[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 28 (Monday, July 13, 1998)]
[Pages 1336-1344]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in the ``Presidential Dialogue on Race'' on PBS

July 8, 1998

    Moderator Jim Lehrer. Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Welcome to an 
hour of conversation with President Clinton about race in America.
    And welcome to you, Mr. President.
    The President. Thank you, Jim.
    Mr. Lehrer. The President's conversation will be with eight 
Americans--four NewsHour regulars: essayist Richard Rodriguez of the 
Pacific News Service, Roger Rosenblatt and Clarence Page of the Chicago 
Tribune, and regional commentator Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta 
Constitution; plus, four others: Roberto Suro of The Washington Post, 
author of a recent book on Hispanic Americans; Kay James, dean of Regent 
University's School of Government; Elaine Chao, former head of United 
Way of America, now at the Heritage Foundation; and Sherman Alexie, 
novelist, poet, and screenwriter.
    Keep in mind, please, that whatever their affiliation and most 
importantly, their race, each is here as an individual speaking only for 
him or herself.
    Richard Rodriguez, what do you think is the single most important 
thing the President could do to improve race relations in this country?

[Mr. Rodriguez asserted his belief that race issues in the country have 
become more complicated and that the national discussion initiated under 
``One America: The President's Initiative on Race'' and its Chair, John 
Hope Franklin, has not kept pace with that complexity.]

    The President. Well, I basically agree with you about that. As a 
Southerner, like Dr. Franklin, I think that there are unique and still 
unresolved issues between black and white Americans, and there are some 
conditions in America which disproportionately involve African-
Americans. Some of them are not old. Today there was just this Journal 
of American Medical Association story saying that African-Americans 
metabolize nicotine in a different way than other races, as far as we 
know, and therefore, even though blacks smoke fewer cigarettes, they're 
more likely to get lung cancer--interesting thing.
    But to get back to your main point, I have tried to emphasize that 
America is becoming a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious society, 
and therefore it would be more important both to understand the 
differences and to identify the common values that hold us together as a 
country.
    And I often cite, since we're in northern Virginia where this 
program is being filmed, I often cite the Fairfax County School 
District, which is now the most diverse school district in the country, 
with people from over 100 different racial and ethnic groups with over 
100 different languages, actually, in this school district. And I think 
that's a pattern of where we're going. I've got a friend who is a 
Southern Baptist minister here; he used to be a minister in Arkansas. 
He's got a Korean ministry in his church. That's just one

[[Page 1337]]

tiny example of the kind of things you're going to see more and more of 
in the country.
    Mr. Lehrer. Cynthia, is the unfinished business still black and 
white?

[Ms. Tucker suggested that what many think are racial differences are 
actually class differences, that disproportionately poor blacks resent 
whites, and that working class whites with stagnant or declining incomes 
blame blacks and immigrants. She blamed the wealth gap, in part, for the 
continuing racial problems.]

    The President. There's no doubt about that. And I think that 
whenever possible, if you think that there is a class-related or income-
related element in the difficulties we have with race, we ought to have 
income-based solutions to it.
    A lot of things that I've asked the Congress to do over the last 
5\1/2\ years, a lot of things that are in this budget now are designed 
to address that, with grater incentives for people to invest in inner 
cities and Native American reservations and other poor areas; tax 
systems, which would disproportionately benefit working people on the 
lower income of the scale. I think those things are very important 
because--and there is, by the way, some evidence that in the last couple 
of years, the income inequality has begun to abate some.
    But I think it's very important not to confuse the two. I mean, I 
believe the primary reason for income inequality--increasing inequality 
in America is that we have changed the nature of the economy. That is, 
if you go back to 100 years ago, and you see when we moved from an 
agricultural to an industrial economy, we also had a big influx of 
immigrants. There was a hug increase in inequality, not so much because 
of the immigrants, but because the way people made money changed. The 
whole basis of wealth changed. That's what's happened in this computer-
based information economy, and the premium on education these days is so 
much greater than it's ever been, that there's a lot of stagnant incomes 
out there from people who have worked hard all of their lives but aren't 
part of the modern economy. And I think that we need strategies to 
identify the people that aren't winning and turn them into winners. And 
at the very least, turn their children into winners.
    Mr. Lehrer. Kay James, class or race?

[Ms. James answered that no matter how middle class a person becomes, if 
that person is black, he or she will still experience discrimination. 
She suggested that issues of poverty and class are worthy topics, but 
they should not take precedence over discussion of racism in America.]

    The President. Well, obviously, I agree with that, or I wouldn't 
have set up this initiative. I think that the point I wanted to make is 
to whatever extent you can have an economic approach that embraces 
people of all races, if it elevates disproportionately--racial groups 
that have been disproportionately depressed, you'll help to deal with 
the race problem.
    But there is--no one could look around the world--if you forget 
about America, just look at the rest of the world--no one could doubt 
the absence of a deep, inbred, predisposition of people to fear, look 
down on, separate themselves from, and when possible, discriminate 
against people who are of different racial and ethnic groups than 
themselves. I mean, this is the primary factor in the world's politics 
today at the end of the cold war.
    Mr. Lehrer. Sherman, does a poor Native American starting out face 
more hurdles than a poor white American starting out?
    Mr. Alexie. A poor Native American faces more hurdles than a poor 
anybody.
    Mr. Lehrer. Anybody?

[Mr. Alexie described conditions in Native American reservations and 
noted the lack of role models.]

    The President. Let me ask you something. I'd like to start, because 
I think this will help us to get to the race issue you talked about. 
Let's just talk about the Native American population. When I was running 
for President in 1992, I didn't know much about the American Indian 
condition, except that we had a significant but very small population of 
Indians in my home State and that my grandmother was one-quarter 
Cherokee; that's all I knew. And I spent a lot of time going around to 
the reservations and to meet

[[Page 1338]]

with leaders and to learn about the sort of nation-to-nation legal 
relationship that's supposed to exist between the U.S. Government and 
the Native American tribes.
    I concluded that the American Indians had gotten the worst of both 
worlds, that they had not been given enough empowerment or 
responsibility or tools to make the most of their own lives, and the 
sort of paternalistic relationship the U.S. Government had kept them in 
was pathetic and inadequate. So they literally got the worst of both 
worlds. They weren't given enough help, and they certainly didn't have 
enough responsibility and power in my view to build the future.
    So what do you think the most important thing is for Americans to 
know about American Indians? And what do you think the most important 
thing American Indians should be doing for themselves or should ask us 
to do to change the future?

[Mr. Alexie answered that people should understand that Native Americans 
are separate, as sovereign nations, politically and economically. He 
suggested that Native Americans themselves have to recognize the value 
of education.]

    Mr. Lehrer. Elaine Chao, where do the Asian-Americans--what kinds of 
obstacles do they start out with compared to white Americans or Native 
Americans or black Americans, whatever?

[Ms. Chao noted the increased strain in relations between races due to 
feelings of unequal treatment and the Asian-American community's 
underrepresentation in the minority figures.]

    The President. Give us an example.

[Ms. Chao related the story of an Asian-American single mother in San 
Francisco whose son was denied admission into a school, despite high 
test scores, because it already had ``too many Chinese-Americans.'']

    The President. Let's go back to what Kay said. What do you think the 
roots of racism are?

[Ms. James suggested the root of racism is a character and integrity 
problem and asserted that it would only be overcome once people interact 
and dispel preconceived notions, prejudices, and stereotypes.]

    The President. Do you think young people--and you're a dean of a 
school of government--do you think young people are less racially 
prejudiced than their parents on the whole?

[Ms. James related her own experience as a youth and part of a group 
that integrated schools in the South and how over time, relationships 
were established that broke the barrier of race and friendships 
flourished.]

    Mr. Lehrer. Roger Rosenblatt, how would you answer the President's 
question? Where do we get our attitudes about race? Where do they come 
from?

[Mr. Rosenblatt suggested that racial attitudes stem from fear, 
ignorance, and a sense of ``otherness,'' a perceived difference that 
causes hatred in some and a ``shy retreat'' in others. He noted that the 
focus is too often placed on blame rather than solutions and suggested 
reaffirming the goal of integration.]

    The President. What about what Elaine said, though? Let me give you 
a little background, although I don't know about the facts of this case. 
California, I give them a lot of credit--California is trying to have 
within the public school system a much higher performing school by, 
among other things, going to charter schools, which are--which seek to 
have the benefits of public education with the strengths of private, 
standard-spaced education. And San Francisco has a number of schools--
this is probably a part of their school choice program--where they 
basically create schools. They get out from under the rules and 
regulations of central administration, and they hold the kids to high 
standards.
    But apparently, they've made a decision also that they think they 
ought to have some diversity within their student body. And so, is it 
fair for a Chinese student who may be the fifth best Chinese student, 
but also the fifth best overall student who has to get in a class, to be 
deprived of the chance to get in the class? And if it's not fair, if 
this child was unfairly treated, what do you do with the kids who didn't 
do very well, and what

[[Page 1339]]

school should they go to, and how can you guarantee them the same 
standards?
    Mr. Lehrer. How would you answer that, Roberto?

[Mr. Suro remarked on the expansion of the racism problem from the long-
established black/white paradigm and the lack of language and mechanisms 
to deal with the increasing diversity of racism. He asked the President 
how he applied his own experiences to a more complicated Nation.]

    The President.  Well, the short answer is that I try to do now what 
I tried to do when I was a kid, when I realized what was going on, 
because I had an unusual background for a lower middle-class white guy 
in the South because I had grandparents who believed in integration, and 
my grandfather ran a little store and most of his customers were black. 
So I had an atypical background. But I was sort of hungering for contact 
with people who were different from me. And my theory, going back to 
what Kay said, is that basically if you would ask me, what's the most 
important thing we could do, I think it is the more people work, and 
learn, and worship, if they have faith, and serve together, the more 
likely you are to strike the right balance between celebrating our 
differences instead of being afraid of them and still identifying common 
values.
    Now, you still have--you have a separate problem for Native 
Americans, who literally, many of whom still live on reservations. But 
there has to be a way--you cannot overcome what you do not know. And if 
I could just say one other thing. One of the complicating--believe me, 
there are lots of hard questions. I don't think--one of the hard 
questions is the education question, whether it's affirmative action in 
college admissions or what Elaine said, for the simple reason that I 
believe there is an independent value to having young people have--learn 
in an environment where they're with people of many different racial and 
ethnic backgrounds. And the question is, how can you balance that with 
our devotion to merit and then not discriminating against people because 
of their race, in effect, when they would otherwise, on grounds of 
academic merit, get a certain situation? That's one of the hardest 
questions we face.
    But I still think the more we are together--I was quite impressed, 
for example, when our daughter was trying to select a college. And one 
of the things that she did, she went around and actually got the 
composition and makeup of every school to which she applied, because she 
wanted--and then she actually went there to see whether those people 
were actually--[laughter]--not just admitted but actually really 
getting--relating to each other.
    But a lot of the young people in her generation that I spend time 
talking to understand that this is something they need to do. I mean, 
they figured out that their life is going to be real different from 
ours, and they better figure out how to live together.
    Mr. Lehrer.  Clarence, does that make sense to you?

[Mr. Page explained that people need to realize if they want diversity, 
they will have to accept sacrifice. He noted that establishing diversity 
and maintaining it necessitates curbing equal opportunity to some 
extent, and achieving dialog and desegregation requires work.]

    Mr. Lehrer.  Somebody has to get hurt in order for other people to 
be helped?

[Mr. Page noted the difficulties of affirmative action, and suggested 
the President was reluctant to deal with that issue, a subject Mr. Page 
described as the most divisive in race relations. He posed the question 
of defining, as a nation, affirmative action and suggested that until it 
is dealt with effectively, it will continue to be a political tool.]

    The President.  See, I believe--I frankly--I believe that the real 
reason it's a problem--it's more a problem in education now than in 
economics because the unemployment rate is so low and because the jobs 
are opening up, so most gifted people feel that if they're willing to 
work hard, they can find a job. We don't have the anxiety about 
affirmative action we used to have when the police departments and the 
fire departments were being integrated and promotions were being given. 
Every now and then you hear something about that, but most of the 
controversy

[[Page 1340]]

 now is about education. Why? Because people know education is really 
important and if parents and children make a decision about where they 
want to go to school--in the case of Elaine, a public school--that they 
believe is good, or a college, they're afraid if they don't get in where 
they want to get in, they'll get a substandard education.
    I have a different view. The reason I've supported affirmative 
action, as long as you don't just let people in who are blatantly 
unqualified to anything, is that I think, number one, test scores and 
all these so-called objective measures are somewhat ambiguous and 
they're not perfect measures of people's capacity to grow. But secondly 
and even more importantly, I think our society has a vested interest in 
having people from diverse backgrounds.
    When I went to college in the ``Dark Ages,'' one of the reasons I 
applied to Georgetown was they had foreign students there, and they had 
a policy of having a kid from every State there. Maybe I got in because 
there weren't so many people from Arkansas who applied, for all I know. 
I think that there are independent educational virtues to a diverse 
student body, and young people learn different things in different ways. 
And I don't think objective measurements are perfect. So I don't have a 
problem with it.
    But I think the most important thing is that we have to understand 
that this is one of the hard questions. And it is best worked out, in my 
view, by people sitting around a table trying to work out the specifics, 
like in San Francisco. And when people feel like they have no voice, 
then they feel robbed. But there will never be a perfect resolution of 
this.
    Mr. Lehrer. Richard, do you agree? No perfect resolutions to this?

[Mr. Rodriguez agreed and related his experiences with affirmative 
action in college and the job market and how he was offered 
opportunities solely because of his Hispanic heritage rather than 
personal merit. He suggested race discussions will be troubled if basic 
understandings do not exist.]

    The President. Let me ask you--let me ask everybody--first of all, 
I'm glad you said that, because we're in the business of defining 
stereotypes tonight, so that's good. I think all of us who have worked 
hard to get where we are are sort of proud of that. I mean, when I was a 
young man, I was the only person on my law school faculty that voted 
against our tenure policy because I never wanted anybody to guarantee me 
a job. I told them they could tell me to leave tomorrow, and I'd go. I 
mean, I really identify with what you've done. I'm proud of that.
    But suppose you're the president of the university. Would you like, 
other things being equal, to have a faculty that were not--that were 
reasonably racially diverse? And even more importantly, would you like, 
other things being equal, to have a student body that reflected the 
America these young people are going to live in once they've graduated? 
And if you believe that, and you didn't want to infuriate people like 
you've been infuriated and make them feel like you've felt, how would 
you go about achieving that?
    I think this is tough stuff. I don't pretend that my position is 
easy or totally defensible. How would you do it?

[Mr. Rodriguez answered that matters should be addressed early on, in 
the first grade as opposed to graduate school. Mr. Rosenblatt agreed and 
suggested that goals are better than quotas.]

    The President. Let's go back to this. I want to ask you, too, to 
come in, because I want you to go in here. [Laughter] What exactly was 
it did you resent? Did you resent the fact they were going to guarantee 
you a job whether you were any good or not? Or did you resent the fact 
that they were looking for Hispanic faculty members?

[Mr. Rodriguez said he resented being entitled to an opportunity because 
he was a needed minority in a quota system and getting opportunity 
because his skin was darker than another's. Mr. Suro related his 
experiences, recalling that there were times when he consciously did not 
want to be regarded as a ``Hispanic journalist.'' He remarked on the 
diversity of groups that do not share common histories, yet they are 
lumped together in one group.]

[[Page 1341]]

    Mr. Lehrer. Cynthia, the differences--in other words, dealing with 
people differently.

[Ms. Tucker stated that the black experience in America is distinct. She 
recounted her own experience living under Jim Crow laws in southern 
Alabama, and she said she believes affirmative action is useful and that 
it is not synonymous with unqualified. Ms. Chao stated that the history 
of race relations in America has been very tragic, that it is still not 
a perfect world, but it is incumbent on people to remember that the 
ideal of equal opportunity for everyone be maintained. She stressed the 
importance of equal standards for all.]

    Mr. Page. Well, how do you define merit? Does--should there be an 
equal opportunity to get into Berkeley and UCLA? But how do you define 
merit? Is it SAT's or ACT's or other criteria?
    Ms. Chao. No, I think clearly, merit.
    Mr. Lehrer. Let me ask Sherman, where do Native Americans fit into 
the affirmative action debate?

[Mr. Alexie asserted the illusionary nature of the debate over 
affirmative action and stated that national policy is being made based 
on isolated and anecdotal examples. Ms. Chao remarked on the reality of 
differential standards for different groups.]

    The President. Do you want to answer Clarence?

[Ms. Chao stressed the importance of education and suggested that the 
real goal for the country is eliminating crime and creating economic 
opportunity for all.]

    The President. What are you going to say about this?
    Ms. James. I was just going to say, Mr. President, I think the 
operative phrase was, in your question, ``all things being equal,'' 
wouldn't we like a diverse community, particularly in the academic 
arena?'' And I was looking around the table and thinking, gee whiz, I 
bet I'm the only one here at the table that has to make admissions 
decisions.
    The President. You've got to make these decisions. [Laughter]

[Ms. James stated that most Americans have a high esteem for the idea of 
diversity, but they feel there is unfair preferential treatment bestowed 
on some to achieve it. She suggested focusing on the income-based 
programs and preferential treatment for various reasons as opposed to 
solely based on race.]

    The President. Let me go back to something Clarence said at the 
beginning. You pointed out--we talked about prejudice, discrimination, 
then we started talking about diversity and all that. I think you need--
if I could go back to the very first thing that all of you started 
talking about--we need a vocabulary that embraces America's future, and 
we need a vocabulary that embraces America's present and past on this 
race issue. And we need to know when we're making distinctions. And then 
we need to fess up to the fact at least when it comes to Native 
Americans that if we don't do something fairly dramatic, the future is 
going to be like the past for too many people.
    For example, I think most Americans, whether they're conservatives 
or liberals or Republicans or Democrats, would support, for example, my 
budget proposal to give more resources to the EEOC to get rid of the 
backlog. Because all of the surveys show that 85 percent of the American 
people, or 90 percent, or something, believe that actual discrimination 
against an individual person in the workplace is wrong, based on race.
    Now, the real problem is that affirmative action, I think now, since 
there are a lot of middle-class blacks, middle-class Hispanics, that 
it's almost--people are not so sure in the workplace and the schoolplace 
whether it is furthering the goal of getting rid of the lingering 
effects of discrimination, which is Cynthia's experience, and mine as a 
Southerner--ours--you know, or whether it is now being used to create a 
more diverse environment which people feel is a good thing, but not a 
good thing if it is sticking it to this hard-working Chinese mother in 
San Francisco and her children, who is raising her kids under adverse 
circumstances.
    And I guess one of the things that bothers me is that a lot--we need 
to make these kinds of discussions practical and institution- or 
community-based, because, I'll say again, I think that we want our 
children to grow up to learn to live in the world that they will in fact 
live in. Therefore, if you forget about

[[Page 1342]]

discrimination for a minute--you can't ever do that, but let's just 
assume there is no discrimination--America has a wonderful system of 
higher education. There are hundreds of schools I think you can get a 
world-class undergraduate education in. And I believe that, therefore, 
it's worth having some policy to try to diversify the student body.
    It's interesting to see what Texas did when the Hopwood decision 
came down. They said, ``Well, we don't want to have a totally segregated 
set of colleges and universities in Texas, so we'll just say the top 10 
percent of every high school can automatically go to any Texas 
institution of higher education.'' That looks like a merit-based 
decision, but, of course, it's not any more merit-based than the other 
decision, because there are segregated high schools, and there are 
differences in test scores, and all that.
    So we need to kind of--we need 10 hours to discuss this, and I'd 
like to listen to you. But the only thing I want to point out is, the 
American people have got to decide. Do they want a housing project in 
Chicago--in this case, only the people from Chicago have to decide--
that's integrated? If so, the people who don't get in there, do they 
have reasonable alternatives? That's one realistic thing. If a child 
doesn't get into a good school that he or she wants to get into, do they 
have an equivalent alternative? If they don't, you maybe have hurt them 
for life. Is it worth it to get--the discrimination?
    Or in the case--look at Kay's problem. She runs a government 
department, makes these admission decisions in a school that has a 
certain religious and value-based approach to life. So if a child gets 
deprived of going into there, even if the kid goes to Harvard, it may 
not be the cultural environment----
    Ms. James. They couldn't get near the education they get at Regent. 
[Laughter]
    The President. But let's assume it's equivalent. The child may lose 
something noneducational. So all these things are--I just want the 
American people to start talking about this in a way that's real here.

[Mr. Rodriguez remarked on the increasing numbers of young people who do 
not want to be defined as belonging to a particular race. He recalled an 
encounter with a woman in San Francisco whose father was African-
American and mother was Mexican. The woman described herself as a 
``Blaxican.'' Mr. Rodriguez said youth will redefine the look of 
America.]

    The President. That's good.
    Mr. Lehrer. Cynthia, and then to Roger--on this question that the 
President raised, the new dialog, and to Richard, what are the new words 
we use? What do we talk about in this new world?

[Ms. Tucker suggested the importance of acknowledging how much the world 
has changed and the need for a stronger sense of history. Mr. Rosenblatt 
questioned the similarity of racism today and when he was growing up. He 
questioned the importance of affirmative action as an issue for debate.]

    Mr. Lehrer. Roberto, how would you define the new vocabulary?
    Mr. Suro. We've talked a lot about how trying to describe the 
population and how it's changed. Roger touches on an important point. We 
have to have a new vocabulary to describe our attitudes. Discrimination 
is a different thing in this country than it was 20 years ago.
    Mr. Lehrer. In what way?

[Mr. Suro explained that discrimination is based on more factors than 
solely race, and more complicated remedies and vocabulary are required 
to describe attitudes. Mr. Page noted, even in suburban neighborhoods, 
some groups tend to be as widely discriminated against as their 
counterparts in inner-city neighborhoods.]

    Mr. Lehrer. What do you tell your son? What do you tell your son 
about why this is happening?

[Mr. Page responded that he answers any questions his son might pose and 
that the child is aware of racial difference but does not consider any 
race better than others. He noted that there is still segregation. Mr. 
Rodriguez recalled being stopped by black police officers while jogging 
before dawn and remarked that this society is a very complicated one.]

    Mr. Page. Who said blacks couldn't be prejudiced? Of course.
    The President. I agree with that. You know, I'm very sympathetic 
with what you

[[Page 1343]]

say. And I want it to be as you say. And I agreed that we have all kinds 
of overlapping stereotypes that we haven't even talked about. One of the 
things that came up after Los Angeles riots, you know, the attitudes of 
the African-Americans to the Korean grocers and the Arab grocers and the 
Hispanic customers and all of that--it's a lot more complicated than it 
used to be.
    But as a factual matter, if you just look at the prison population--
you wanted to bring that up--if you look at all the unemployment rate 
among young, single African-American males without an education, if you 
look at the physical isolation of people in these inner-city 
neighborhoods--we have the lowest unemployment rate in 28 years; there 
are still New York City neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is 15 
percent--if you look at these things, if I could just come back to sort 
of what I think is practical here, I think it is imperative that we 
somehow develop a bipartisan consensus in this country that we will do 
those things which we know will stop another generation of these kids 
from getting in that kind of trouble.
    My best model now, I guess, is what they're trying to do in Chicago 
in the school system and what they've done in Boston with the juvenile 
justice system. In Boston, they went for 2 years without one kid under 
18 being killed with a gun. Unheard of in a city that size. And if you 
look at what they did in Houston, we need to at least adopt those 
strategies that will invest money in keeping these kids out of trouble 
in the first place and try to keep them out of jail and give them the 
chance to have a good life. And if there's disproportionate 
manifestation of race, then so be it. Then we ought to have an 
affirmative action program, if you will, that invests in those kids' 
futures and gives them a chance to stay out of trouble.
    To me, it's the kids that are being lost altogether and the 
disproportionate presence of racial minorities among those kids that is 
still the most disturbing thing in the world. Because if you get these 
kids up there, 18 or 19, heck, they'll figure out things. Our kids will 
figure out things we weren't smart enough to figure out. That's how 
society goes on. That's what progress is all about. But I think we have 
to recognize that's still a big race problem in this country, especially 
for African-Americans.
    Mr. Lehrer. Clarence raised the point, Sherman, about race talk in 
his family, and the President--Mr. President, you have said you had 
trouble getting people to talk bluntly and honestly about race.
    The President. Yes. We're all too polite about it.
    Mr. Lehrer. How do you get people to talk about race?

[Mr. Alexie remarked that people are always talking about race, though 
the language may be coded.]

    Mr. Lehrer. But do Indians talk about race?
    Mr. Alexie. Oh, yeah, we're actually probably a lot more 
conservative and racist than any other single group of people. We're 
much more reactionary. It's funny--politically, we give our money to 
Democrats, but we vote for Republicans. [Laughter]
    I'm going to leave that one alone. [Laughter]
    Mr. Lehrer. How do you get honest talk? Do you think there is honest 
talk about race?

[Ms. James suggested that people are very willing to talk about race by 
relating personal experiences.]

    Ms. Chao. I think the bottom line is, I think there has to be not 
allocation of programs based on preferential treatment--but that there 
is equal opportunity. And going back to Clarence's issue about merit----
    Mr. Lehrer. We talking about talking bluntly about race.
    Ms. Chao. Right. I think this is part of it. And I think the 
President wanted me to answer Clarence's comments. Clarence's question 
about merit.
    Mr. Lehrer. Okay, but we have to--I have to interrupt you all now to 
say, thank you, Mr. President, and thanks to all the rest of----
    The President. We're just getting warmed up.
    Mr. Lehrer. I know, I know, I know.
    Ms. Chao. It's got to be the same standards for everybody, however 
merit is defined.
    Mr. Lehrer. Okay. But from Washington this has been a conversation 
with President

[[Page 1344]]

Clinton about race. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night. And as 
you see, may the conversation continue.

Note: The program was recorded at 2 p.m. in the WETA-TV PBS studios in 
Arlington, VA, for broadcast at 8 p.m., July 9, on PBS.