In Black America; National Association Of Black Journalists Dallas Fort-Worth/ABC with Deval Patrick

to From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. When an African American stands up for a quality integrated education, he stands up for all of us. When a Latina stands for the chance to elect a candidate of her choice, she stands for all of us.

When a person who uses a wheelchair stands for access to a public building, she stands for all of us. When a Jew stands against those who violate and desecrate his place of worship, he stands for all of us. Because civil rights is still about affirming basic values and aspirations as a nation, it's still about good citizenship, and it's still about the perennial American challenge to reach out to one another. Across the artificial and arbitrary barrier of race, across gender, across ethnicity, across disability, and class, and religion, and sexual orientation, and maybe most of all across our fear and hopelessness. The Volphatric Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights. Last August, the National Association of Black Journalists held his 21st Annual Convention in Jobs Fair in Nashville, Tennessee. More than 1800 broadcasts and print journalists and students met for five days to discuss relevant issues, express concerns, share ideas, and help chart the course for the future of the 4th and 5th estates, and the community at large.

At the time of the convention, the U.S. Justice Department was leading the fight against the rash of arsonists of Black Southern churches. The government had been under attack for alleged delay in investigations of the church burnings until Attorney Patrick and his team made it the top priority by adding 200 people to the effort. President Clinton nominated Patrick as co-chair of the National Church arson task force in June of this year. I'm John L. Hanson Jr., and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, NABJ, with Assistant U.S. Attorney General DeVal Patrick, in Black America. There are millions of young people all over this nation would be idealists who are left out and left back, who will never become journalists, or doctors, or lawyers, or teachers, or police officers, or little else, whose latent idealism will never be free to grow into compassion and action, because there was no teacher, no friend, no one like you, who, by action or example, quietly inspired them, showed them how to look up rather than down,

and helped them to see their stake in their own and their neighbor's dreams, touched a life in some private but powerful way, and gave somebody else a reason to hope. At the time of this production, 42 people have been charged in 26 of the 74 fires, some civil rights leaders are concerned that the fires are part of a cultural conspiracy. As co-chair of the task force, Patrick coordinates the federal response to the church burnings, he has taken an active role in overseeing not only the investigation of the cases, but also the prosecution of the copards. Patrick also organizes outreach efforts. Patrick focuses on civil rights and equal opportunity may seem from his background. Growing up poor, living in segregated neighborhoods in Chicago has given him keen insight. Using scholarships and equal opportunity programs such as a better chance, he was able to graduate from Milton Academy of Massachusetts and Harvard Law School.

During his presentation to the National Membership of NABJ, Patrick said that much of the nation does not want to admit to discrimination. He went on to say the assault on affirmative action has helped create a negative climate in this country, a climate that results in part from there being too few journalists of color, the following our episodes from US Assistant Attorney General Patrick. How many Americans presume that if they didn't read it in the Times, or the Post, or the Courier Dispatch, the Tribune USA Today, the Globe, what have you, or hear it on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, or NPR, that it just didn't happen? I wonder how many people believe that what they read or what they hear is in fact exactly what happened, or realize that what they think they know, they know entirely from an unavoidably imperfect media. One of the great advantages of a free press is the opportunity it has to inform and sensitize the public on the issues of the day.

I want to suggest that there is a concurrent responsibility to do so with perspective. I also want to suggest that if fairness in journalism, like fairness in law, depends on an expansive perspective on striving to perceive an issue in a way that may not come most conveniently or naturally, then we are slipping badly in America today. Perspective is not just distance on your subject, but a different angle, a different lighting, a different way of viewing it. And the more you can vary your perspective through life experience and time, the deeper your understanding. Jeremy Knowles, in a speech to the incoming freshman at Harvard and Radcliffe some years ago, described for them a certain Henry Moore sculpture on a terrace in front of the main undergraduate library. He said that gazing at it from the library or from the path in front of it, it looked pretty lumpy, a bunch of massive golden shapes, quite attractive but meaningless, and mostly good for photographing small children in.

But go out of the gate onto Quincy Street, he said the adjoining street, and look back through the 34th gap in the second set of railings in the fence. And suddenly he said you will see a splendid and voluptuous work. What is the moral? He said sometimes if you don't understand something, the answer may be that you're simply standing in the wrong place. So if you don't understand a theorem in physics, a Scherenberg trio, a legal argument, somebody else's politics. His suggestion was just try a new perspective. Without this understanding we can't begin to comprehend let alone solve the many problems that now confront us. I look out at this room full of talent and it makes me very proud and very hopeful.

Maybe you will show us the way to fair and accurate coverage of issues as sensitive and complex as race relations, the struggle of women for full and genuine equality, and the experience of new immigrants today in a land of immigrants. But with due respect, you are not enough. According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, you checked me if my numbers aren't right. Black professionals make up only 5% of the newsrooms of daily papers around the country. Minorities taken as a whole make up about 11%. In management and decision making positions, the numbers are even worse. More than half of American newspapers have no minority professionals on staff at all. This is just not good enough.

Now I say this with full respect for your role as professionals and your training and objectivity and even handiness. I know you must sometimes feel confined by the expectation that your main contribution to your newsroom is to provide the fabled and monolithic black view. But I urge you to consider how we as a nation suffer from the limitations of the perspectives brought to bear on many of the issues of national significance. How much we think we know from the words we read and the pictures we see as compared to how much the media has not even begun to consider. And I ask you to consider the responsibility and the opportunity that places before you. In nothing else as I see it is the lack of perspective more glaring or the need for it more critical in this country today than on the issues of civil rights. For centuries, American ideals of equality, opportunity and fair play have been confounded by the politics and practices of division and exclusion.

Slowly, painstakingly over many decades, men and women of good will, of perspective, people who faced up to the gap between our reality and our ideals and come down on the side of our ideals. Have pressed for, cajold, and demanded progress in closing that gap. But as a nation, we're not quite there yet. For it is undoubtedly true that legions of racial and ethnic minorities and of women feel less of a sense of opportunity, less assured of equality and less confident of fair treatment today than in many, many years. Now society's collective thinking on the meaning of opportunity seems to begin and end with the topic of affirmative action. And that is more a war of sound bites than a constructive and honest debate.

Now the specter of opinion polls and political agendas, overshadows basic concepts of fair play and due process. The notion of equality is never even mentioned in public discourse today as if avoiding the subject avoids the problem. Some openly question whether the civil rights movement has gone too far and behave as if the history of America is a history of discrimination against white men. Many Americans, including many minorities, question whether integration was ever a valid goal. Indeed race relations is the only major social ill today we are seriously considering curing by denial. As if declaring ourselves as if declaring ourselves colorblind in law will make us colorblind in fact. And the pattern routinely from the recent Congress and often from the courts seems to be a pious acknowledgement of the existence of discrimination followed by outrage, condemnation of any attempt to do anything about it.

But take a look at us, a good look, the kind of look that perspective demands. The unemployment rate for black males is still twice as high as for white males. Even college educated black and Hispanic men and women of every race and ethnic background are paid less than comparably educated, comparably prepared white men. It's still harder for black folk and Latinos and in many cases for women to ran apartments, get mortgages, get hired or promoted in many places even to vote than for whites. Two thirds of all African American children still attend segregated schools and yet in 1993 a cash poor district spent a million dollars to expand an all white elementary school rather than send white students to a predominantly black school that was one third empty and 800 yards down the street. Black churches are on fire and Alabama here in Tennessee, South Carolina and elsewhere just like 30 years ago and say what you will about the variety of motives hate is clearly behind many of them.

A black nine year old, a black nine year old in South Carolina recently was tied to a tree and terrorized by his white playmate and his parents. 300 unit apartment building in Ohio had refused ever to rent to African Americans as of last year. In Alabama recently we caught a landlord racially coding his applications still today. A six foot cross was burned in front of a neighborhood auto repair and body shop in Florida because the white shop owner hired two black workers not far from their police department routinely through applications from black applicants in the trash. Three white men in Texas drove to the black section of town literally hunting African Americans, lured three black men to their car and then shot each one at close range with a short barrel shotgun each one taking a turn at the trigger.

A 90% white congressional district with four pieces in Texas that don't even touch each other is okay but a 55% black district that sent Barbara Jordan to Congress is too bizarre to be constitutional. And it's not all black and white. A Louisiana correction center required a minimum passing score on the written examination of 90 for men but 105 for women. In fact, when one woman scored 100 on the exam she was disqualified in favor of a man who scored a 79 had a prior arrest record and no high school diploma. In California when two young Hispanic couples earned the chance to move literally across the railroad tracks to a better neighborhood a condominium manager told them there was no room.

Because Latinos in his view were given the multiplying and he didn't want his building become like the barrio they had come from. But they nag at my personhood every day even in my rarified life. Imagine what kind of effect that has on the life and mind of a young African American or Latino man or woman who knows less about hope and faith and I do and have come to trust. Perhaps then you can imagine the impact on them of reports or analyses of events or issues that reflect little understanding of or no interest in what their daily lives are like. They know like any of us that not everything wrong in their lives or in their communities is explained by race but they also know that intolerance is with us and in the midst of this come efforts to dismantle what national consensus we have on civil rights today and to divide us along racial and ethnic lines for political advantage or worse.

Affirmative action is equated with discrimination as if there is no difference between cancer and cure. And the courts maybe especially the Supreme Court are on the brink of rationalizing justice right out of the law. Small wonder people of perspective are wondering whether we have forgotten what we have dedicated ourselves to become in this country and watching anxiously to see whether this country is about to make a giant lurch backward in its long struggle for equal opportunity and fundamental fairness. Now thanks to my colleagues at the justice department and to advocates and people of goodwill everywhere not all is lost.

That Ohio apartment complex that California condominium and that Alabama landlord have changed their rental policies and have new black and Latino tenants. That Louisiana correction center has qualified women on its payroll today in that Florida police department has black cops on the beat. There are three Texas gunmen, the Florida cross burner and a couple of LAPD cops are all doing time in federal prisons. We are standing with and up for affirmative action and working hard to see that federal programs comply with the Supreme Court's new rules. The banking industry itself tells us that our fair lending program is responsible for last year's record high level of lending to minorities and women. Abortion clinic violence something else we work on has slowed following our enforcement efforts. Indeed despite strains on our resources and sometimes hostile courts in Congress, despite furloughs and shutdowns and budget uncertainties, we have managed in the last few years to start more investigations, file and win more cases and resolve more problems in more areas of civil rights law than in any other time in the division's history.

I'm very proud of that. That is all good news. But it's not enough. It's not enough because the greater problem is not just that we, the lawyers and the advocates are facing a shortage of hands and money. The greater problem is that we, the American people, are forgetting who we are. People have come to this country from all over the world in all kinds of boats and built from a wilderness the most extraordinary society on earth. And we are most remarkable not just because of what we have accomplished not just because of what we have materially accumulated but because of the ideals to which we have dedicated ourselves.

And we have defined our ideals over time with principles of equality, opportunity and fair play for this at the end of the day, deserve it or not. We are an inspiration to the world. Well civil rights is the struggle for those ideals. It's hardly about some abstract racial spoil system. It has nothing at all to do with conservative or liberal labels. It's about breaking down artificial barriers of whatever kind to equality, opportunity and fair play. It's about assuring everyone a fair chance to perform. It's about redeeming that fundamentally American sense of hope and affirming our basic values and aspirations as a nation. Now I know as you do that future progress depends on the next generation justice today's progress depends on us. One friend of mine describes it that civil rights is a relay race for justice.

Our forward movement as a society depends on the clarity and the perspective with which the next generation views the challenge and the creativity with which they undertake to address it. And that in turn depends on whether they understand and embrace American ideals of equality, opportunity and fair play and are inspired to act on them. In the end that may well depend on you. I've told a number of audiences how I find myself thinking a lot about the state of American ideals and idealists in the springtime in Washington. I notice at that time of year that Washington is especially crowded with tourists, especially school children on class trips. The spring days are warm and long, the azaleas and dogwoods are in their glory and school children come by the busload from across the country to see their nation's capital.

Now you see these children dressed in the style they call grunge. Well one of my neighbors describes as those why bothers, those pants that hang down there too long to be shorts and too short to be to be to be pants. You see them speaking their own special slang and standing in places like the capital rotunda asking where the nearest McDonald's is. You might incline to wonder about whether the next generation will produce many idealists, many great statesmen and stateswomen, many really compassionate leaders. But I know they are there. I know they are there. They walk the walk and talk the talk and wear the dress of their time just as each of us has in our own.

But some harbor a latent idealism beneath their contemporary version of cool, just like some of us. Some find themselves a little embarrassed by the simple majesty of the Declaration of Independence of the National Archives or little uneasy reading the messages engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial. Some linger a moment or two longer than the rest in the capital rotunda taking in the full measure of that scene. And in that embarrassment and unease in that extra moment of thoughtfulness lies a seed of idealism waiting to grow. Now if we don't nurture that idealism and encourage its growth, if we don't summon forth the better angels of their nature as others have in our time, then the purveyors of mandatious rhetoric and cynical politics will win the day I promise you and at unspeakable cost.

In our time and in others there were national purposes like civil rights and national heroes like Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson who called upon our idealism and met this nation with a challenge of conscience. And in fits and starts of courage and pain we responded to that call by reaching across our differences if only for an instant to seize our common humanity. Well today as in all other times the human spirit is the same young people still harbor idealism a little shyly perhaps and with veiled reticence. Even in the bleakest places still children still look for a reason to hope. What shall we offer them? Who will call forth their idealism?

Who will set his or her own discouragement and weariness and cynicism aside long enough to light a fire of purpose under somebody else? Will history really say of the legacy and the challenge we pass on to them that ours was the generation and the time that gave up on and lost interest in building an integrated national community? While we debate the abstract merits of color blindness or this or that civil rights remedy there are millions of young people all over this nation would be idealists who are left out and left back who will never become journalists or doctors or lawyers or teachers or police officers or little else whose latent idealism will never be free to grow into compassion and action. Because there was no teacher no friend no one like you who by action or example quietly inspired them showed them how to look up rather than down.

Help them to see their stake in their own and their neighbor's dreams touched a life in some private but powerful way and gave somebody else a reason to hope. And what must we teach this next generation if not all also our own what is the perspective with which their progress without which their progress is impossible? I say it is this that civil rights today is as it has always been in human history a struggle for the human conscience and that we all have a stake in that struggle. So when an African American stands up for a quality integrated education he stands up for all of us. When a Latina stands for the chance to elect the candidate of her choice she stands for all of us.

When a person who uses a wheelchair stands for access to a public building she stands for all of us. When a Jew stands against those who violate and desecrate his place of worship he stands for all of us. Because civil rights is still about affirming basic values and aspirations as a nation it's still about good citizenship. Devon Patrick assistant U.S. Attorney General for civil rights speaking before the National Membership the National Association of Black Journalists. If you have a question or comment or suggestions asked in future in black America programs write us also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA Technical Producer Cliff Hargrove. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. Thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week.

Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. Join me this week on in black America. That civil rights today is as it has always been in human history, a struggle for the human conscience. NABJ with Assistant U.S Attorney General DeVal Patrick this week on in black America.