‘Unity’ Should Be The Watchword
The race relations advisory board appointed by President Clinton last month seems to be falling apart.
On June 14, Clinton launched his initiative on race with great fanfare. One of the crucial elements was the creation of an advisory board that would advise Clinton on racial issues.
In only one month since the board started functioning, it is beginning to look less like a blue-ribbon panel and more like the ill-fated Russian space station Mir. A public and embarrassing debate has emerged among board members over how the race question in the United States should be framed and addressed.
Board member Angela Oh, who is Asian American, argues that the discussion and the project should move beyond what she calls the traditional “black-white paradigm.” She contends that the United States has become too racially and ethnically complex to define the race issue in dichotomous black and white terms.
The two African American members of the board, John Hope Franklin, a distinguished historian and chair of the panel, and the Rev. Susan Johnson Cook, a pastor from New York, counter that the foundation of racial conflict and its legacy arise from slavery. The dialogue must begin, argues Franklin, by coming to terms with the historic racism against African Americans.
In a number of ways, the debate is a straw man. Franklin and Cook would certainly agree that the race issue in the United States has never been simply black and white. To believe that would mean to erase the murderous land grab against American Indians and Hispanics. It would also mean obscuring the history of brutality perpetrated against Asian Americans, as manifested by the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.
At the same time, Oh should be astute enough to recognize that the pervasive racist images associated with issues such as crime, welfare and affirmative action are overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, black. Full integration of African Americans into mainstream society has stalled in many areas. Indeed, a retrenchment is in process, and that retrenchment hurts all minorities.
While it is true that Hispanics will become the largest group of color in the decades ahead, that growth will be tempered by a disproportionate concentration in certain states, such as California, Texas and New York. For the most part, African Americans will continue to have significantly disproportionate and often decisive influence in most of the nation’s major cities by virtue of not only their numbers but also their history, political experience and demographics.
The differences between African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Ameican Indians have not disappeared. But none of these groups is excluded from the racialization process that occurs through the media, education system and other institutions that socialize us on how to think about race.
Both sides have important points, but neither side should dismiss the concerns of the other. One concern that both sides should have is for fair representation on the advisory board. At present, no American Indian has a seat at the table. This must be rectified.
African American leaders, scholars and policy makers have a particular responsibility to embrace the multiracial and multiethnic reality that is shaping the nation as it heads into the 21st century. Common concerns should foster alliances among African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and American Indians - not divisions.
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