Commentary: Just living

Since the start of the new year, Senator Trent Lott's name has fallen from the headlines, his comments that the nation would have been better off if then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948 no longer shocking to anyone.

In truth, Lott's comments and the weak punishment he received (demotion to chair of the immensely powerful Rules Committee) should not be all that surprising. Republicans have been voting against the interests of black Americans for decades. What is surprising and dismaying is that Democrats-who routinely attract 80 to 90 percent of the black vote-have not been doing a whole lot better, and the problems that blacks identify as most pressing have fallen by the wayside.

As you can see from my picture, I am not black, and, as you might guess from the college I attend, I am not poor. But although I can never understand the situation that many African-Americans are in, I feel confident that I can see the effects of policies that are implemented-or not implemented-by their government.

A few days ago I spoke with a black woman doing maintenance on East Campus, and asked her what her biggest concerns were in everyday life. She replied without hesitation: "Living." She needed a good job to provide money, she needed to maintain her health so she could stay on the job and she worried about the education of her two daughters-one in law school, one an undergraduate-and their future. And, underlying it all, she relied on her faith.

It struck me that what this woman saw as the biggest concerns facing many black people were generally the biggest concerns facing all people-money, work, family, faith. Not once did she mention her desire to see Congress pass strong hate crimes legislation nor her abhorrence of the continued display of the Confederate emblem on many Southern states' flags. These are certainly important concerns, but they pale in comparison to having a home and raising a family. When we look at the recent record of achievement on the worries she mentioned, it's hardly surprising that they come at the top of the list.

For the sake of a brief example, I'll take education. Black students as a group routinely score lower than white, Asian and Hispanic students on standardized exams, even in communities (like infamous Shaker Heights, Ohio) where the races are socioeconomically equal. This is known as the achievement gap, and it is a terribly daunting problem that no school system yet seems to be able to solve. But when was the last time you saw the phrase "achievement gap" on the front page of The New York Times? National leaders have simply stopped talking about closing the gap and improving inner city education.

How about higher education? College is made affordable for all students, including many black students, through government-funded state schools. But in the past year virtually every state in the country has been forced to cut the budgets for their state schools, from California (3 percent cut) to Virginia (around 10 percent cut) to right down Route 15-501 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where more than 200 faculty positions are in danger of being cut this year.

Yet the recently-unveiled George W. Bush "stimulus" plan provides no money at all to flailing state governments, leaving colleges to spike tuition and leaving poorer students in a financial bind. With the skyrocketing cost of higher education and a decades-old legacy system that pervades college admissions, the nation's universities are in danger of reversing the progress of the 1980s and 90s.