Dean Gabor, Members of the faculty, students, and staff of the School of Continuing Studies, members of the graduating class, and their families and friends I am pleased and honored to address you this evening at this memorable event. My speech is entitled "Promoting a Vision of Interracial Unity." The speech is short, but I hope my message is strong and will resonate, in particular, with those who are graduating this evening. As future leaders you will have some influence on the way our country chooses to address the problems of race and social inequality.

Recent books such as Andrew Hacker's Two Nations (1992) and Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well (1992) promote the view that racial antagonisms are so deep seated, so primordial, that feelings of pessimism about the possibility of Americans overcoming their racist sentiments and behaviors are justified. Media reports on a series of sensational racial attacks heightened these feelings. New York has been the scene of some of the most dramatic incidents. For example, a white jogger was raped and severely beaten in Central Park by a mob of black and Latino youths. A black teenager named Yusef Hawkins was chased and beaten to death by a mob of white youths from the neighborhood of Bensonhurst. A black man named Michael Griffin was struck and killed by a car on the Belt Parkway in Queens while fleeing a group of bat-wielding whites from Howard Beach. And a black teenager named Tawana Brawley falsely claimed that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a group of white men.

Around the nation, media reports of drive-by shootings and carjackings have fueled racial animosities and fear, as the perpetrators are frequently identified as black inner-city males. Moreover, the media coverage of a series of attacks against foreign white tourists in Florida by inner-city blacks increased awareness of the random nature of violence and further poisoned the atmosphere in terms of race relations. Although most murders and other violent crimes involve individuals who are acquainted, the sense that such crimes are being committed without provocation against strangers has heightened anxiety and fear among the general public. When victims are murdered by strangers, young people are more likely to be the perpetrators. "During 1976-1991, only 20 percent of all homicides were between strangers, whereas 34 percent of those committed by male juveniles were between strangers," states Alfred Blumstein. "Thus, the perception of the random nature of the growth in murders is reinforced by this difference in the relationship between offenders and victim."

In addition, the recent rebellion in Los Angeles, the worst race riot in the nation's history, and the events surrounding it did more to dramatize the state of American race relations and the problems in the inner city than all the other incidents combined. Finally, dozens of black churches have been burned in the South during the past six years. As an article in yesterday's New York Times notes, civil-rights leaders believe that "the fires reflect heightened racial tensions in the South that have been exacerbated by the assault on affirmative action" and the negative populist oratory of politicians like Patrick Buchanan.

These racial tensions are being played out during hard economic times as most Americans struggle with the problem of declining real wages, increasing job displacement, and job insecurity in the highly integrated and highly technological global economy. During hard economic times, it is important that political leaders channel the frustrations of citizens in positive or constructive directions. For the last few years, however, just the opposite has frequently occurred. In a time of heightened economic insecurities, the poisonous racial rhetoric of certain highly visible spokespersons has increased racial tensions and channeled frustrations in ways that severely divide the racial groups. During hard economic times, people become more receptive to simplistic ideological messages that deflect attention away from the real and complex source of their problems. Instead of associating their problems with economic and political changes, these divisive messages encourage them to turn on each other-- race against race.

These demagogic messages represent the more extreme form of the national response to the racial discord in the central city and to the growing racial divide between the city and the suburbs. In discussing these problems we have a tendency to engage in the kind of rhetoric that exacerbates, rather than alleviates, urban and metropolitan racial tensions. Ever since the 1929 Los Angeles riot, the media has focused heavily on the factors that divide rather than those that unite racial groups. Emphasis on racial division peaked in 1995 following the jury's verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Before the verdict was announced, opinion polls revealed that whites overwhelmingly thought Mr. Simpson was guilty, while a substantial majority of blacks felt he was innocent. The media clips showing public reaction to the verdict dramatized the racial division--blacks appeared elated and jubilant; whites appeared stunned, angry, and somber. Blacks believed that O. J. Simpson had been framed by a racist police conspiracy, whites were convinced that he was guilty of the murder of two people and was being allowed to walk free. The racial divide, as depicted in the media, seemed as wide as ever.

The implications of these developments for the future of race relations and for programs perceived to benefit blacks remain to be seen. As one observer, on the eve of the Simpson verdict, put it: "When O. J. gets off, the whites will riot the way we whites do: leave the cities, go to Idaho or Oregon or Arizona, vote for Gingrich...and punish the blacks by closing the day-care programs and cutting off their Medicaid."

The extent of the racial divisions in this country should not be minimized. The different reactions to the Simpson trial and the verdict reflect in part the fundamentally dissimilar racial experiences of blacks and whites in America--the former burdened by racial injustice, the latter largely free of the effects of bigotry and hatred. Nonetheless, the emphasis on racial differences has obscured the fact that African Americans, whites, and other ethnic groups share many common concerns, are beset by many common problems, and have many common values, aspirations, and hopes.

If inner-city blacks are experiencing the greatest problems of joblessness, it is a more extreme form of economic marginality that has affected most Americans since 1980. Solutions to the broader problems of economic marginality in this country, including those that stem from changes in the global economy, can go a long way toward addressing the problems of inner-city joblessness, especially if the application of resources includes wise targeting to the groups most in need of help. Discussions that emphasize common solutions to commonly shared problems promote a sense of unity, regardless of the different degree of severity to which these problems afflict certain groups. Such messages bring races together, not apart, and are especially important during periods of racial tension. In comparison with the rhetoric highlighting racial divisions, however, messages promoting interracial unity have been infrequent and are generally ignored in the media.

It is important to recognize that racial antagonisms, or the manifestation of racial tensions, are products of economic, political and social situations. In a 1992 op-ed article in The New York Times I used this argument to point out why it is important for political leaders to channel the frustrations of average citizens in positive or constructive directions during periods of economic duress. I discussed the 1992 political campaign of President Bill Clinton, who not only explicitly acknowledged the growing racial tension in America and the need for political leadership to unite and not divide the races, but who had actually developed a public rhetoric that reflected these concerns. This campaign rhetoric warned Americans against the distraction of pitting race against race; it urged citizens to associate their declining real incomes, increasing job insecurity, and growing pessimism with the complex but real sources of these problems. I pointed out that the use of this positive public rhetoric during a period of intense racial tension enabled Clinton to bring together antagonistic racial groups to form an effective political coalition in the primary elections--even in Louisiana where a majority of white voters supported the former Klansman David Duke in the 1991 gubernatorial election. Unfortunately, the media, preoccupied with allegations surrounding Mr. Clinton's personal life, failed to record the significance of this event.

I believe a vision of interracial unity, of the kind outlined by Clinton in his early 1992 campaign speeches, that acknowledges distinctively racial problems but nonetheless emphasizes common solutions to common problems is more important now than ever. Such a vision should be developed, shared, and promoted by all leaders in this country, but especially by political leaders.

Several months ago I had a conversation with President Clinton at the White House, not too long after he delivered a very effective speech on race relations in Austin, Texas on the same day the Million Man March was held. I congratulated the President for that speech and his response was: "Thank you Bill, but what do we do next." I said I have some ideas and he quickly responded, "could you send me a memo outlining your thoughts as soon as possible." When I returned home I wrote and sent him a memorandum that reminded him of his effective interracial unity speeches delivered during the 1992 campaign and that spelled out the need for similar speeches in highly visible public appearances today. I pointed out these speeches should promote and make crystal clear his vision of how the races can be brought together and thereby move America forward.

I have in mind a vision that promotes values of racial and intergroup harmony and unity and rejects the commonly held view that race is so divisive that whites, blacks, Latinos, and other ethnic groups cannot work together in a common cause. This vision recognized that if a political message is tailored to a white audience, racial minorities draw back, just as whites draw back when a message is tailored to minority audiences. The foundation of this vision emphasizes issues and programs that concern the families of all racial and ethnic groups so that individuals in these groups will come to see their mutual interests and join in a multiracial coalition to move America forward; it promotes the idea that Americans have common interests and concerns that cross racial and class boundaries--such as unemployment and job security, declining real wages, escalating medical and housing costs, the scarcity of quality child care programs, the sharp decline in the quality of public education, and the toll of crime and drug trafficking in all neighborhoods. This vision encourages Americans to see that the application of programs to combat these problems would benefit everyone, not just the truly disadvantaged; to recognize that the division between the suburbs and the central city is partly a racial one and that it is vitally important to emphasize city-suburban cooperation, not separation; and, finally, to endorse the idea that all groups should be able to achieve full membership in society because the problems of economic and social marginality spring from the inequities in society at large and not with group deficiencies. I believe that this vision, supported by a public rhetoric of interracial unity, is na essential first step in addressing the problems of race in America. Thank you.

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