the audience, and I know he's here. Thank
    you. I always kind of hate to speak when Jesse is in the audience.
    [Laughter] You know, I mean, every paragraph gets a grade. [Laughter]
    Most of them aren't very good. I can just hear it now--all the wheels
    turning.
        I want to thank Reverend Jackson for agreeing to cochair, along with
    the Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater, an American delegation
    to an economic conference in Zimbabwe, where he'll be going next week.
    And I know you all wish him well on that. We are doing our best to have
    a major initiative reaching out to Africa, recognizing that more and
    more countries in Africa are becoming functioning, successful
    democracies; that half a dozen countries in Africa have had growth rates
    of 7 percent or more last year and will equal that again this year; and
    that this is an enormous opportunity for us not only to promote better
    lives for the millions and millions of people who live on that continent
    but also better opportunities for Americans and better partnerships with
    Africa in the years ahead.
        Well, you heard your president say that I promised to come here in
    1992 if I got elected.

    [[Page 974]]

    And I'm trying to keep every promise I made. And I'm sure glad I got a
    second term so I didn't get embarrassed on this one. [Laughter]
        In the years since I assumed office, I have worked very hard to
    create an America of opportunity for all, responsibility from all, with
    a community of all Americans, a country committed to continuing to lead
    the world toward greater peace and freedom and prosperity. And that
    begins with giving every person in this country the chance to live up to
    his or her God-given abilities. Many of you chose to become journalists
    because you thought it was the best way to use your God-given talent,
    your gift with words, your knack for asking tough questions, which some
    of us find maddening--[laughter]--and for getting the answers, your
    instincts with a camera or a microphone, your ability to connect with
    people and get them to understand what it is you're trying to get
    across. And you did it not just to make a living but to make a
    difference. I thank you for that. And I think that all of us want that
    opportunity for everyone in this country.
        Last month in San Diego I called upon Americans to begin a dialog, a
    discussion over the next year and perhaps beyond, to deal with what I
    think is the greatest challenge we'll face in the 21st century, which is
    whether we really can become one America as we become more diverse,
    whether as we move into a truly global society we can be the world's
    first truly great multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious democracy. I
    asked the American people to undertake a serious discussion of the
    lingering problems and the limitless possibilities that attend our
    diversity. I came here tonight to talk a little more about this
    initiative, to ask each of you to examine what role you can play in it
    and the vital contributions as journalists and as African-Americans you
    might make in leading your newsrooms, your communities, and our Nation
    in the right kind of dialog.
        Five years ago, I talked about how we could prepare our people to go
    into the 21st century, and we've made a lot of strides since then. Our
    economy is the healthiest in a generation and once again the strongest
    in the world. Our social problems are finally bending to our efforts.
    But at this time of great prosperity, we know we still have a lot of
    great challenges in order to live up to our ideals, in order to live up
    to what we say America should mean. And it seems to me that at this time
    when there is more cause for hope than fear, when we are not driven by
    some emergency or some imminent cataclysm in our society, we really have
    not only an opportunity but an obligation to address and to better
    resolve the vexing, perplexing, often painful issues surrounding our
    racial history and our future.
        We really will, whether we're prepared for it or not, become a
    multiracial democracy in the next century. Today, of our 50 States, only
    the State of Hawaii has no majority race. But within 3 to 5 years, our
    largest State, California, where 13 percent of us live, will have no
    majority race. Five of our school districts already draw students from
    over 100 different racial and ethnic groups, including the school
    district in the city of Chicago. But within a matter of a couple of
    years, over 12 school districts will have students from over 100
    different racial and ethnic groups.
        When I was a boy, I knew that a lot of people went from my native
    State in Arkansas to Detroit to make a living because they couldn't make
    a living on the farm anymore. Many of them were African-Americans, and
    they joined the white ethnics, many of whom were from Central and
    Eastern Europe and from Ireland, in the Detroit area, working in the car
    plants, getting the good middle class jobs, being able to educate their
    children, looking forward to a retirement. Some of them actually are
    coming back home now and buying land. Nicholas Lehman traced that
    movement in a great book he wrote not so long ago.
        But now Detroit is not just a place of white ethnics and African-
    Americans. In Wayne County, there are over 145 different racial and
    ethnic groups represented today. So the paradigm is shifting. And so, as
    part of our engagement in this national dialog, we have to both deal
    with our old unfinished business and then imagine what we are going to
    be like in 30 years and whether we can actually become one America when
    we're more different. Is there a way not only to respect our diversity
    but even to celebrate it and still be one America? Is there a way to use
    this to help us economically and to spread opportunity here? Why are
    there so many people in the Congress in both parties excited about this
    Africa initiative? Because we have so many African-Americans. Even
    people who were never concerned about it before understand this is a
    great economic opportunity

    [[Page 975]]

    for America. Why do we have a unique opportunity to build a partnership
    with Brazil and Argentina and Chile and all the countries in Latin
    America? Because we have people from all those countries here in our
    country. Why do we have the opportunity to avoid having Asia grow but
    grow in a more closed and isolated way, running the risk of great new
    problems 30, 40, 50 years from now? Because we have so many Asian-
    Americans who are making a home here in America with ties back home to
    their native lands and cultures. We are blessed if we can make this
    work.
        We also may have a chance to make peace in other parts of the world
    if we can make peace within our borders with ourselves. But let's not
    kid ourselves; the differences between people are so deep and so
    ingrained, it's so easy to scratch the surface and have something bad go
    wrong. And we see that in countries less privileged than ourselves when
    things go terribly wrong, whether it's between the Hutus and the Tutsis
    in Rwanda and Burundi; or the Catholics and the Protestants in the home
    of my ancestors, Ireland; or the Croats, the Serbs, and the Muslims who
    are, interestingly enough, biologically indistinguishable, in Bosnia; or
    the continuing travails of the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East.
        If you look through all of human history, societies have very often
    been defined by their ability to pit themselves as coherent units
    against those who were different from themselves. Long ago in
    prehistory, it probably made a lot of sense for people that were in one
    tribe to look at people in another tribe as enemies, because there was a
    limited amount of food to eat or opportunities for shelter, because
    people did not know how to communicate with each other so they had to
    say, ``People that look like me are my friends; people that don't look
    like me are my enemies.'' But why, on the verge of the 21st century, are
    we still seeing people behave like that all over the world? And why here
    even in America do we find ourselves, all of us at some time, gripped by
    stereotypes about people who don't look like we do?
        So we shouldn't kid ourselves. This is not going to be an easy task.
    But there is hardly anything more important, because we know we have a
    great economy; we know we have a strong military; we know we have a
    unique position in the world today with the fall of communism virtually
    everywhere and the rise of market economies and the success that we've
    offered. But we know we also have these lingering inequalities and
    problems in America. And if we can overcome them and learn to really
    live together and celebrate, not just tolerate but celebrate our
    differences and still say, ``In spite of all those differences, the most
    important thing about me is that I am an American,'' that there is no
    stopping what we can do and what our children can become.
        This week in Washington, John Hope Franklin convened the first
    meeting of the advisory board I appointed on racial reconciliation. The
    Executive Director of that board, Judy Winston, who has been our Acting
    Under Secretary of Education, is also here with me tonight. I am very
    proud that she has agreed to do that and very excited about what has
    happened. The first meeting was full of lively debate and honest
    disagreement. I like that. We should discover quickly that people who
    are honestly committed to advancing this dialog will have honest
    differences, and they ought to be aired.
        Earlier today, as your president said, at the NAACP convention in
    Pittsburgh, I reiterated my long-held belief that we will never get to
    our one America in the 21st century unless we have both equality and
    excellence in educational opportunity. We have to give every American
    access to the world's best schools, best teachers, best education. And
    that means we have to have high standards, high expectations, and high
    levels of accountability from all of us who are involved in it.
        But I want to say to you, we know our children can learn. For years
    and years, ever since 1984, when the ``Nation At Risk''--1983--when the
    ``Nation At Risk'' report was issued, people said, well, you can't
    expect American education to compete favorably with education in other
    countries because we have a more diverse student body and because we
    have so many more poor children and so many immigrants and because,
    because, because, because.
        This year on the international math and science tests given to
    fourth and eighth graders, for the first time since we began a national
    effort to improve our schools over a decade ago, our fourth graders--not
    all of them but a representative sample, representative of race, region,
    income--scored way above the international average in math and science,
    disproving the notion that we cannot achieve international excellence in
    education even for our poorest

    [[Page 976]]

    children. It is simply not true. This year, again, our eighth graders
    scored below the international average, emphasizing the dimensions of
    the challenge, because when the kids who carry all these other burdens
    to school every day, the burden of poverty, the burden of crime and
    drugs in their neighborhoods, the burden of unmet medical needs, often
    the burden of problems at home--when they hit adolescence and when they
    are pressured and tempted to get involved in other things, it gets to be
    a lot tougher.
        So we haven't done everything we need to do. But the evidence is
    here now; it is no longer subject to debate that we can't compete. And
    that's good, because we need to, and because our children, however poor
    they are, are entitled to just as much educational opportunity as
    anybody else.
        Now, I believe that we made a big mistake in the United States not
    adopting national standards long before this. And I believe our poorest
    children and our minority children would be doing even better in school
    had we adopted national standards a long time ago and held their schools
    to some measure of accountability. It is not their fault; it is the rest
    of our faults that we are not doing it.
        So when I say by 1999 we ought to test all our fourth graders and
    all our eighth graders--the fourth graders in reading, the eighth
    graders in math--it's not because I want the individual kids to get a
    grade, it's because everybody ought to make that grade. If you have a
    standard, everyone ought to clear the bar. And if they're not, there is
    something wrong with the educational system that ought to be fixed. And
    you can't know it unless you understand what the standard is and hold
    people to some accountability. But don't let anybody tell you that these
    kids can't do it. That is just flat wrong. They can do it.
        Today I did announce one new initiative that I think is very
    important, and that is a $350 million, multiyear scholarship program
    modeled on the National Medical Service Corps. You know, a lot of us
    come from places that have a lot of poor rural areas that are medically
    underserved. We got doctors into those areas, into the Mississippi
    Delta, because we said, hey, if you'll go to medical--we'll help you go
    to medical school, but you've got to go out to a poor underserved area
    and be a doctor to people who need you. Then later you can go make all
    the money you want somewhere else. But if we help you go to medical
    school, will you go out here and help people where they don't have
    doctors? And the National Health Service Corps has done a world of good.
        So what I proposed today, and what we're going to send up to Capitol
    Hill with the reauthorization of Higher Education Act, is a series of
    scholarships that will go to people who say, ``I will teach in a poor
    area for 3 years if you will help me get an education.''
        This is the first specific policy to come out in connection with our
    yearlong racial reconciliation initiative. There will be more policies.
    But it's not just a matter of public policy. There will also be local
    actions, private actions which will have to be taken. And we also need
    the dialog, the discussion. It is about the mind and the heart. And
    therefore, I say again, your voices and your observations are going to
    be very valuable.
        In the communities where we have a constructive, ongoing dialog,
    where people not only talk together but work together across racial
    lines, there are already stunning stories that stir the heart and give
    us hope for the future. There is nothing people can't do. Most people
    are basically good. Their leaders have to give them a framework in which
    the best can come out and the worst can be repressed. And that's what we
    have to do here. We've got to learn how to deal with a fundamentally new
    and different situation as well as deal with a lot of old unresolved
    problems in our past that dog us in the present.
        As journalists, you have experienced firsthand both the progress and
    the continuing challenge of race in our country. Some of you in this
    audience are pioneers in your field, perhaps the first people of color
    ever to claim a desk, a phone, a typewriter in the newsrooms of our big-
    city papers and stations. Some of you, when you were beginning your
    careers, knew that it was hard enough to find just one editor who would
    consider your work, let alone the hundreds of newspaper and broadcasting
    executives who this week have descended on this job fair that you
    sponsored to recruit the young people who are here today. They've come
    here not just because they recognize the value of a diverse and racially
    representative staff but also because they know from experience that
    they'll find some of the best talent in American journalism here at this
    convention.

    [[Page 977]]

        But our newsrooms are like all of our other working environments:
    They've come a long way; they've still got a ways to go. Just as in
    other workplaces in America, minority representation on many staffs and
    mastheads is not what it ought to be. Wide gaps continue to exist in the
    way whites and minorities perceive their workplaces and in the way they
    perceive each other. We have to bridge this gap everywhere in America.
        But it is especially important in the press because you are the
    voice and, in some ways, the mirror of America through which we see
    ourselves and one another. I encourage you to continue to reach out to
    your colleagues, to listen to each other, to understand where we're all
    coming from, to lead your organizations in the writing, the editing, the
    broadcasting fare and the thought-provoking stories about the world we
    live in and the one we can live in. We have a lot to do to build that
    one America for the 21st century, but I believe we're up to the
    challenge, and I know that you are up to the challenge.
        Thank you very much.
        Arthur Fennel. Thank you very much, Mr. President. As is customary
    in these forums here at our national convention, at this time, we bring
    forth our questioners. We are journalists, after all, and you knew this
    was coming. [Laughter] We have selected four journalists who will ask
    the questions of the day: Eric Thomas, reporter and anchor at KGO-TV in
    San Francisco; Chinta Strausberg, reporter of the Chicago Defender;
    Cheryl Smith, a reporter at KKDA-Radio, Grand Prairie, Texas----
        The President. I know where that is.
        Mr. Fennel. Yes. And Brent Jones, our student representative, a
    junior at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
        To the questioners.

    Federal Funding for Mass Transit

        Ms. Strausberg. Chinta Strausberg, the Chicago Defender newspaper.
    Mr. President, do you support an $8 billion superhighway, NAFTA
    superhighway at a time when Congress has reduced funding for mass
    transit in Chicago as well? And if that superhighway is built, sir, will
    black contractors be a major part of it as a downpayment on reparations?
        The President. What superhighway? Say it again. Did I--what's this
    project?
        Ms. Strausberg. It's a proposed congressional plan--$8 billion NAFTA
    superhighway that would connect the United States with Canada and
    Mexico, and it is being discussed in Congress.
        The President. Well, I don't know that I'm familiar enough with the
    project. I do believe we need to continue to improve our infrastructure.
    Secretary Slater and I have argued that we should not underfund mass
    transit and urban transportation. And indeed, in the transportation bill
    I sent to the Congress, we asked for several hundred million dollars
    more directly targeted to help people on welfare who are required to go
    to work, get to where the jobs are if their jobs aren't within walking
    distance. Only about 10 percent of the people on public assistance own
    their own cars. And we believe we need more investment in mass transit
    in the cities. So--and I don't think it should be an either/or
    situation.
        And in terms of contracting, I support affirmative action programs
    generally in employment, in education, and in economic development. And
    I've done everything I could to fix what were the generally recognized
    shortcomings of some of the programs, to graduate out the firms that may
    not need it anymore but to continue it where I think it is appropriate.
    So I continue to support that.
        And I think it is a mistake for us not to have initiatives to help
    create minority-owned businesses. I think we should--as a matter of
    fact, let me just back up and say, when I was in San Francisco at the
    mayors conference not very long ago, I said to them that I thought we
    ought to develop a private-sector, job-related model for high
    unemployment areas in our cities and--because there was no way the
    government social services could ever create enough economic opportunity
    for people. And I thought, if we couldn't do it when the national
    unemployment rate was the lowest in 23 years, when could we do it?
        So I think we need to do more to help people organize and start
    their own businesses, to help build economic clusters of activity, to
    help give people models as well as opportunities to work, to see that we
    can do this. I don't think we're doing nearly enough in this area, and I
    think we have a new opportunity to do it because the unemployment rate
    is low in the Nation.

    [[Page 978]]

        As I've heard Reverend Jackson say for 20 years, the biggest
    undeveloped market in America are the poor unemployed and underemployed
    people in our inner cities and our rural areas. Now is the time we
    should be creating more businesses there, not having fewer businesses.
    That's what I believe.

    Affirmative Action

        Mr. Thomas. Mr. President, Eric Thomas with KGO-TV in San Francisco.
    Mr. President, your scholarship proposal notwithstanding, there is still
    an assault on affirmative action in this country. In my home State of
    California, in the wake of Proposition 209 and last year's vote by the
    University of California Board of Regents, minority applications and
    enrollment in the UC system this year are down. There will be not one
    new black student enrolled at the prestigious Boalt Hall School of Law
    at the University of California this fall. What specific programs,
    scholarship program notwithstanding, do you propose to stem this tide
    and make sure that there is diversity in higher education in this
    country?
        The President. First of all, I think we need to make sure that we
    continue to use Federal law to the maximum extent we can to promote an
    integrated educational environment so that we have to review, whether in
    the Education Department, in the Justice Department, whether there are
    any further actions we can take legally to promote an integrated
    educational environment in higher education in the States where these
    actions have been taken.
        Secondly, I think we need to look at whether there is some way by
    indirection to achieve the same result. I know that the legislature in
    Texas, in an attempt to overcome the impact of the Hopwood decision in
    Texas, just passed what they call the ``ten percent solution,'' which
    would be to guarantee admissions to any Texas public institution of
    higher education to the top 10 percent of the graduating class of any
    high school in Texas. And because of the way the African-Americans' and
    Hispanics' living patterns are in Texas, that may solve the problem.
    Whether that would work in California, I don't know. I haven't studied
    the way the school districts are organized enough. But I think we have
    to come up with some new and fairly innovative ways to do that.
        Thirdly, I think on the professional schools, my own view--I'm a
    little stumped here. We have to really--we're going to have to reexamine
    what we can do. I don't know why the people who promoted this in
    California think it's a good thing to have a segregated set of
    professional schools. It would seem to me that, since these
    professionals are going to be operating in the most ethnically diverse
    State in the country, they would want them to be educated in an
    environment like they're going to operate. I don't understand that.
        But there may be some ways to get around it, and we're looking at it
    and working on it. But I think it's going to be easier to stop it from
    happening at the undergraduate level than at the professional school
    level. And we're going to have to really think about whether there is
    some way around it, whether it would be some sort of economic
    designation or something else. But we're working on that.
        And finally, let me say, I think we need to continue to provide more
    resources, because one of the real problems we have is, even in the last
    5 years, when we've had economic recovery, the college enrollment rates
    of minorities in America have not gone up in an appropriate way. And in
    this budget that I'm trying to get passed through Congress, we've got
    the biggest increase in education funding in 32 years, the biggest
    increase in Pell grant scholarships in 20 years, another huge increase
    in work-study funds, and the tax proposals as we structured them would,
    in effect, guarantee 2 years of college to virtually everyone in America
    and help people with 2 more years of college. We've got a huge dropout
    problem in higher education among minorities that I think is having an
    impact on then what happens in the graduate schools and in the
    professional schools.
        I don't think there is a simple answer. And I think, frankly, the
    way 209 is worded, it's a bigger problem even than the Hopwood case in
    Texas. But I can tell you we're working on it. First, is there anything
    the Justice Department or the civil rights office of the Education
    Department can do? We're examining that. Second, is there a specific
    solution like the Texas ``ten percent solution'' that would overcome it
    at least in a specific State? Third, come up with some more funds and
    some more specific scholarship programs to try to overcome it.
        It's a great concern to me, and I think it is moving the country in
    exactly the wrong direction. And I might say, if you look at the
    performance of affirmative action students, it

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    doesn't justify the action that was taken. That's another point that
    ought to be made.
        So the one thing that I believe is, I believe that the rather
    shocking consequences in the professional schools in both Texas and
    California will have a deterrent impact on other actions like that in
    other States. And I believe you will see more efforts now to avoid this.
    I think a lot of people who even voted for 209 have been pretty shocked
    at what happened, and I don't believe the people of California wanted
    that to occur. And I think the rhetoric sounded better than the reality
    to a lot of voters.
        So I can tell you that, while I'm very concerned about it, I think
    if we all work on it, we can reverse it in a matter of a couple of
    years. And we just have to hope we don't lose too many people who would
    otherwise have had good opportunities because of it. But it is an urgent
    matter of concern to me.

    Education

        Mr. Jones. Brent Jones, University of Florida. Good afternoon, Mr.
    President.
        The President. Good afternoon.
        Mr. Jones. My question also has to do with education for more at a
    high school and middle school level. The dropout rate, crime, and drugs
    are more prevalent in inner-city schools than in suburban schools,
    consequently leading to a lower quality education in many inner-city
    schools. What will your administration do through Government-aided
    programs or initiatives to combat these problems and ensure everyone in
    America is receiving a comparable education?
        The President. I want to answer your question, but first I'd like to
    start with a compliment to the African-American community. Last year the
    high school graduation rate nationally among African-Americans was well
    above 80 percent and almost at the level--almost equal to the level for
    white Americans. And it's a little known and appreciated fact. And it's
    a great tribute since, as you pointed out, people who are in inner-city
    schools, particularly where there's a lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a
    lot of problems, have to struggle harder to stay in, get through, and
    come out. It's a stunning achievement that the differential in
    graduation rates is now only about 4 percent. That's a stunning thing.
    That's very, very good.
        Now, I'll tell you what we're trying to do. We're trying to do
    several things. We're trying, first of all, to help these schools work
    better with helping the teachers and the principals to operate drug-free
    and weapon-free schools, with supporting juvenile justice initiatives
    like the one in Boston where, I might add, not a single child has been
    killed by a handgun in nearly 2 years in Boston, Massachusetts. So we've
    got to create a safe and drug-free environment.
        Then we're trying to support more parents groups in establishing
    their own schools. For example, I met with a number of Hispanic leaders
    recently--a lot of you are familiar with the group La Raza. They are
    operating--La Raza is operating 15 charter schools, where the parents
    have been permitted to work with teachers to establish their own schools
    within the public school system and set up the rules which govern them
    and make sure that they're good for the kids.
        There are a number--there's no magic bullet here, but what we're
    trying to do is to take the lessons from every public school that is
    working in a difficult environment where there's a low dropout rate and
    a high performance rate, and say, they all have five or six common
    elements, and then we're trying to provide the funds and the support to
    people all over America to replicate that.
        I want to take my hat off to the people of Chicago here who have had
    a very difficult situation in their schools, and they have been turning
    it around and raising student performance quite markedly in the last
    couple of years with the involvement--aggressive involvement of parents
    and students. There's a student who sits on the local board governing
    the schools here now. And I think that's--I guess the last thing I'd say
    is, I would favor having communities have someone like you on their
    governing boards because I think if they'd listen more to the young
    people about what it would take to clean up and fix up the schools, I
    think we'd be ahead.
        Let me just make two other comments. I think there are some places
    where money will make a difference. I mentioned one in trying to get
    good teachers there. We're going to have to replace 2 million teachers
    within the next decade, 2 million, with retirements and more kids coming
    to school. Another is old school buildings. I was in Philadelphia the
    other day. The average age of a school building in Philadelphia is 65
    years of age. The school buildings

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    in Philadelphia should be drawing Social Security. That's how old they
    are. [Laughter] Now, a lot of those old buildings are very well-built
    and can last for another 100 years, but they have to be maintained. We
    have school buildings in Washington where they're open--where there are
    three stories in the school building, and one whole floor has to be shut
    down because it's not safe for the kids to be there. So we've got to be
    careful about that. We need an initiative to help repair the school
    buildings.
        And finally, let me say that I think technology offers young, lower
    income kids an enormous opportunity. If we can hook up every classroom
    in America to the Internet by the year 2000, get the computers in
    there--a lot of you do things with computers that people who are in your
    line of work couldn't even imagine 5 years ago. When I go on a trip now
    on Air Force One, I go back and watch the photographers send their
    pictures over the computer back to the newsroom. If we can hook up every
    classroom to the Internet, have adequate computers, adequate educational
    software, properly trained teachers, and then involve the parents in the
    use of this to keep up with the schoolwork and all that and get to the
    point where the personal computer is almost as likely to be in a home--
    even a below-income person has a telephone--we can keep working in that
    direction.
        I think technology will give young Americans the chance, for the
    first time in history, whether they come from a poor, a middle class, or
    a wealthy school district, the first time ever, to all have access to
    the same information at the same level of quality at the same time. That
    has never happened in the history of the country. So if we do it right
    and the teachers are trained to help the young people use it, it will
    revolutionize equality of educational opportunity at the same time it
    raises excellence in education. So those are basically some of my
    thoughts about this.
        And thank you for asking and for caring about the people that are
    coming along behind you.

    President's Record

        Ms. Smith. Mr. President, Cheryl Smith, KKDA-Radio, Dallas, Texas.
    Every 4 years, African-Americans cast their votes for a Presidential
    candidate who will hopefully address some of the issues affecting black
    Americans. Do you feel African-Americans should be pleased with your
    efforts thus far? And what can we expect from you in the future,
    especially in the area of judiciary appointments?
        The President. Well, the short answer is, yes. [Laughter] I do. I
    mean, if you look at what's happened to African-American unemployment,
    African-American homeownership; if you look at the fight that I've waged
    on affirmative action and what I've tried to do for access to education
    as well as quality of education; if you look at my record on
    appointments in the administration, in the judiciary, which far
    outstrips any of my predecessors of either party; if you look at the
    larger effort that I've made to try to get Americans to come together
    and bridge the racial divide and to make people understand that we are
    each other's best assets, I would say that the answer to your first
    question is, yes.
        Now, what else do we still have to do? The first thing that I think
    is terribly important is we have to, in addition to what I've talked
    about--I've already talked about education and the racial initiative, so
    we'll put those to the side; I've already talked about them--I think we
    have got to recognize that there is a legacy here which has not been
    fully overcome and that the United States is consigning itself to
    substandard performance as a nation if we continue to allow huge pockets
    of people to be underemployed or unemployed in our inner-city
    neighborhoods and in our poor rural areas, who are disproportionately
    minority. At a time when we have a 5 percent unemployment rate, we ought
    to be able to seriously address what it would take to put people to work
    and to give people education and to create business opportunities.
        But let me just give you two examples. We've had a Community
    Reinvestment Act requiring banks to make loans in traditionally
    underserved areas for 20 years. We decided to enforce it. Seventy
    percent of all the loans made under the Community Reinvestment Act have
    been made in the 4\1/2\ years since this administration has been in
    office. In the 20 years, 70 percent of all the loans. That's the good
    news. The bad news is, not enough money has been loaned.
        We set up these community development banks modeled on the South
    Shore Bank here in Chicago. A lot of you are familiar with it if you've
    been around here. In our new budget agreement, we have enough funds to
    more than double that. We set up the empowerment zones and the
    enterprise communities. In our new

    [[Page 981]]

    budget act, we have enough funds to more than double that. We have a
    housing strategy that we believe can attract middle class people as well
    as low income people to have housing together in the inner cities so
    that we can also attract a business base here. We know a lot more than
    we used to about what it would take to have a thriving and working
    private sector in our urban areas. I have not done that yet. And that's
    what you ought to expect me to be working on.
        And then there are a lot of unmet social problems that we need to
    deal with. It's still--you know, I got my head handed to me, I guess, in
    the '94 elections because I had this crazy idea that America ought not
    to be the only country in the world where working families and their
    children didn't have health care. It seemed to be a heretical idea, but
    I still believe that, and I'm not sorry I tried. So now we're trying to
    give our children health coverage. And I think you ought to expect all
    the children in the African-American community to be able to go to a
    doctor when they need it. I think you ought to expect us to continue our
    assault on HIV and AIDS. And until we find the cure, I think you ought
    to expect us to stay at the task. I think you ought to expect us to
    continue to make headway on other medical problems which have a
    disproportionate impact in your community.
        These are some of the things that I think that you should expect of
    us: more opportunity, tackling more of the problems, bringing us
    together. I have tried to be faithful to the support I have received,
    not only because it was the support I have received but because I
    believed it was the right thing to do. And I believe that when our 8
    years is over, you'll be able to look back on it and see not only a lot
    of efforts made but a lot of results obtained.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:30 p.m. in the Hyatt Regency Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Arthur Fennel, president, JoAnne Lyons
    Wooten, executive director, and Vanessa Williams, vice president/print,
    National Association of Black Journalists; Mayor Richard M. Daley of
    Chicago; and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.