From our politicians, there is no real commitment to solving America's problem with race.
There is not a real commitment from the congressional Democrats--sure, they have rightly defended affirmative action, and they do more to protect institutions and laws of civil rights than their political opponents--but after 30 years of legal freedom, the equity car has stalled. Democrats have begun to grow too dependent on reactionary economics and programs like our embarrassing welfare system--noble intentions that result in wider poverty.
At the same time, there is a lack of commitment to the key issue facing future generations of black Americans: education. There is a lot of embracing the compartmentalized issues--one particular shooting, one particular inmate--instead of the big picture--one in 36 black men were in prison in 1999, compared to one in 185 white men. There is a commitment to lip service around election time.
There is virtually no commitment from congressional Republicans. They hate affirmative action (except when it's on a New Jersey highway) and lead a lovely campaign of misinformation--dotted with untrue buzzwords like "quota" and "reverse discrimination"--to win over supporters from the middle class. They successfully embraced race division politics and have managed to later massage the nations poorest, most government-dependent region--the South--into a community that despises every federal nickel it demands.
The GOP has never cared about inner-city schools--preferring to dangle the idea of vouchers, knowing that the only people who will be able to use vouchers will be middle-class whites. They deride welfare--sometimes they are correct in doing so, as the program creates poverty traps--but often this derision is the greatest insult, calling the federal assistance program for all races a form of reparation. They happily support savings-and-loan bailouts, but mention one word of the campaign for slavery reparations and the dismissal is heavy-handed as "socialist" or "inversely racist." Even though reparations are a grand mistake, there are less offensive ways to express political disagreement.
There is absolutely no commitment from President George W. Bush. His messages on race since election day have been to belittle black voters from Florida, offer an education bill that focused on endless testing instead of reform and March 29, in his most courageous move, he recess-appointed Gerald Reynolds to be assistant secretary of education for civil rights. Reynolds opposes affirmative action, opposes Title IX, has never worked in education and once argued against the enforcement of civil rights laws. He may as well have assigned wolves to look into livestock futures.
Before I came to Duke, race was truly a foreign subject to me. I come from a white, conservative place; my experiences with race existed in the abstract. After four years at Duke, it has become quite clear to me that race is and will remain the greatest domestic problem our nation faces. That there is no continuous commitment to the issue from our political leaders is all the more disturbing.
As long as the politicians continue to play race cards, leaders on both sides of the civil rights debate are forced to play politics. I am hopeful that both sides want to see all people have a fair chance at succeeding--one party doesn't want any responsibility, and the other does not want to be responsible.
Last summer, the head of a center for black culture at a major university told me, "I can divide a classroom with just two words: Oaffirmative action.'" He's right.
Why?
Why are we, the hope, the future, the next generation of leaders, allowing our minds to be corrupted by the racist antics of David Horowitz or the victimization sideshow of Al Sharpton? Neither side of the aisle has half the right answers, but both sides go to their pettiest members when it comes times to wage America's racial war. It's the greatest divide--eclipsing abortion, religion and economics.
It's up to us. Our parents' generation was raised during the largest battles of this war: the civil rights movement, the sharp racist reaction from municipal and state leaders and the ensuing terrorism of the Black Panther movement. Their leadership continues to be shaped by the past and not by what can be done next.
It's up to us. The South is changing, the North is changing, and America is changing. Blacks are no longer the largest minority in the nation, but after Native Americans, blacks remain the most marginalized. For every local move forward, there is a troubling lateral move nationally. Where do we go from here? How do we get to the time when our society does not need to use affirmative action and cross-county busing to create a false sense of educational balance?
It's up to us. Every nation that employed slavery has had a lingering race problem--but race itself is no more than a social construct. Socially bred problems are by their nature, solvable.
Why is it up to us? Because, it all starts with education. Spend your four years here looking at the microcosm that equal opportunity to higher education provides. Interact. Thrive in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and then use what is created from this to power the education of the future. We can learn from history, but the problems of race are the problems of today. Let history be our guide of what cannot continue. Give up on the failures of history--this is especially true for black people. We whites will never really understand. But if you tell us that, then we never will try to.
Race does not always have to divide this nation. The commitment must start with us.
Trinity senior Martin Barna is projects editor of The Chronicle and film editor of Recess.
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