[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 49 (Monday, December 8, 1997)]
[Pages 1959-1969]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Race in Akron
December 3, 1997
[McHughson Chambers, an engineering major at the University of Akron,
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 stated that 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
[[Page 1960]]
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 they have been able to go to school with people of
different races?
Ms. Ibarra. I feel that that benefits them, but I feel it's all by
choice as well. Older people, obviously, interact with other minorities
in everyday life as well. It's just a matter of choice whether you're
going to love and to accept--whether you're going to allow yourself to
accept these people into your lives or whether you're not. I feel it's
all 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
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, a former reporter for the New York Times and author
of ``A Country of Strangers: Black and White in America,''
[[Page 1961]]
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
and said that African-American progress was here to stay and gave
examples. She concluded by quoting Coretta Scott King that Martin Luther
King's dream of equality had become ``deeply imbedded 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.
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, a psychologist and professor at Mount Holyoke
College in South Hadley, MA, and author of ``Why Are All the Black Kids
Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, and Other Conversations About Race,''
stated that she teaches a course on the psychology of racism, trying to
establish an honest discussion on race, and described the role fear
plays in hampering that dialog.]
The President. Abigail.
[Ms. Thernstrom stated that people who are opposed to racial preferences
are often accused of being too optimistic and believing that all the
problems have been resolved. She indicated that, while America still has
a long way to go, we should proceed on the basis of optimism.]
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
[[Page 1962]]
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 stated that he believed that dichotomy between optimism and
pessimism was a false one, indicating that optimism is too close to
complacency and pessimism is 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 have always had
preferential treatment and that 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 foster an environment friendly to the racial dialog.]
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 teaching Reverend Fowler's how to sing. Reverend Fowler
stated that his church had never done very well with country music.]
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 now other
organizations in Akron were doing the same thing.]
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 both 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
[[Page 1963]]
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 working at
creating relationships. Mr. Liebarth then introduced the topic of
interracial relationships and asked Erica Sanders to discuss her
experiences. Ms. Sanders described being the only black in her school
and the real division she experienced between her all white school and
her all black church and neighborhood. Erica Wright then added that she
looked to her parents for guidance and stressed the importance of their
influence. Mr. Liebarth then introduced D.J. Beatty, who had grown up in
a multiracial household, and he described his experiences at home and as
a student at the University of Akron. At school, he stated that though
he shared certain cultural styles with his white companions, 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 when most whites deal with banks and most blacks
must deal with public assistance, they have 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, 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
[[Page 1964]]
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 Anna Arroyo, a pre-med student at the
University of Akron, who described her experiences in being perceived as
white and then telling people she was Puerto Rican. She concluded by
saying that in fact there was a great deal of diversity among Hispanic-
Americans.]
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 believe Latin America to be a single
culture, while in fact each country has its own unique culture. Mr.
Liebarth introduced Jason Kessler, who stated his belief that some
religions teach that poor is bad, 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?
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 Vanesa Cordero, coordinator of the family
violence program, who stated that America is no longer just black and
white but a cultural mix including Hispanic-Americans. In her work with
battered women, she stated that black and Hispanics are treated
differently; if they don't speak English, they need to get
interpreters.]
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
[[Page 1965]]
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 affirmed that her son was discriminated against because he
was Hispanic and said that she felt discrimination before she worked her
way up from welfare to being a professional.]
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 population pursuing common business goals and objectives
and sharing success or failure would create bonds that went beyond
racial tensions. He also stated that a diverse population made expansion
to other countries easier, giving specific examples, and concluded by
listing 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 their views on how to approach the
problem of racism, including confronting family members who make racist
comments and making an attempt to deal with the growing Hispanic dropout
rate in high schools.]
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 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.
[[Page 1966]]
[Other participants offered their views, including education opportunity
zones, opening up the dialog on race, and addressing the needs of the
underclass.]
The President. So what's the most important thing we can do for the
underclass?
Audience member. 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 stated the need for 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.
[David Flores stated his belief that the solution lay in education 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 described competition for education funds and an
aging educational infrastructure.]
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 multicultural education as part of the history curriculum
nationwide. Mayor Donald Plusquellic of Akron thanked the President for
holding the meeting and for his example.]
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 more than education and economics. That's why
we're here. That's
[[Page 1967]]
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 continued to offer their views, including the importance
of following the Golden Rule and the need for people to educate someone
about their 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.
[A participant explained that values such as tolerance and respect need
to be taught in the home. Another participant stated that the business
community is interested in hiring people who have been trained to be
reliable and to work as part of a team.]
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, discussed the
importance of people talking about their differences openly and giving
each side the opportunity to present their viewpoint. Several
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 goodwill 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
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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.
[A participant explained the problems of social segregation and stated
that people should feel uncomfortable about only associating with
members of their own race. Another participant stated that he looks
forward to the day when communities are open to all races and the term
``hate crime'' has no meaning.]
The President. And what's the most important thing we can do about
it?
Audience member. 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, explained that
universities have an obligation to teach their students respect,
civility, and the tools of teamwork 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 explained that there is an opportunity gap not a racial
skills gap and encouraged people to be aware of racism in their
communities and to offer help when needed.]
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.
[[Page 1969]]
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 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 possible
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 is 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 and 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.