    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 46 (Monday, November 17, 1997)]
    [Pages 1778-1781]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks During the White House Conference on Hate Crimes

    November 10, 1997

    [The panel discussion is joined in progress.]

        The President. Reverend Kyles said, this is a dynamite panel.
    [Laughter] I think they were very good. Thank you all very much.
        Even though we tried to put the Republican on after the kid, he did
    pretty well, didn't he? [Laughter] That was so funny. [Laughter] You
    know, as good as Arizona was to me, I would never do anything like that.
    [Laughter] But you made the best of a difficult situation, because you
    did a good job, Raymond.
        Let me ask you all something. We've heard from people who work in
    enforcement, whether it's an attorney general or a police chief. We've
    heard from people who work in writing the laws. We've heard from an
    educator who's trying to systematically keep these things from happening
    in the first place and deal with it. We've heard from a minister who has
    given his whole life dealing with

    [[Page 1779]]

    these matters. We've heard from a remarkable citizen here who changed
    the whole psychology of a community. We've heard from a young man who
    had an opportunity to have a remarkable experience, and he made, I
    thought, a very interesting point, which he deftly went by, but I don't
    think we should miss it. He said that he went to a very diverse school
    where there was a lot of continuing social segregation. And he had an
    opportunity to escape that on his project where he went to Israel.
        In various aspects, I guess most of us who have lived any length of
    time have been dealing with one or another of these issues our whole
    lives. It's been my experience, when I see some form of bigotry or
    hatred manifest in a particular person, that there's usually one of
    three reasons that this person has done something bad. One is just
    ignorance and the fear it breeds: I don't know this person who is
    different from me, I'm afraid, and I manifest this fear in bigotry or
    violence or something. We see that a lot with the gay and lesbian issues
    now, you know, where people are at least unaware that they have ever had
    a family member or a friend or someone who was homosexual, and they are
    literally terrified.
        Then there are some people--and I saw this a lot when Secretary
    Riley and I were kids growing up in the South--there are some people who
    really have an almost pathological need to look down on somebody else
    because they don't have enough regard for themselves, and so they think
    somehow they can salvage self-regard by finding somebody that at least
    they think is lower down than they are.
        And then there are people who have been brutalized themselves and
    who have no way of dealing with it, no way of coming out of it, and they
    return brutality with brutality. There may be others, but that's been my
    experience.
        Anyway, I ask you that to make this point--I announced a series of
    measures that we would take in my opening remarks, but you're in all
    these things. What advice do you have for me, for the Attorney General,
    for the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Housing and Urban
    Development, the Secretary of Agriculture--who deals, interestingly
    enough, with some important aspects of this--and the Secretary of
    Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation--I think I've
    mentioned them all--and the Members of Congress--what is the most
    important thing the Nation can do through the National Government? What
    should we be focusing on? If you could give me advice--you've been very
    good to talk about your own experience and what you're trying to do--if
    you could give me advice in a sentence about what you think we ought to
    do to move the ball down the road to help deal with this, what advice
    would you give us? What advice would you give to Senator Kennedy and the
    House Members that are here? What should we be doing at the national
    level?
        Sheila, you want to go first? [Laughter] You're good at this, so I
    think--everybody else deserves a chance to think. You're good at this;
    you have to go first. [Laughter]

    [Sheila James Kuehl, speaker pro tempore, California State Assembly,
    emphasized the power of laws to express morality and the strength of a
    coalition of diverse people. She then identified assembly majority floor
    leader and conference participant Antonio R. Villaraigosa as a confirmed
    heterosexual.]

        The President. There's a man who wants to be identified. [Laughter]

    [Ms. Kuehl praised Mr. Villaraigosa for associating himself with the gay
    and lesbian community in supporting California's employment
    nondiscrimination legislation.]

        The President. Anybody else want to answer that question?

    [Education Secretary Richard Riley asked about preventing hate through
    character education, the arts, and sports. Peter Berendt, principal,
    Mamaroneck Avenue Elementary School, Mamaroneck, NY, responded that
    educators should encourage artistic expression as an opportunity to
    celebrate diversity.]

        The President. Raymond, talk a little more about this whole issue of
    having an integrated school that's socially segregated. What bothers you
    about it, and what do you think we can do about it?

    [[Page 1780]]

    [Raymond Delos Reyes, student at Franklin High School, Seattle, WA,
    described his experience that students, when not in class, tended to
    associate with people of their own race. He then suggested that this
    issue should be addressed by group rather than individual efforts.]

        The President. Don't you think you almost have to have an organized
    effort to do it? There would almost have to be some sort of club or
    organization at the school, because if you think about it, your parents
    are still pretty well separated. Now, we all work together more than we
    ever have before, just like you go to school together. But most
    neighborhoods are still fairly segregated. Most houses of worship are
    still fairly segregated. We're making more progress on it, but I think
    you almost have to organize your way out of this.
        I guess that's why I asked you the question I did earlier, because
    every time this issue is confronted, we can point to Billings and the
    stirring story of a menorah in every window. But somehow we have to find
    a disciplined, organized way out of this, so that we reach every child
    in an affirmative way before something bad happens and so that at
    least--I don't think there is anything bad with people hanging around
    with members of their own ethnic group in a lot of different ways. I
    think that's a good thing. I just think that people also really, really
    need systematic opportunities to relate to people across racial and
    ethnic and other lines. And my own opinion is that--just from my own
    experience is that unless there is an organized effort in your school to
    do it, it's not going to happen, because if you just wait for people
    spontaneously to go out at recess, lunch, or after school, it's just not
    going to happen. It's too much trouble. There's too much psychic risk in
    it.
        And I hope you'll be able to do something about it, because I really
    respected you for raising it. It's a big problem in every school that I
    have ever been to in this country.

    [Grant Woods, Arizona's Republican attorney general, said that law
    enforcement provided justice but did not address the underlying cause of
    hate crimes. He suggested that leaders and schools must educate children
    to provide a counterbalance to the negativity often presented by popular
    culture.]

        The President. Tammie, you told your story about the brick coming
    through the window at your child's bed. Were there similar
    manifestations of bigotry among the children in the schools, or was it
    mostly older people? And is there anything going on now in the Billings
    schools to try to offset this?

    [Tammie Schnitzer, of the Billings, MT, Coalition for Human Rights
    Foundation, responded that the attitudes of not only children but of
    adults, institutions, and the media need to be changed. Police Chief
    Arturo Venegas of Sacramento, CA, stated that leaders must present a
    united front and that recent progress should not be taken for granted.
    Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, pastor of the Monumental Baptist Church,
    Memphis, TN, praised efforts of the religious community and the
    President's visit to a rebuilt Tennessee church for focusing attention
    on the problem of church burnings. Ms. Kuehl emphasized that legislation
    concerning hate crimes should not exclude hatred based on sexual
    orientation or gender.]

        The President. Once we cross the great sort of intellectual and
    emotional hurdle that might be presented to some with Senator Kennedy
    and Senator Specter's bill, I frankly think the next big problem will be
    a practical one, Sheila--you talk about ranking the categories--I think
    there is a practical question, which you can help with because you've
    written the law, which Grant can help with because Arizona has a law.
    But the Attorney General and I, we will have to answer a lot of
    questions about this law, about not whether or not rape is motivated by
    hate or not, but whether or not if we include all these categories in
    the law, we will in effect be lumping into Federal law enforcement a lot
    of crimes that are actually being prosecuted now at the State and local
    level through the existing criminal justice system in a way that will
    clog the system because we're trying to be politically sensitive,
    instead of actually going out now and covering offenses where people are
    getting away with murder by abusing people because they're gay or
    they're disabled or whatever they're doing.

    [[Page 1781]]

        That, I think--it's a practical question, but we need your help in
    getting through that. You have a law like that in Arizona. You wrote a
    law like that in California. And that's what we're going to be asked
    when we go up there to defend Senator Kennedy's bill; that's where we're
    going to be hit--``Aren't you just creating a whole new category of
    Federal crimes that are being prosecuted anyway at the State level?''
    and all that sort of stuff. And if you will help us, I think that will
    be very good.
        General Reno, do you want to say anything before we wrap up?

    [Attorney General Janet Reno stressed the need to improve cooperation
    between Federal and local authorities to report, investigate, and
    prosecute hate crimes. Police Chief Venegas advocated bringing the
    resources of the Federal Government to bear on the issue.]

        The President. Thank you.
        Secretary Riley, do you want to wrap up for us?

    [Education Secretary Riley concluded the panel and thanked the
    participants.]

        The President. Thank you very much.
        Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we're going to break for lunch
    now, and then the whole conference will resume. Again, I want to thank
    President Trachtenberg and George Washington, but I mostly want to thank
    all of you, because the real answer to our success in this endeavor is
    obviously that we all have to work together. And all of you can strike
    new energy into this entire endeavor around the country. We will take
    our initiatives that we outlined today--we urge you to give us more
    ideas--but you are actually the heart and soul of this endeavor, and a
    lot of you have stories that I wish all the rest of us could sit and
    hear today.
        Thank you for being here, and thank you for being a part of the
    conference.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. in the Dorothy Betts Marvin
    Theater at George Washington University.