President Of The National Urban League Offers Concrete Sugestions For Improving Race Relations In America At AJCommittee Forum

American Jewish Committee
Friday, 9 May 1997

Noting that "race relations in America are at a worrisome crossroad," yet still optimistic that the continued fight against bigotry can help "lay the foundation for renewed trust and further progress," the President and CEO of the National Urban League outlined a six-prong recommendation for action to improve current conditions.

Hugh Price made his remarks today at a plenary session of the American Jewish Committee's 91st Annual Meeting, entitled "Achieving Pluralism and Improving Race Relations." The AJC's Annual Meeting concludes today.

Mr. Price recalled his youth in the 1950's when college campuses, the American military and corporate workplaces were not nearly as integrated as they are today. "But for all the headway made since the heyday of official segregation, progress seems to have stalled in recent years and race relations have turned sour," he added. "From the sharply conflicting reactions along racial lines to the notorious Willie Horton commercial in 1988, the Rodney King beating, objectionable books like The Bell Curve and The End of Racism, and caustic relations between students on college campuses, to the assault on affirmative action, the O.J. Simpson case and the notorious Furman tapes, racial attitudes have hardened. Egged on by wedge politicians, native-born Americans are turning against legal immigrants. Even issues like welfare, out-of-wedlock births and crime have been racialized."

Mr. Price stressed that while "bigotry comes in many colors and shapes, the victims of bias-related violence also come in all colors," and that it is the responsibility of all Americans - elected officials, opinion leaders, institutions and individuals alike -- to promote racial healing. He suggested six concrete ways to begin the fight against bigotry, realizing that "racism won't disappear completely even if we succeed on these fronts. But it will subside and that alone would lay the foundation for renewed trust and further progress."

Rhetoric and Wedge Politics - "As anyone who has reared children knows," Mr. Price stated, "words which are repeated incessantly shape attitudes, and attitudes, in turn, shape behavior. That's the essence of bigotry in all its forms, from job and housing discrimination to slavery and the Holocaust. Among the most cynical and, in recent years, successful practictioners of bigotry are the wedge politicians who play people who are in pain off against one another based on ethnicity and religion.

"Its time for those elected officials and opinion leaders who set the tone, to set a different tone. It's time for a total ceasefire on incendiary rhetoric. It's time to deracialize the debate over domestic policy and to cease and desist pitting people against one another for partisan advantage."

Community Healing and Harmony - "It is equally important that racial healing and harmony occur in America's communities where we live, work, and worship," added Mr. Price. Among some initiatives he suggested for communal activity were pulpit exchanges and interfaith forums and workshops for media and political leaders to help them understand the climate of the community and the impact of their actions on various groups.

Cops and the Constitution - "Local police officers are often the frontline of contact between government and citizens. When complaints of gross police misconduct rise in urban pressure cookers, they occasionally boil over dangerously." Mr. Price urged the creation of a bi-partisan national commission to address the crisis in urban law enforcement through the creation of a model code of police conduct consistent with the U.S. Constitution.

Colleges and the Racial Divide - "Higher education is the place for future leaders and citizens to study the origins and nature of those values we should espouse, such as free expression, rational discourse and market competition. But it's also the place where students should study those values that have been a blight on civilized societies, such as racial supremacy and subjugation, so that we don't perpetrate them. Colleges and universities have a unique opportunity to model what ought to be, instead merely of mirroring what is," he said.

Build Interracial Coalitions - Mr. Price asserted that "beyond its most obvious and immediate benefits, racial harmony also matters because broad coalitions must be forged across color lines to press for social and economic justice in our society. Workers of all complexions have exactly the same needs for jobs, livable wages, decent health care, affordable child care and safe working conditions. Ethnic groups need not, can not and ought not go it entirely alone. Interracial coalitions deliver for those who coalesce."

Affirm Society's Commitment to Inclusion - "In recent years," Mr. Price remarked, "it's been open season on affirmative action. But the truth of the matter is that affirmative action has worked. Inclusion is not and ought not be about quotas or selecting the unqualified. However, those who do the choosing should be free to take account of what 'merit' means in the real world, where grit and determination matter along with test scores. Inclusion is morally right, economically advantageous and demographically inevitable. Racial harmony will be served by accelerating the pace of inclusion, not by retreating from the principle."

Dr. Steven Steinlight, AJC director of National Affairs, commented: "The American Jewish Committee is in accord with the analysis and vision Hugh Price so eloquently defines. We share a profound concern for the fragmentation of American society and the corrosive climate of interracial and interethnic relations, and AJC's civil rights, social policy and intergroup agenda and that of the National Urban League form an essentially seamless fabric.

"We share Mr. Price's particular sense of alarm concerning current efforts to rollback policies promoting equality of opportunity for all Americans.

"We also believe that the college campus is one of the most important settings in our national life in which issues of race and ethnicity play out. Therefore, our fourth issue of CommonQuest: The Magazine of Black - Jewish Relations, published jointly by AJC and Howard University and launched at AJC's Annual Meeting last May, will focus on Black - Jewish and other intergroup relations on campuses across the nation."

Mr. Steinlight concluded: "On June 3 and 4, the leadership of the American Jewish Committee and the National Urban League will come together for a retreat at which we hope to further deepen our longstanding dialogue and cooperation at the local and national levels."

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org