Our first speaker is currently a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York and an Adjunct professor at the school of education Boston University Abigail thernstrom received her PhD from Harvard University's Department of government in 1975 in her 1987 book whose votes count affirmative action and minority voting rights. She wrote I'm interested in both where we have been and where we should go I would add and how can we talk about that Journey Miss thernstrom is a member of the Aspen institute's domestic strategy Group chaired by Senator Bill Bradley and Vin Weber. She serves on several boards including that of the center for Equal Opportunity The Institute for justice. The American Friends of the Institute of United States studies and the woman's Freedom Network. She is now working on a book with her husband addressing the problem of race in modern America entitled America in black and white white and you might want to write thisDown is due out next year by Simon & Schuster. Do I have that correct? Okay. Your publicist asked me to put that out there. I also have it on very good authority that she never sleeps, please welcome. Dr. Abigail thernstrom. I'm delighted and obviously honored to be here but I'm particularly delighted because I really like the title of the two conferences sponsored this year by the Humphrey Institute the American Community. It's an unambiguous statement that we still are a community perhaps beset by culture wars and policy battles as the conference subtitle suggests, but nevertheless a community it is what I believe. But it's a notion that is far from universally accepted today. I work primarily on issues involving race and the idea of one American Community the idea that we are citizens certainly separated by our individuality but not by our ethnic and racial group identity is really my bottom line. In fact, I have a very simple litmus test when it comes to race related public policy whether we're talking about welfare or crime or set asides or whatever and the test is this does the policy help to close the racial divide or does it further separate blacks and whites. Does it blur or sharpen the lines of race and ethnicity? For surely the most serious threat to the American Community is a splintering along lines of race and ethnicity especially in my view along lines of race. And that's while it often seems that the plight of the black underclass is our most serious domestic problem its impact Rippling through the society and a myriad of ways. In fact, I believe that is not the case much more serious is the threat of racial separatism of a heightened sense of blacks as a people apart for together. We can solve the problem of the black underclass but divided we are helpless and that helplessness will mean that the problem of race will continue to eat away at the fabric of American society. So these are the central questions it seems to me When we think about the American community and about its future. How serious in fact is the threat of racial separatism? Where do we stand where we heading is the racial divide already hopelessly wide. Or not hopelessly wide but certainly getting ever wider. First Where Do We Stand? What's the scene to today? I speak of an American community and of threats to it, but many would say that race already deeply divides that Community indeed that blacks were never and are now not part of anything that can remotely be called a community. They remain it is said what they always were racially isolated a subordinate cast. That's the certainly the view of best-selling author Derek Bell who writes have a quote in bogus Freedom checks that White's never intended to honor another bestseller two Nations by Andrew hacker is subtitled black and white separate hostile unequal. Alexis de tocqueville and 1830 more than a century and a half ago. Now noted that White's quotes scarcely acknowledge the common features of humanity in this stranger whom slavery has brought among them and Andrew hacker argues that it is equally true today blacks are strangers amongst us. This is the view as well of the much acclaimed Lani guinier who sees African Americans as quote a pariah group kept in its place by a permanent and hostile white majority. Those are hers of her words. Well, obviously, I disagree with that view. It's a in fact of the wildering perspective to me, but I am both impressed and depressed by how widely it's held I was recently on a Part of a panel at the Emory law school panel, which the Assistant Attorney General for civil rights, Deval Patrick was supposed to appear he didn't come but he sent instead his Deputy Loretta King who read his prepared remarks but half of Deval Patrick's were marks were devoted to a view of what happened at the end of reconstruction. That is what happened when the last federal troops left the south in 1877 that history Patrick was arguing is now repeating itself. Once again, it's the end of reconstruction. I looked at his Deputy when she had finished reading his remarks and I said, what on Earth are you talking about a century ago in the year 1895 a hundred and thirteen black people died at the hands of a Lynch Mob. Are we going to see lynchings again or violence and intimidation and fraudulent literacy test keeping blacks from the polls? Or segregated drinking fountains to which her answer was a modified. Yeah. And she was serious. And certainly she and Deval Patrick are very serious and thinking that the end of reconstruction and analogy was apt. Moreover they're far from alone and making that analogy I encounter it regularly, but the fact is that in the last 40 years. We have gone through an amazing Revolution both in the status of blacks and in white racial attitudes how that Revolution can be denied is beyond me. 1945 the novelist and social critic Richard Wright described his Boyhood days in a self in which quote whites had drawn a line over which we dared not step that South permeated by threats of violence against blacks has disappeared and in my lifetime the position of African-Americans with in American society and the South and the north has been transformed. More than 80 percent of blacks polled and National surveys now report having whites as neighbors residential segregation is declining conventional wisdom to the contrary notwithstanding few whites say they will they would not want to live next door to a black family. Although alt 30% in a recent poll objected to having a Christian fundamentalist as a neighbor. The average Black married couple with both spouses working married. Both spouses working is within Striking Distance learning. What a white working couple takes in. African-Americans are partners and Powerful law firms doctors at distinguished hospitals. They are permanent and influential political players in both north and south and they're often elected with substantial white support and African model and an upscale Bloomingdale's ad in the New York Times that I read every day as now business as usual as our black faces on TV commercial selling every sort of product. Yes, African-American still have incomes below the national average in great part the result of the proliferation of female-headed households. Blacks are less likely than whites to have a college degree. They have higher poverty rates and indeed. They rank behind wait whites in most measures of socioeconomic status, but they are no longer a people apart in the way that they arguably were as recently as three decades ago. They have become part of the American mainstream as a spokesman for The Joint Center black issues think tank in Washington recently said But if blacks are becoming obviously I do believe part of the social and economic mainstream are they nevertheless psychologically and culturally on a separate path increasingly distancing themselves from the mainstream culture? For the American Community obviously depends on a sense of belonging and that sense of belonging on the part of blacks many would argue is actually getting weaker. If so, it should be a real source of concern. Increasing separatism is certainly the picture the media often draws this in the summer of 1993 the respected Economist magazine reported in here. I quote that for every middle-class black making his way through a white Corporation go into a white college or mowing his lawn and a white suburb. Many more are consciously seeking out black schooling and Black Culture after the Rodney King verdict. It went on blacks all mass began to withdraw their money from White commercial Banks putting it in Black Banks start and I started to draw to support black businesses. Well, I don't know where the economist gets its information but there is no evidence that supports that that picture let's just take for instance the question of college attendance until the 1960s almost all of the very small number of black students attending college who is colleges would be found in historically black institutions. Today the total number of blacks attending institutions of higher education has grown explosively and six out of seven of those black college students attend predominantly white institutions in addition by black campaigns campaigns to get black consumers to buy products produced by black firms routinely flop. Black separatist political movements go nowhere Etc. In fact, some survey data suggests confidence about the state of race relations and impressive commitment to integration on the part of both blacks and whites. For instance in 1989, two out of every three whites reported having a quote-unquote fairly close friend who is black and eighty percent of whites who claimed to have a fairly close white friend. Well, there's an on the other hand. However on the other hand there is there are data that suggests ground for concern. Drop for instance in the percentage of blacks who approve of interracial marriage, although white approval of interracial marriage has been going steadily up more White's the Detroit study suggests that accept neighborhood racial integration more blacks who want to live with other blacks. In addition. There is other polling data on attitudes that show much more pessimism about the state of race relations than the pole to which I referred a minute ago. Polling data in other words tells conflicting stories makes makes the poles hard to read. But it seems to me that one thing can be said with confidence. If blacks and whites are in fact drifting apart. The racial divide is getting wider. Then are allegedly enlightened racial public policies are in part to blame. From the past quarter Century has everyone knows here. I'm sure and places of employment and institutions of higher education even in the political Arena blacks and whites have been treated not as individuals, but as members of racial as distinct members of distinct racial groups, State has been pasting racial and ethnic a little labels on all our citizens sorting them out. Accordingly conferring special benefits on blacks and members of other designated groups. Well, I hardly need to illustrate the point. I'm sure all of you have got examples. I'll give a few law schools at the University of Texas and elsewhere have been admitting black students by standards entirely different than those which apply to whites Public elementary and secondary schools judge black applicants were teaching positions by separate criteria. And this racial sorting of course is not confined to the public sector. This sort of racial sorting divides the races. It does so literally by creating separate racially defined categories, and it does so indirectly by increasing racial tension. White anger about preferential policies is everyone knows is widespread. But of course there is another equally troubling problem the patronizing thrust of such policies. Affirmative action policies protect black candidates from White competition protection is precisely their point. They create a system of reserved seats in classrooms and places of employment and on legislative bodies for members of designated racial and ethnic groups. Those seats carry son. The sign says no White's need apply. They thereby suggest loud and clear that blacks cannot make it without specially protective Arrangements sometimes in fact that is said explicitly as when an officer of the American Association of colleges for teachers education suggested in 1990 that race-neutral ratio teaching certification test quote present a greater challenge to black men and women. Well that seems to me a poisonous demeaning message and it clearly labeled blacks as a people apart. It is also much too. Bleak a picture of American society two Supreme Court cases involving racially gerrymandered District. Will be heard this month. That race-based districting which is now so pervasive across this country those safe black enclaves. They're not only offensive in my view. They are unnecessary that is black candidates need no extraordinary protection from white competition and the evidence is all around us. What's not only vote for black candidates? They frequently support an African-American running against a white opponent. In fact, here's a little little figure for you over the last 30 years. 83% of the black Mayors elected in cities over 50,000 and population after all that's not a very big city. I live in a suburb which is 35,000 83% of the black Mayors elected in cities over 50,000 and population have not had the benefit of a majority black constituency 61% were elected and mrs. Municipalities less than 40% black 43% took office in cities less than 30 percent African-American well about whom am I talking I can give you lots of examples even to Black Mayors and Main of course black population in Maine is miniscule. But I'll take the one close to home at least 38 percent of whites and these figures hard to get precisely because the based on exit polls released 38 percent of whites cast their ballots in the 1993 Minneapolis Mayoral race for Sharon Sales, Belton. And of course it is not only in races for mayor see that white voters choose black candidates over those who are white L Douglas Wilder and a successful gubernatorial run in 1989. Got an estimated 40 to 43 percent of the Virginia vote. Illinois 11.6% black elected Carol Moseley Braun has its US senator in 1992 1994 this year, Ohio elected J Kenneth black. Well as it's state treasurer New York chose each Carl McCall as it state controller. Also, of course in 1994 JC Watts. When a congressional seat in a 93% overwhelmingly white District in over ninety three percent white and overwhelmingly Democratic District in Oklahoma can block handed. It's far to the left of the political Spectrum win in majority white settings particularly in the South. No, but neither can white candidates who are far to the left of the political Spectrum can block candidates win elections in which they do not run. Obviously. The answer is also no and too few black candidates are running in majority white settings. Well, I've been obviously arguing that a country one deeply divided by race can't be a community and to that if the racial divide is actually getting wider. Despite the gains in Black socioeconomic status Current public policy is much to blame. But if that's the case there is a simple solution. We can change public policy. We do not need to change our anti-discrimination law basic anti-discrimination law, but we can stop classifying Americans along lines of race. We can put an end to all this racial sorting. We can embrace the colorblind constitution of which Justice Harlan spoke. So eloquently in his dissent in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, and that colorblind Constitution, which the 1964 Civil Rights Act was supposed to be all about Public policies deliver messages about what sort of society we want in the 1960s. We passed the civil rights legislation. Not simply to force white Americans to treat black citizens decently, but also to make a statement about what we as a nation stood for judge people by the content of their character. We said the color of their skin is irrelevant. It was the right message then it's the right message today. Racial classifications in my view are dangerous to everyone. everyone the harm is to blacks and whites alike. We tend to forget it was not just blacks, but it was both blacks and whites who are harmed by the drinking fountains in the South that contain signs white and colored. Racial sorting whether it was yesterday or whether it's today delivers the message that skin color matters and matters profoundly that white folks and black folks just aren't the same. That race and ethnicity are the qualities that really matter. but these racial and ethnic categories embedded in our law now and in our public policy are a poor basis on which to build that community of equal citizens upon which democratic government depends equal citizens have to be free to Define themselves and to do so differently in different contexts individuality and Community are inextricably linked America today is still a community of individual citizens as it should be it's not a confederation of Warring racial and ethnic groups, but we desperately need public policies that will help to keep that Community which is fragile and unique intact. Thank you very much.