 | Essays
on Civic Renewal
National
Commission on Civic Renewal First Plenary Session, continued
Panel
Three: Race, Ethnicity, & Civic Cohesion
Contents
Panel
One: Americans' Civic and Moral Beliefs
Panel
Two: Social Trust and Civic Engagement
Panel Three: Race, Ethnicity, and Civic Cohesion
Panel Four: National Community and Civil
Society
Comments from Senior Advisory Council
Panel
Three: Race, Ethnicity, & Civic Cohesion
Witnesses:
David Bositis
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
Harry Pachon
Tomas Rivera Policy Institute
GALSTON:
One of the leitmotifs of this morning's discussion was the relationship
between racial and ethnic group membership or identity, on the
one hand, and a number of these civil and civic concerns that
the Commission is so interested in exploring, on the other. And
it seemed more than appropriate to break this topic out for some
special consideration, and that is the opportunity that we'll
have in this first afternoon panel. And the issue on the table
is very much what difference it makes, how it matters. We enter
into this discussion with, I think, no clear presumptions or expectations
as to what the answer is, but we are very very grateful for the
two expert witnesses who have agreed to appear to offer testimony
and to discuss it with us. They are David Bositis of the Joint
Center for Political and Economic Studies, and Harry Pachon from
the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.
DAVID
BOSITIS: Good afternoon. Unlike the people this morning,
I'm not going to be reporting on any specific study, although
I'll be referencing research that I've done at the Joint Center.
I'm going to talk about a couple of themes that I think are very
significant to what was discussed this morning.
I'd like
to begin with an anecdote that I think is significant. Right after
the election, I spoke at a gathering of black Republicans. It
was sponsored by the Council of One Hundred. And in the course
of my speaking about the election before that group (I don't even
remember the context), but I put something in quantitative terms,
and I was somewhat surprised by the reaction. I was talking about
racism, more particularly racism among white Americans, and I
suggested that well, I shouldn't quantify it but maybe half of
white Americans I consider to be in some sense racist, and half
not, and of the half that are racist, maybe 80 percent are racist
because of indifference and lack of experience with or understanding
of the black experience, and maybe 20 percent of those who were
racist were racist for pathological reasons. And I was surprised
by the reaction that it elicited from—this is a black Republican
group that I'm speaking before—and I was surprised by the
reaction it elicited. The reaction was basically, "You're crazy.
Only 50 percent are racist? The number is 90, easy." I wouldn't
say I was shocked, but I was surprised that I got that reaction
so immediately from this black Republican group. And I think it
speaks to the significance of race, racial consciousness, racial
prejudice in American society, and its significance especially
as it relates to issues having to do with trust.
I noticed
this morning a number of the speakers talked about the significance
of crime for feelings of trust, and also references to economic
deprivation, and that's impact on trust. I would also like to
suggest that the experience of racism very much has a very significant
impact on trust. I guess what I consider to be one of the most
important problems in terms of race in American society is that
most white people do not have firsthand experiences with racism;
most or all black people, in fact, do. Because black people do
have that experience with racism, they are intensely conscious
of the significance of racism and its impact on American society.
Many whites do not. Many whites just—they don't experience
it, they don't recognize that it's a problem, they don't recognize
its reality. And so, if they don't see it, then it doesn't exist,
it's not a problem. And if it's not a problem, nothing needs to
be done to remedy it.
This shows
up in poll results. I do polls of both the black population and
the general population for the Joint Center. It shows up in poll
results in terms of questions as to whether racism exists in the
United States, and questions about things such as affirmative
action and other things that are intended to remediate the problem
of racism in the United States.
A significant
portion of whites do oppose affirmative action in some way, shape,
or form, or deny the significance of racism. It's usually between
two-thirds and three-quarters of whites respond in that way to
surveys. Similar numbers of blacks suggest in surveys that racism
is, for many of them, the most significant problem in terms of
American society. So the lack of recognition of racism is really
a key in terms of understanding the role of race and responding
to it.
I'll give
you a partial poll result that I find very telling. Last year,
in a national survey of blacks and whites, I asked a question
about, the wording was essentially, "Some people claim that white
men are hurt by affirmative action. Do you think a lot of white
men are hurt, some white men are hurt, a few white men are hurt,
or that the claim is false?" In the black sample, close to 60
percent just basically came out and said the claim is false; white
men aren't hurt by affirmative action. Only 10 percent of whites
responded in that way. A substantial number of whites indicated—1
in 7 indicated—that a lot of white men are hurt by affirmative
action, and maybe another third thought that at least some white
men were hurt by affirmative action. So there was a clear difference
in terms of their perceptions of race and in particular, white
men, who after all are, I guess, the classic victims of affirmative
action—I guess they're the only group that doesn't fall in
some way, shape, or form under the various programs that have
been formulated to deal with remediating past discrimination in
American society. The difference in the point of view I think
is very very significant and very very telling.
I think
confronting this particular issue is most significant in terms
of the question of trust. If in fact it's the case that significant
numbers of black Americans hold one view of reality and significant
numbers of whites hold a diametrically opposed view of reality,
I'm not sure how civic trust or political trust can be engendered
if in fact there are entirely different views of reality. If you
can't agree on reality, where is there to go from there? I think
that's very very significant.
In that regard,
I want to bring up something I think was very very significant
in the past year that reflects upon these different views of reality
in the black and white communities. And that's the O.J. Simpson
trial and the response to the O.J. Simpson trial. The criminal
justice system—and I'm not aware of any statistics that you
cannot look at that will not suggest that this is the case—the
criminal justice system in a whole variety of ways is discriminatory
towards, especially towards, black Americans. Let me bring up
another question from my survey last year. It was a question asking
people whether police harassment and brutality towards African-Americans
was a significant problem in places where people lived. Among
African-Americans, about 43 percent said yes, it was a very significant
problem. Only 10 percent of whites said it was a significant problem.
Among young black men, the percentage was even higher; the problem
of discrimination in the criminal justice system was considered
very significant. And if you look at the public response to the
O.J. Simpson verdict, where in the black community the acquittal
was hailed as being a reflection of fairness in the criminal justice
system, and in the white community where it was viewed as a gross
injustice, I think it reflects, in large part, those entirely
two different perceptions of what the reality is out there in
terms of race in the criminal justice system.
Let me add
one additional fact which isn't necessarily germane, but I think
relates to this in a particular way. Fox Butterfield called me
the other day, that the Sentencing Project had just released a
report that said there were 1.5 million black men who do not have
the right to vote due to their involvement with the criminal justice
system. In many states, if you're convicted of a felony, you lose
your voting rights for life. To put that 1.5 million number in
context, there are only about 10 million black men in the country
who are of voting-age population, so that 1.5 million represents
15 percent of black adult males who do not have the basic right
for the most basic political participation due to their involvement
with the criminal justice system.
Let me suggest,
given the second round of the O.J. Simpson litigation that's going
on right now—and of course the first venue was a black venue
and the jury was principally a black jury, the second venue is
a white venue and it's principally a white jury. If in fact O.J.
Simpson is found guilty in the civil litigation, let me suggest
to you that what's going to happen is white Americans are going
to say, "Justice at last," and black Americans are going to say,
"Well, what do you expect? Whites have put O. J. Simpson in a
situation where they control the process, and they're going to
find him guilty because they wanted to find him guilty in the
first place." I'm not suggesting or commenting on the validity
or any of the aspects of the case; I'm talking about the perception
and the significance of race in that regard.
I'd like
to mention a couple of other things in terms of elements of trust.
I'll mention something that has to do more with political elites,
but political elites influence what happens in their respective
communities. The present litigation that's going on with majority
black districts around the country, based upon a series of Supreme
Court decisions going back to Shaw v. Reno. Let me say a word
or two about the significance of that and why that relates to
trust.
The districts
were, by and large, drawn subsequent to the 1990 census, due to
revisions to the Voting Rights Act that were passed in 1982. That's
a very significant date, 1982. This was legislation that was supported—in
the recent Congress that left, it was supported by every Republican
senator save Jesse Helms; this was legislation that passed overwhelmingly
and was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. The significance of
the year 1982 in its relation to trust is this. Nothing was going
to happen between 1982 because they weren't going to redraw districts
until 1990. After the 1990 census, when the districts were redrawn
and a number of black majority districts were created that elected
black members to Congress, several Southern states that had not
had a black member in Congress since Reconstruction sent black
members to Congress for the first time in 90 or 100 years. Six
months after those black members of Congress from those states
were elected and took their place in the United States House of
Representatives, Shaw v. Reno came. So the commitment to a black
representation in the political process that was made in 1982
with a full and complete knowledge that nothing was going to happen
until after the 1990 census was, if you will, at least somewhat
withdrawn following the 1992 elections and the redrawing of districts.
Again, it goes to the issue of trust in terms of the system.
I'd like
to say that I have some sort of answer to suggest as to what might
be done in terms of addressing the racial divide, especially from
the point of view of two different sets of realities, because
I think so long as those two different sets of realities exist,
and the interpretation and understanding of political and civic
life in the United States is conditioned on having those two different
sets of realities, the divide will remain, and I do not see how
civic trust can be engendered under those circumstances. I think
its consequence in the black community at the present moment in
time is that there are two black Americas —one that has been
tentatively assimilated into the larger society, and one that
views the white society as not wishing for it to be assimilated.
And I think that's one of the reasons that individuals such as
Louis Farrakhan, who speaks to those people who do not think they're
going to be assimilated, have as much influence as they do at
the present moment in time. I also think it creates a significant
problem for black leadership, because black leadership has two
populations who have quite different points of view as to what
American society offers, and it's not easy to address those two
different populations and the needs of those two different populations,
given their differences.
HARRY
PACHON: Like David and the other panelists this morning,
I want to thank you for the opportunity to present my views before
the Commission. In the packet before you, that has been distributed,
which says presentation notes, what I would like to do is kind
of go over some of the points that highlight my presentation.
I'm going to begin with the assumption that we really need to
begin at some basic steps, and the first is a demographic perspective
on the Latino community.
If we could
turn to page two, we see that the Latino community is differentiated
from American society as a whole by several key characteristics.
The first of these characteristics is that they're young—something
like 7 to 8 years younger than the population as a whole. And
what this youth means—a median age of about 27—is that
you have roughly about a third of the Latino population in school-age
years, which is going to be relevant for political participation
in upcoming years.
I think
obviously the second demographic characteristic that is so different
from majority America is the large number of immigrants that are
present in the Hispanic community. If you take a look at 1993
data, something like 3 out of 5 Latinos in the United States are
foreign-born. And it should come as no surprise, because Latinos
have been making up the largest component of immigration flow
during the 1960s and 70s, and they were only replaced by Asians
back in the 1980s. So the influx of Latino legal immigrants into
this country has been a pervasive reality of our immigration flow
for the past 40 or 50 years.
Just a small
caveat here. I'm talking in general about the Latino community.
There are significant differences within subgroups—Cuban-Americans
are much older, for example, than even average mainstream Americans.
Puerto Ricans are all citizens, born in Puerto Rico or born in
the United States; they are all citizens by legislation. But overall,
when we talk about these general characteristics, we see these
significant variations with American society as a whole.
The last
point that I wanted to point out is that when we talk about the
national Latino population, we're still talking about a concentrated
population. One out of every three Latinos lives in California.
Two out of every 4 live in two states, California and Texas. And
if we just took the four top states, we would see that something
like 75 percent of Latinos live in four states. For me, this is
significant, because it means that individual state political
cultures are going to be very relevant to civic engagement. For
example, in California —which is the state long known for
nonpartisanship—voting participation and civic involvement
is traditionally lower than in states where party machines are
present or party mobilization mechanisms are in place.
I have to
take the Commission's time, though, and really try to counter
some of the conventional wisdoms that are present concerning the
Latino community. And I think that part of these conventional
wisdoms are generated by the fact that since Latinos are concentrated
still outside of the Boston/Washington, D.C. axis, many of our
media and many of our policymakers still don't come into contact
with large Latino populations outside the state of New York, and
lately it's been here in Washington, DC
One of the
conventional wisdoms about our Latino immigrant population is
that they are here as sojourners, that Latino immigrants are different
than our European immigrants of yesteryear because they're here
and all they're interested in is sending money orders back home,
and they can't wait to get back to their native lands. I had the
privilege of conducting the first national survey of Latino immigrants
about six years ago. When we asked Latino immigrants the question,
"Do you plan to make the United States your permanent home?" please
note on page three that 98 percent of legal Latino immigrants,
after having been here for five years, plan to make the U.S. their
permanent home, and only 2 percent are thinking of returning.
Another
conventional wisdom is this thing (we kind of alluded to it this
morning) about bilingualism—this image out there that somehow
Hispanics are different than other immigrant groups and that they're
interested in retaining their native language much more than,
again, previous waves of European immigrants. We didn't ask directly.
We asked an indirect way of getting to this issue, which is, "What
language do you utilize when you're reading newspapers or when
you are watching television?" And notice that on page 4 of the
presentation before you, surprisingly—and this is only amongst
first-generation Latino immigrants, mind you—38 percent of
all Latino immigrants are using English monolingually for their
newspaper coverage. Secondly, very close to it—statistically
the same—is Spanish. And then about 1 out of every 5 Latinos
uses both newspapers. When we turn to television, the same pattern
repeats itself. English television comes in first, Spanish television
comes in second, and then there's a significant component that
looks at both media sources, which is both English and Spanish
television.
When we
take a look at the overall language characteristics of the Latino
immigrant population, which should lay to rest some of these myths
that exist about language retention—and my data is really
supported by, for example, the Rand studies—we see that even
amongst first-generation Latino immigrants, one-third are monolingual
in English, one-third are monolingual in Spanish, and one-third
are bilingual. At first this sounds surprising. But I think we
have the image that an immigrant comes over when they're fully
formed. We forget that many immigrants come over with children.
And children may have Spanish at home, but when they start first
grade or kindergarten, they start picking up English, they start
socializing with their schoolmates, and when they go into the
work world, it's an all-English world. So even amongst first-generation
immigrants, English is spoken by a third of them monolingually.
There's
an assertion that isn't present but—coming from California
I have to talk about these basic things, because we've had a rough
time out there—there is also talk that there is some sort
of Mexamerica, or danger of Quebec or a separatist sort of movement,
and that Latinos, even those who become citizens, aren't really
true Americans. And when you ask questions about that—the
only reason it's surprising is because maybe you have to counter
some of these absurd positions that are being put out there—but
when you ask Latino immigrants, and this is from a survey that
was done back in 1990, 4 out of 5 Latinos feel extremely strong
or very strong about love for the United States, 9 out of 10 Latinos
feel pride in the United States. And when you ask Latino immigrants,
90 percent of them feel that life is going to be better for their
children here in this country than in their home country. After
all, if things were better back home, they wouldn't have immigrated
in the first place. That's kind of a truism.
In spite
of these very strong attachments to the nation, to the nation-state,
and to this country, when we look at page 6 we see that political
participation amongst the Latino community is the lowest of any
group except maybe for Native Americans. What I've done is put
a couple of factors that explain this lower political participation.
If you'll see that the latest data that I put here in 1992 was
that it's lower than African-American participation by quite a
bit. That's a misleading statistic, and it's presented by the
Census every time, but that includes non-citizens of the United
States. And since you have a large component of non-citizen adults
who can't vote, it's going to apparently look like electoral participation
is extremely low. When you control for citizenship, when you control
for the youth of the population—remember that one-third who
are under 18—as well as the factors of low income and low
educational attainment, Latino political participation, according
to some political scientists, is about the same as African-Americans'.
And take a look at page 7, which shows you the magnitude of non-citizenship
in the Hispanic community, that even as of 1994, something like
40 percent of all Latino adults were not citizens of the United
States. They were here as legal permanent residents, or had other
legal status.
Attempting,
however, to explain the difference, why Latino political participation
is still lower than majority political participation, runs into
the same explanatory factors that we've been talking about all
morning and that you've seen in your readings. I started listing
some of them and most of these are very familiar to you, on page
8: that perhaps there's a political cynicism generated by external
events that have occurred in the community and that have occurred
in American society as a whole over the past 20 or 30 years. There's
the very popular social capital explanations. There's the expansion
of the electorate that we've seen over the past 30 years, with
African-Americans and with the Voting Rights Act eliminating overt
obstacles to political participation. There's the impact of television
campaigns.
But there's
one factor that isn't usually covered, that I'd like to give just
a minute or two of attention to, and that's the rise of new campaign
technologies. About four years ago, when I was following the election
in California, we did an ethnographic study of a barrio in east
Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and what was surprising was that the
election as a whole was not very visible in the neighborhood.
And when you started digging into why the election wasn't very
visible, it turns out that with the advent of new campaign technologies—which
is computers, voter registration lists that tell you things like
who has voted the most often, has that person voted 4 out of the
past 4 elections or 3 out of the past 4 elections, with targeted
mailing—the premium in campaigns is to contact the voter
directly. And since most campaigns have limited resources, the
premium is to contact that voter that is most likely to go to
the polls. That means that you are spending your efforts, campaigns
are spending their efforts, focusing on those folks who are participating
either 100 percent or 75 percent. Because that's the cost-benefit,
that's a very obvious cost-benefit equation for you.
Well, this
has a significance for new electorates. As Latinos who are coming
into the electoral stream, because of citizenship and because
of turning 18, since they haven't participated in the past, many
campaigns just pass them by. We ran a series of focus groups amongst
adult citizens in east L.A., and one comment still stays with
me, that one of the respondents said: "I was expecting campaign
rallies, parades, posters, but they don't pay us attention out
here." Well it isn't that they weren't paying attention. It was
that they were going straight to that 4-out-of-4 voter, or that
3-out-of-3 voter. So I would urge the Commission to take a look
at the impact of new technologies and what that means for mobilizing
a new electorate that's coming in.
Of particular
interest, especially given the presentations this morning, is
on page 9 and page 10. We took a look at the General Social Survey,
and we tried to see if there was any difference in group participation
in social activities by Latinos and non-Latinos. Notice that it's
aggregated on a five-year basis. You still have a large margin
of error, but notice that 5 out of the 7 issues, Latinos either
score higher or are not different than the Anglo population. There
is one significant difference, though. Look at the trust issue
and your bottom two points. Trust in people—very significant
difference amongst Latinos. Only 26 percent of Latinos between
1990 and 1996 say they trust people; only 34 percent say that
people are helpful. This has been confirmed by the Delagarza studies,
the national political survey that was done back in 1991, 1990,
and it's further confirmed by a recent survey that we took out
in California, where we found that, when you look at trust, again,
it's very low in the Latino population.
At the same
time that trust is low, however, you find very high positive attitudes
towards the political system. When you ask Latinos, how much influence
do you think people like you have on what the government does,
they score higher than Anglo-Americans. I think that these findings
are at variance with the literature that we've been reading or
that we've been hearing about in the morning, because the casual
chain goes like this: that social engagement predicated on trust
leads to positive civic engagement. The Hispanic community, you
may have social engagement, low trust, and you still may have
high feelings towards the political system, very positive feelings
towards the political system. I think that the overall relevance
of the findings are—I don't have the answer for that—but
I think it reveals the importance of disaggregating these national
data sets, and that without such a disaggregation, you're going
to ignore significant differences in ethnic groups in America.
My final
one-minute policy recommendations for you is that, if the Commission
is going to be making recommendations to reach out to promote
civic engagement, that to reach the Hispanic community you have
to utilize both English and Spanish media because of the significant
breakout. I think that high school texts need to stress the importance
of naturalization as a basic first step in political involvement,
and its relevance, not in the 1900s with the Statue of Liberty
and Ellis Island, but in the 1990s and the year 2000.
Two final
recommendations: that the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, should include materials promoting the importance of
US citizenship and democratic participation at the time of issuing
legal permanent visas to the immigrants who are coming into this
country. And naturalization test materials where the immigrant
becomes a full-fledged US citizen should stress the importance
of civic participation in American society. Again, thank you for
this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.
LAND:
I'd like to follow up on Mr. Bositis's report to us. I personally
think, based on my own experience, that one of the great problems
we face racially in this country is the lack of awareness of a
broad segment of the white population of the degree of racism
that persists in the United States. I find the comments you made
about the O.J. Simpson trial to be very compelling, perhaps even
more so the differing reaction to the Texaco scandal. I find that
most of my African-American friends weren't at all shocked by
those recorded conversations. That's what they expect—"Yeah,
of course"—whereas most of my white friends were profoundly
shocked that executives would be making those kinds of comments,
and were not aware that that kind of behavior would go on. And
I would be interested in any suggestions you have for ways of
narrowing that gap of the awareness of the extent of racism that
exists in the United States among the majority population, I think
the vast majority of whom are not conscious perpetrators but are
unaware of their neighbors who may be.
BOSITIS:
I think one genius of the civil rights leadership in the '50s
and '60s was the manner in which they were able to communicate
to white Americans (because their audience really was white Americans),
the racism and discrimination in the American political system,
especially in the South. Of course, at that time there were things
like police dogs and hoses and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the
murdering of civil rights workers, that contributed to that communication,
if you will, to white America that racism still exists. The racism
that exists now is a lot more subtle and a lot more difficult
to communicate, compared to the challenges that were faced by
black leadership in the 1950s and '60s.
In most
instances—you mentioned Texaco—in most instances, conversations
are not taped. It's one of the reasons why, in civil rights law,
there are effects tests, because in most instances decision makers
operate in a private milieu, and since they operate in a private
milieu, people don't get to hear those inside conversations about
what actually is going on. I do think that also black leadership
today is not as tuned in to persuading white Americans that racism
exists as was the case in the past. Quite often I find the statements
that black leadership makes to be, if you will, preaching to the
choir—that it's a racist society—and not aimed to persuade
white Americans that racism is still a pervasive problem in American
society.
I don't
know that there's an easy answer, in part for one particular reason.
I mentioned that I thought most Americans who I would classify
as being racist were racist for reasons of indifference as opposed
to some pathological reason. The problem with the indifference
is, if you acknowledge that racism is still pervasive and is still
a significant problem in American society, then the next step
is to come up with a response to the problem that exists. If you
don't acknowledge that the problem is there, you don't have to
come up with a response to the problem that is there. And it may
be there is a reluctance to recognize it because there is a reluctance
to come up with a response.
ELSHTAIN:
I have, I think, a pretty simple assignment for Professor Pachon,
and then I have perhaps a more difficult one for Mr. Bositis.
For Professor Pachon, I would just like you to say more to this
Commission by way of possible policy recommendations in the area
of civics education. "Some political knowledge" was the phrase
someone used in the previous session—the fact that we're
simply not now inducting young people into the political system,
into civics, the way we did at one point in time. And if you could
flesh that out just a bit more, the point you ended on. But I'll
go ahead and put my other question and then you can respond in
turn.
Mr. Bositis,
I want to press you on something. The way you left things hanging
with us was that there are two sort of subjective experiences
of the world, white and black, and that they seem to be sort of
insulated one from the other—no way to communicate between
them. So you have one group believing that affirmative action
has disadvantaged white males in a very big way, and the other
saying no, they haven't been much affected. And that's where you
left it. But presumably, a question like that would admit of some
empirical adjudication. That is, presumably, one could try to
get at some truth of the matter, some facts. You could find out
is this really the case, has this really happened, and if so,
to what extent, and begin to communicate some information about
this in order to perhaps dispel some of the worries on one side,
or fears or suspicions on one side, and perhaps might even partially
acknowledge some of the concerns as well but say it's not nearly
so many as you believe, and so on and so forth. So there is some
data, perhaps, some way to get at the facts. Because if we don't
do that, and convey that. . . .
Similarly,
the O.J. Simpson case. I mean, the guy's guilty or he's not guilty.
I know that there's a situation in which we have people saying
these two different views. But my hunch is—actually, a couple
of interesting things—one is that the views of African-Americans
on his guilt or innocence have altered —
WOODSON:
That's right.
ELSHTAIN:
And now—I believe I'm correct; Bob, you tell me if I'm not—that
over half of African-Americans now believe he is in fact guilty,
that after the sort of heat of the trial and time to reflect,
they do think that he is. And so I'm suggesting perhaps this gulf
isn't as deep as you suggest, and it's not just the maintenance,
a marching through time, of insulated, isolated subjective views
of the world.
Also, I
think perhaps what was at stake in part—and here I'm relying
on my own ongoing conversations with an African-American gentleman,
and he is a gentleman, who drives me to O'Hare in Chicago—which
means I see a lot of him, since I'm going back and forth to the
airport a lot—and his view on the O.J. Simpson case. And
he said he thought he reflected a very general view, which was,
in fact he probably did it, but the way he put it was, "He's going
to outslick them. There's a way, he's going to find a way out
of it." But there was actually some sense of agreement on some
of the facts of the matter. So I'm a little concerned about this
notion of subjective experiences that presumably are insulated
or isolated from empirical or factual data. I don't know if you
meant to say that, but that's what I was getting from it. So I'd
like you to dispel my suspicion—or do whatever you want.
PACHON:
Let me handle the easy one first. There was a review of American
civic education nearly ten years ago or eight years ago, in a
massive volume of about 600 pages called "Civitas: Taking a Look."
Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the whole volume. What I
was interested in is, How did it apply to immigrant communities?
And that's where I was appalled, when I saw that in this 600-page
volume, there was two paragraphs devoted to naturalization, when
there's over 10 million Americans who are here in this country
who are not citizens of the United States. So I can't speak for
the overall concept of civic education, but I can say that high
school civic education, when it comes to our immigrant children,
is sorely lacking in that naturalization is the prerequisite first
step. And also, what is the process? There's so much confusion
out there, and there has been in the past, about what the whole
process is like, the exam, the forms, the requirements. And this
will be, I think, a critical first step.
BOSITIS:
I believe that there are pieces of information that are available
addressing the question about white males. That is not particularly
something—there are black economists who have studied it,
whereas I mainly look at things political as opposed to economic.
But whether you're talking about the Glass Ceiling Commission
report—as I recall, the Glass Ceiling Commission report did
not indicate that there was a white male population under assault.
Even the executive director of the California Republican Party,
when the California Civil Rights Initiative was being debated,
said, "Come on, do you know any white guys who didn't get a college
education because of affirmative action?" Which I think is reflective
of a certain kind of reality. I don't, off the top of my head,
have a response in terms of the quantitative studies.
As to the
question about the Simpson trial. One other question first. I
did not mean to suggest that there are two entirely different
sets of experiences and realities. I do think, for example, in
terms of the economic disadvantagement that we talked about, that
the speakers talked about this morning, and in terms of fear of
crime, that the experiences of black and white Americans are similar,
and in many respects the responses are similar. However, racism,
I think, has a reality outside of those experiences. There are
experiences that are common experiences that are shared by both
the black and white population, and then there are experiences
that are unique. So I didn't mean to leave the impression that
there is no similarity of experiences whatsoever.
To the question
of the O.J. Simpson trial and the perceptions. We do a great deal
of work at the Joint Center with black elected officials, and
I frequently get calls, usually at least a half a dozen times
a year, about some black elected official who's being investigated
for criminal wrongdoing. And there's quite frequently a dance
that goes on that reflects an underlying reality, I think, that's
very significant. Most recently, Mel Reynolds was a good example
of this. That because of the significance of racism to the criminal
justice system —now that doesn't mean that the criminal justice
system in all cases or even in a majority of cases in fact operates
in a racist manner or a unethical manner or an illegal manner—however,
the problem is, and I think that this is one of the most significant
problems in terms of race, is that it is there a significant portion
of the time. Which means the doubt is there, that what is operating—
is it in fact a question of O.J. Simpson's guilt or innocence,
or is it a question of the Los Angeles police department's misconduct
or whatever?
The same
thing happens with black elected officials. Is it some white Republican
district attorney going after the hide of a black Democrat who
they would like to have as a prize to further their ambitions,
or is it, in fact, that this black elected official has actually
been engaged in illegal and improper activity and deserves to
be treated in the criminal justice system?
The problem
is the doubt. So long as the doubt is there, it makes the differentiating
the real from the prejudice in the system—it makes it difficult
to differentiate those two things. And of course, as in the Mel
Reynolds case, Mel Reynolds is perfectly aware of those doubts
in the black community, just like Johnnie Cochran in the O.J.
Simpson defense team was perfectly aware of those doubts in the
black community. And so they played to those doubts in terms of
trying to position themselves, in terms of their legal problems.
So the problem is the doubt that is there.
ARTHUR
TAYLOR:
Two excellent presentations, and I'm going to hold onto the paper,
it's terrific. There won't be enough time for me to engage Professor
Pachon. I work in a place where 30 percent of the population are
Latinos, so I'm deeply engaged in that community. And one of the
phenomena that's happening is, they're turning their back on the
Roman Catholic church. There's one Roman Catholic church in the
Latino part of town, and there's about 25 Evangelical churches
and Pentecostal churches. I believe that's a significant social
change in the construct. Anyway, maybe we can talk about it some
time, sir, but I appreciate your comments.
To Professor
Bositis, two very, very quick comments. We now see many Americans
who earned adequate incomes are now working at jobs that they
never thought they'd be working at, for salaries they never thought
they would be receiving. And there's fear. There's the fear of,
How do I pay the mortgage, I don't have adequate health benefits,
how do I pay the kids' college tuition. And I can demonstrate
that to you statistically; I have data that is very persuasive
on that point. But when you read the articles—and some of
them appear in very obscure journals—the thing they complain
about the most, the downsized person, is that when they left their
long-term place of employment (sometimes 15 years, 20 years, 25
years), the cohorts they left behind just didn't care. Nobody
cared. That's what they complain about, and that's what they find
to be most hurtful.
Now isn't
it possible that what we call racism, at least in some part—maybe
not a great part—is due to the fact that we have white people
who don't care about black people, and they don't care about white
people; they don't care about anybody. They don't care about their
dog. They just are people who lack human compassion. Isn't it
possible that some of our racism problem, or maybe even a lot
of it, lies in that? And I will take your word, sir, Professor
Bositis, I will take your word for whatever you want.
Now let
me say one other thing. There's an article this week in New York
magazine, a very very long article—an investigative reporter,
one of the very best in New York—about Harlem. Every New
York kid—I'm a New York kid—every New York kid has in
his or her heritage, Harlem. Harlem is part of us; Harlem is Harlem.
That article I encourage everyone to read. I think it's an amazing
document. Have you read it, Peter?
GOLDMARK:
No, I haven't.
TAYLOR:
Well, it's an amazing document. Because for the first time, it
says, "Congressman Charlie Rangel, Basil Patterson, Sr., and the
great king, the biggest of them all in Harlem, Percy Sutton, and
David Dinkins: Get out. You have failed. You took hundreds of
millions of dollars from the federal government, and we cannot
find one 2 x 4 that you put up. And get out."
Now the
question is, That's been said before. That's been said by white
politicians before without much effect. But who's saying this?
Listen. My dear friend—and he is a dear friend and I love
him a lot, and I hope he's not going to get hurt—the Reverend
Calvin Butts of the great Abyssinian Baptist Church. He's saying
that, and he's the roughest of them all. He's preaching it on
Sunday morning. Calvin is a little fellow, but he's a very brave
fellow. Adam Clayton Powell III is saying that. Basil Patterson
III is saying it about his grandfather. And the woman—I can't
remember her name, Virginia Page or something like that, that
came out of J.P. Morgan, left the vice presidency of JP Morgan
to run the enterprise zone—said, "No more corruption. We're
going to build Harlem, we're going to restore these beautiful
houses on 126th street, we're going to live in them, and we're
going to have a society here. And don't talk to us about racism.
We're tired about the whole business of racism. We are going to
build our community. And stand back, because here we come." Now,
does that surprise you?
BOSITIS:
No.
TAYLOR:
I bet it surprises you and you refuse to say so.
BOSITIS:
No, it doesn't surprise me at all. First, let me respond to your
first question. I don't doubt that there may, in fact, be individuals
who are just indifferent to their fellow citizens, no matter who
they are—
TAYLOR:
Fellow human beings.
BOSITIS:
Fellow human beings, no matter who they are. On the other hand,
even among the successful black middle class, among the black
professional class, if you read someone like Ellis Cose, The Rage
of a Privileged Class, that the significance of racism isn't only
there for the losers in black society. It's very much a fact of
life even for the winners in black society.
As to your
second question. I'm not going to say anything about Percy Sutton,
because Percy Sutton was one of the founding fathers of the organization
I happen to work for. However, there is a generational change
taking place in black leadership, where there are very significant
differences in attitudes and points of view with the younger generation
as opposed to the older generation of black leaders. And so, with
regard to their saying, "Get out," I said, "No, it doesn't surprise
me," because, quite frankly, this younger generation has been
saying that in some way, shape, or form for some time now—that
they would like the older generation of leadership to get out.
Adam Clayton Powell III tried to throw Charlie Rangel out.
TAYLOR:
Isn't this helpful? I mean, if the old crowd goes and this new
crowd comes in. I sense an energy in this new group of black young
men and women that I frankly didn't sense in the old group.
BOSITIS:
I guess I did. I'm not by inclination a pessimistic person, and
I hope I didn't necessarily leave you with a point of view that
was essentially a pessimistic point of view about black society.
Because I don't think that's a very accurate picture of what's
going on, because I think the picture is a lot more complex and
a lot more varied than that—that there are many, many different
things going on, many positive things as well as negative things.
However, I did want to make the point that racism still persists
as a problem in the United States, and that it is a problem unique
and in and of itself—it's not simply a question of class
and it's not simply a question of other things—that it does
exist independent of everything else and that there is a black
experience that is, in many respects, and many important respects,
different from the white experience. So I'll recant what I said
to the degree that you took what I said as being overly pessimistic.
I wasn't trying to be pessimistic. But I did want to emphasize
that especially with regard to the idea of building civic trust
and building civic society, that I believe that racism is a significant
problem and a significant problem that has to be addressed.
In the survey
I did last year, I had a question about level of government—in
a national survey of African-Americans—about what level of
government they trusted, the federal government, state government,
or local government. And one in five said "None, we don't trust
any government." So there are problems there. But I'm sorry if
I just left you with the impression that there were only problems.
FERNANDEZ:
Just a quick note. This sea change in legislative leadership or
political leadership I would assume includes Harold Ford, Jr.,
Jesse Jackson, Jr., Cynthia McKinney. It seems like a prerequisite
is that somebody else held the job, or a job very close to it,
prior to—better if it's your parent.
TAYLOR:
This is an interim step, isn't it? There always has to be, in
politics or social life or sociology, an interim step. But it
seemed to me that this article was—it was the first time
I've ever seen the young Harlem types come out with all guns blazing.
FERNANDEZ:
I'll look for it. I thought you both did a wonderful job, and
I particularly liked the recommendations that you came to us with,
Dr. Pachon. I'd like to focus back on this issue of children,
because I want to make sure that, as a Commission, we don't lose
track of how we're going to begin to inculcate civic responsibility
into our children's lives. And you mentioned the school. And I
think probably public schools are a place generally where we would
expect that children would learn civic responsibility. But I'd
be interested, are there particular places—especially considering
that we're going to be looking for examples of such places at
our next meeting—are there particular places in the African-American
and Latino communities where we ought to be looking to find the
development of civic responsibility for children? Could you give
some examples of those? Where might we look, or where are there
some failures that we would have expected there to be successes?
PACHON:
Let me take as a first step, just taking a look at your basic
text, maybe perhaps taking a look at your five or six most common
high school texts in American civics, and seeing if they do emphasize
participation. I've already noted the great gap insofar as naturalization,
but how do they approach civics? Is it simply cognitive knowledge
of all the different branches of government—we all learned
the three branches when we were juniors or seniors in high school—or
are there lesson plans that try to develop an experiential component?
Insofar
as a model program, I'm the chairman of the National Association
of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Education Fund, and
we started a program in the Southwest which has now spread throughout
the United States, where young high schoolers, juniors and seniors,
help the immigrants fill out naturalization forms. They volunteer
their time on a Saturday and they give about six hours. It's tremendous
to see what impact has occurred amongst these youngsters. They
become politically involved, they see the relevance, they see
the immigrant trying to become a citizen, and all of a sudden,
what they've taken for granted their entire lives becomes a very
relevant factor for them. There's NALEAO workshops being held
in New York, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles, and I would recommend
that the Commission take a look at them.
BOSITIS:
Except for the some people like Delores Tucker, for example, who
are working on challenging the cultural norms in some black communities,
and there are some places. In Philadelphia, there's a residential
—it's not an orphanage, but children from single-parent families
can in fact go and live in a residence and go in and out at will—where
particular efforts are being made at inculcating or changing,
if you will, civic values, I can't really tell you that there's
one in particular that I would recommend that you look at.
FERNANDEZ:
I guess I'm asking a somewhat different question. I'm not asking
for the aberration. I'm asking, are there some things that you
would think that are outside of mainstream culture, so that we
don't miss them, particular institutions that the Latino or African-American
community comes to rely on specifically for the development of
civic obligation in its young people?
BOSITIS:
The only one outside of popular culture, I guess, that I would
mention that seems to have been significant in the past couple
of years has been the efforts having to do with the Million Man
March. And in terms of the civic responsibility, it's principally
been with regard to voting and some things having to do with males
changing the roles that they take with regard to the position
they take in the community.
PACHON:
I would identify the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund's parent
education program, which tries to get parents involved in their
children's schooling, and make them involved in their governance
issues. And they're running that program throughout the Southwest
as well as in Illinois.
But now,
for the last 15-20 years, we've had basically a black majority
and a black political leadership, there has developed what we've
already been talking about a little bit—a reverse racism
that is now beginning to fester. And now I hear more racial comments
out of the non-black community. And it's troubling to me. In fact,
the mayor and I have had just very blunt conversations about this
and what can be done about it. But I don't get much help from
him or any of the other black leaders, or white leaders for that
matter, other than some of the white leaders say, "Well, it will
pass." But there seems to be, and it's even been expressed, "You
got yours, now it's our turn to get ours." And that's very troubling
to me. And I don't even know that I have a question, but I would
like any insight either one of you might share on that particular
subject.
TAYLOR:
What's going to happen to the big gaming casino?
LUPBERGER:
Your guess is as good as mine.
TAYLOR:
But isn't that part of getting ours and getting yours?
LUPBERGER:
Part of it, part of it. It's a big, monolithic, $800 million structure
that's sitting there half built. Has been for a year and a half.
BOSITIS:
Do I have an answer? It reminds me of some of the voting rights
cases that are going on about majority-minority districts right
now, where there are white voters who are in black majority districts
who have filed suits and object to living in black majority districts.
In the Supreme Court cases that have struck down the districts,
there's never been any harm established to these white voters
in these districts. It's been struck down under the Fourteenth
Amendment based upon procedural harm as opposed to actual harm.
And I guess
if I was to explain what "their problem" is—because many
of the most conservative black members of Congress represent districts
that are essentially half black and half white, and they have
large white populations in their districts and their conservative
voting records reflect those large white populations—to some
degree, I guess the harm is that, in the old days when you could
draw districts in such a way that there would not be a black majority
in any district, that's changed. And given that there was a privileged
status before, and the privileged status is gone, you can view
that as a diminishment from what was there before. And if you
want to take that as a harm, then the harm is there.
HACKLEY:
I think I have a statement (there may be a question in there,
but in either case): I have worked in two historically black institutions
in two separate states, both of which had significant white populations
after I got there. So I told both sets of my students that success
is the best revenge. No matter what, do well. A couple of years
ago, Z. Smith Reynolds did a study in North Carolina, in which
the study found that high percentages of both races said that
racism is currently serious and will be serious in the future—both
sets. Of course, black numbers were a little higher, but both
sets had strong percentages which recognized the presence of racism
in North Carolina. But much higher percentages of both races stated
their desire to make things better, and both said—again,
it was high percentages—they had a commitment to full integration.
At the same
time, I found some other data which talk about both races having
high percentages that disagree with the way affirmative action
is currently practiced, in that it appears to be a set of quotas,
etc., giving preferences. But both races had high percentages
that said they approved of race-specific processes so that you
improve the qualifications, the competence at the end of a process.
Because right now, there's too much emphasis on what to do at
the end of a weak process. For example, K-12 education systems
still don't treat those two sets of kids to the same courses and
the same expectations, and so they come out with disparity on
the qualifications to compete, and therefore you end up with quotas
to go to higher education.
And so,
I guess my question, given both those high percentages of both
races that believe in the same kind of thing that I believe in
(which makes them right): If there's agreement on those things—and
I think I'm somewhere between you and Bob—you've got to recognize
those situations that exist, but we need to emphasize those places
where there is agreement, and I'm not sure policy makers are dealing
with what we agree on and moving out from that as opposed to the
splinter issues on the extremes. In other words, what is it that
we can do to bring them together and then move the policy toward
making those agreements greater and stronger and more real, rather
than my running for office, for example, by explaining and talking
about those splinter issues? So I think I'm somewhere between
you and Bob on it: Recognize it, but let's deal with where we
agree on things and make policy on that.
BOSITIS:
Do I take that as a statement or a question?
HACKLEY:
Either one.
BOSITIS:
I guess I would—Bob mentioned this, Bob uses my work quite
frequently—I go out of my way in terms of the surveys that
I do to publicize the results that suggest that African-Americans
and white Americans widely agree on a whole variety of different
policy issues.
HACKLEY:
But do policy makers come to grips with the agreement, or do they
still run for office, or run for whatever, reach for publicity,
by dealing with these extreme issues, whether it's for blacks
or for the whites or whether they're black leaders or aspiring
leaders or white leaders or aspiring leaders?
BOSITIS:
In terms of talking about black elected officials, you have to
realize that there's a tremendous amount of variability. They
run the gamut to people whose constituencies are essentially all
black to people whose constituencies are virtually all white,
and the kind of policies and the kind of campaigns and kind of
programs that they emphasize is, in significant part, dependent
upon what kind of constituency that they represent.
PACHON:
I'd just like to make a brief comment. I think that the tenor
of the questions show that we're still grappling with that issue
that has been plaguing us as a nation for the past 300 years,
which is black-white relations. But one of the things that black-white
relations in the 21st century that the Commission needs—and
this follows up on Ms. Chao's comments— is going to have
to see is that the black-white dilemma that we have is going to
also be coexisting with a multiethnic America. Hispanics are going
to be the largest minority by the year 2015. Asian-Americans in
California—if there's two and a half million Mexican immigrants
who are foreign-born, there's two million Asians in California
who are foreign-born. So there's really a change going on in the
United States.
BENNETT:
I'll make a brief statement. I guess make it publicly, since I
said it to Bill yesterday. I don't like at all—I like the
presentations very much—but I don't like at all the notion
of the Latino perspective, the African-American perspective, or
even the Asian-American perspective. I do not think there is one;
I don't think it's intellectually defensible. And I think it is
poison. I think if we are to have civic renewal and civility,
we have got to stop attributing views to people by race. I went
to Mississippi in 1967 for the old-fashioned integration reason.
You ask what's a better way—I think that's a lot better way,
because that's bringing it together rather than separate. The
more we bring attention to race, the more problems with race we
will have.
One of the
biggest problems, I think, is what it allows people—once
you attribute perspective by race—it's what it allows people
to say about people who do not have that perspective. I stood
next to Ward Connerly this year—and I know people around
the table don't agree about this—but we are supposed to be
able to agree about civility and how we talk to each other and
the kinds of things we say about each other. And I could not believe,
not just the things said about Connerly publicly, but the unwillingness
of people to speak back to the people who said it and say, "You
don't talk about things in that way." Land talked earlier about
Texaco. I certainly don't approve of that. I certainly don't approve
of the memoranda. But that is a far cry from proudly publishing
in a magazine pictures of Clarence Thomas as a lawn jockey, as
a bootblack, and saying, "This is exactly the way we should talk
about him." I don't think this is American, I don't think this
is right, and it sure as heck is not conducive to civic trust.
And I think we will never get beyond race until we get beyond
freezing people, making what philosophers would call the category
mistake.
GALSTON:
Let us adjourn, and many thanks to the witnesses on our third
panel.
Back to Panel
Two
Forward to Panel Four
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