The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

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mm mm the citizens our special report for the coming year i want to lead the american people integrate an unprecedented conversation about race president at large and his initiative on race last year at the university of california at san diego we're talking at each other than about each other for a long time it's high time we all begin talking with each other and i had a conversation a dialogue on race with president clinton this broadcast is made possible by the sea it grew businesses raise money good evening i'm jim lehrer welcome to our conversation with president clinton about

race in america that welcome you must present the president's conversation will be with eighteen americans for newshour regulars essayist richard rodriguez of the pacific news service roger rosenblatt and plants paid to the chicago tribune and regional commentator cynthia tucker of the atlanta constitution was for others robert elster all the washington post author of a recent book on hispanic americans gay james dean of regent university school of government elaine chao former head of united way of america now at the heritage foundation and sherman alexi novelist poet and screenwriter keep in mind plays that whatever their affiliation and most importantly their race each is here as an individual speaking only for him or herself richard rodriguez what you think is the single most important than the president could do to improve race relations in this country i think this president's that i think america's his crime or more complicated

than it seems that our conversation is not keeping up with the term that the complexity review with this this year began this year's dialogue began with the john hope franklin lived the head of the race commissions and the unfinished business of america it's black and white but it strikes me that after after this year what we really need to do is to understand how complex this in this country is what some on rock groups and filipinos into pakistani cab drivers in the room at the racial relationship are so complex and so rich that it seems to me we don't have the language even to keep up with the complex well i basically agree with you about that as a song like got frightened that i think that there are unique and still unresolved issues between what white americans and there are some conditions in america which in disproportionate involved african americans some of them all over the news this is the journal of american medical association story saying that african americans metabolize nicotine in a different

way than other races as far as we know and therefore even though blacks smoke fewer cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer interesting thing but i've to get back to main point i have tried to emphasize that america is becoming a multiracial multiethnic multiracial this society and therefore the more important goal to understand the differences and identify the common values of holds together as a country and often cites as one in northern virginia where this probably sound often cite the fairfax county school district which is now the most diverse school district in the country with people from over a hundred different racial and ethnic groups with over a hundred different languages actually in this school district which and i think that's a pattern where we're going to have better friend is a southern baptist minister here has diminished in arkansas he's got a korean minister and his church and that this is the one tiny example of the kind of things you're going to see more and more of

the country the civilian finishers will still walk lawyer well i think if there are as it just said mr president some issues that are unique to black americans and white americans and some conditions especially that this proportionally affect black americans in the most striking is poverty in fact i think that what many people think of as racial differences off and class differences i worry now that just about black poverty the disproportion amount about black poverty but also about the growing wealth gap there are blacks were disproportionately poor and that causes them to resend whites because they blend whites but they're also working class whites whose incomes are stagnating are declining and they blame blacks and immigrants so it seems to me that the wealth gap has at least something to do continuing racial problems and they act without about and i i think that whenever

possible if they're if you think that there is a class related on income related element in the difficulties we have a race we don't have income based solutions to now a lot of the things about us congress until the last time a half years a lot of things that are in this budget now are designed to address that with greater incentives for people to invest in inner cities and native american reservations among the poorest tax systems which would disproportionately benefit working people on lower income scale i think those things are very important because it is and there is no other way some evidence that in the last couple of years the income inequality has begun to lay itself but i think it's very important not to confuse the two and that i believe the primary reason for income inequality increasing inequality in america is that we have changed the nature of the economy that has to go back a hundred years and say women from an agricultural town of the show a common goal said a big influx of immigrants there was a huge increase in inequality not so much

because the immigrants but because of the way people might money changed the whole basis of wealth saying that's what happened in this computer they said for most of the time and the premium on education but there's a lot of stagnant incomes for people who were part of our lives but our part of the modern economy and i think that we need strategies to identify the people are winning in time when an editor at the very least to ensure that one closer and you know it's interesting to me that when we have conversations about race how quickly it turns to class and i guess one of my experience as an american is that no matter how middle class to become if you're still black were still discriminated against in many many areas and i guess i would also want to make the point that it's it's very important for us not to immediately go there it's not immediately important to go to the issues of poverty and an and class because race is so important that it bears us spending some time there i think to talk about racism in america class is is a very

important discussion and our poverty is a very important discussion but they don't necessarily immediately go into a discussion lie obvious that we were there eyewitnesses at this initiative i think that the point i want to make is that whatever extent you could have an economic approach that embraces people of all races if it elevates disproportionate racial groups have been disproportionate depressed you how to deal with race problem but they're not want to look around the world to forget about america just look at the rest of the world no one could doubt the absence of a leak inbred predisposition of people to fear him look down on separate themselves from and when possible discriminate against people who have different racial and ethnic groups than themselves and this is the primary factor in the world politics at the end of the cold war german for native americans starting out

faces face more hurdles that way or white americans for native americans face more hurdles that up for anybody anybody in this country certainly were talking about third world conditions fourth world conditions on any reservation that in a running water until i was seven years old as the reverend toilet claim so there and there are no models of any success in any sort of field for indians so is it a role model existed before i'd like to start with i think this'll help was to get to the races you talk about was talk about the native american princess wildlife present two i didn't know much about the american indian condition except that we have a significant but very small populations in the state and my grandmother was one quarter charity that's all i ask for a long time going

around to ease into the reservations and meet with leaders and then to learn about the sort of the nation the nation's legal relationship thats posted says previous government and native american tribes want you think so what i concluded that the american has got the worst of both worlds that they had not been given enough of common responsibility or tools to make the most of their own laws and the sort of the problem was that relationship was pathetic and inadequate so they literally got the worst of both worlds were get enough help from a certain responsibility in power in my view to build the future so what do you think the most important thing is for americans to know about american indians and what you think the most important american indian should be doing for themselves or should ask us to do to change the future i think the primary people need a moment in his own identity is much less cultural now much more political

that we really do exist as political entities and sovereign nations and that's the most important thing for people understand is that we are separate politically and economically and should not forgive themselves and i think we have to recognize the value of education which is something quarter we have not done that with the establishment of the american indian college fund the twenty nine american colleges on reservations and into communities throughout the country i think we've begun that process of understanding that education can be just the traditional just as tribal how our education become a sacred elaine chao word and that word of the asian americans with what kind of obstacles that they may start out with compared to white americans are native americans or our black americans whatever i think what exacerbates the relationship between the races is in fact the feeling of inequity that somehow somebody else is getting a better deal the unfair it means an asian americans aren't much maligned minority on the one hand there's some has counted as minorities when it's

convenient for other cities sell and other times when they are released to the figures and a less favorable way like university admissions and accounted as white so asian americans are safer the brunt of both worlds but in many ways asian americans are now the victims of being an underrepresented minority which means that they're excluded from any the equal opportunities that are available in this country and it is a very very serious problem that i hope that your series and will be able to address what is the single mother by the name of charlie lung seven sisko and she's raised two boys one boy patrick is applying for schools in front of the school is a school a school system to unify sentences for field school system that has basically implemented a quota system to a consent decree and patrick and the way he scored fifty eight on his sat test scores out of sixty nine was bar admission to the high school of his choice because there were too many quote unquote chinese americans he had a ready to fill

the chinese quoted there different standards in that school system for different students of different colors but if you were white you'd have one standard if you're asian american you have a tougher standard to meet and of course other races and other standards as well that is a horrible example of preferential treatment and up on their treatment based on race and i think something's got to be done about that what workers were doing would you see the roots of racism i think that racism and it spits out of vogue and out of style in this country to even use that kind of language but i believe that and so i say it you know i believe that the root of racism is nothing but a very simple and very black and dark heart i mean after all it is it racism is is is is a heart problem of character problem and integrity problem and that's why i think when we have a conversation about how we offer common race in america it's important to talk you're on those

issues and on those terms i think the government and i think you missed a president can do a great deal to end discrimination in america and that's an important topic to talk about what we do and racism and i think that's going to happen as relationships are formed in communities as people come to trust each other's people come to spend time with one another get to know one another and out that's when this what stereotypes are just spelled out that's when people have the opportunity to set aside their preconceived notions that prejudice and they get to know each other as individuals the young people moving into school girl you think you think young people less racially prejudiced immigrants well that's interesting i mean i remember when i was a part of the group that integrated to schools and in this album and particularly in my hometown of richmond and i can remember going into that school and hearing that young people care what their parents had set for them and while the government took to collect an appropriate action of forcing

integration i have to tell you was most segregated integrated environment i've ever been an the good news is that over a period of time there were relationships that were established there were individuals that became friends for life out of that and so i think we break down the barriers of discrimination and then we deal with the human condition the human heart in terms of stereotyping and prejudice and bigotry rosenblatt where you how you mentioned the president's question where did we get our attitudes about race where they come from well i come from fear is and they come from ignorance and they come from a general sense of otherness which doesn't only apply to us it just applies to everybody receiving something different and then backing all in some way for the worst of those and back often takes form of hatred for the best just kind of shy retreat but what you were saying about immigration came came back to something you were saying to most resonant walken president

do this major issues the issue of love to see the goal of integration boisterously upset again armed you and i and others around the state will remember the harbor the best of times in the early sixties when frankly people now at each other's throats were on the same side most people believe in their side since then cynthia mentioned blameless always had as contexts of blame sense or theories or big victories for separatists and notions i mean if in the race issue is a microcosm of what the country ought to be then something of racism ought to be the solving of the country how we are one place one complicated roiling difficult a place in which a great deal progresses been made nairobi said too but if you can reaffirm than the idea remind us than integration is the goal there will be a

huge first day what about water lilies or you know one of the facts of this case california give them a lot of critics of california is trying to help within the public school system much are performing schools by among other things going to charter schools which are which seek to have the benefits of public education with the streets of private standards based education and services goes along with this probably for their school choice program where they are they basically create school the government rules and regulations the central administration of the whole the kids to higher standards so that my decision also debate they think they'll have some diversity within their student body and so is it fair for a chinese student might be the fifth this time eastern but also the first vessel ralston us to get in a class it's a chance to get in the class envious

if it's not fair it's a cell was unfairly treated and what you do with a widow with three of the kids who didn't do very well in what school should they go through hackney carriage at me it's easy to sort of the level that points up the need to go beyond the black white paradigm that we've worked with for so long and maybe it's very hard job playa matrix of a white majority and non white minority is when you get the situation's complicated sentences the schools we don't we don't have a language to describe situations let alone mechanisms that are defined to work in an atrocious we've got with lines aren't so clear as to approve the senate proved itself mobility of identity and economic status in the world races and takes a variety of forums us it's interesting that we talked a

little about history and when you talk about race we often talk about your childhood memories of the south and how it forms your users you know my question is how we take that history and an adaptive who've had evolved into a very different demographic situation now than the one in which it was set and here's how you how you lose that are you take those your memories of the black white situation the south and apply it to go much more complicated nation will assure answers that i try to do now what i try to do when i was a kid when i realized what was going on it's an unusual background for a lower middle class white vans of gaza have been intensively to immigration and my grandfather owned store most discuss mr black so i had a typical but but i was sort of hungry for contact with people who are different from and my theory to of actual

cases that that basically you if you asked me what's the most important thing we can do i think of it the more people work and dan and worship they have five and served together the more likely you are to to strike the right balance between celebrating our differences instead of being afraid of them and still undefined common values now you can still be a separate problem for the americans who literally millions to live on reservations that there has to be ways that you cannot overcome what you do not know and if i could just so i think one of the complicating factor that believe me there are there was a hard questions about it one of the hard questions is the education question whether it's affirmative action in college admissions or what a wine set for the simple reason that that i believe there is an independent value to having young people have learned in an environment with people of many different racial ethnic

backgrounds and the question is how can you balance that with our devotion to america and not discriminate against people because of their race when they were told it was going to get a certain situation that's the hot one of the hardest questions we face but i still think the more we are together i was quite impressed when i borrowed chan a selective college we were she said she wouldn't actually got the composition of everest into which she was because she wondered this and then she actually with the sewage directly not just tell us about that with a lot of the young people in her generation and i spend time talking to understand this is something they need to do anything figured out that their lives can do that for a living mr glover says john luna what we were around the table the islands of the great patience by withholding like here everybody is of

essence dream of immigration but we all had to divert court is about the pain we want to pay anyone aspires to get there the way it once i'm sure equal opportunity a corporate world and educational world but how much it equal opportunity when a separate the only one sacrifice in pursuit of diversity the integration during the ryder express a lot of the back the rich question about the language that we speak out heart of gold and it was to the race of them i've been over diversity of integration they were puppets and they were not you know race isn't as institutional would talk about history here and that is why would you want a diversity of census will schools you've would you want that virtue of having your kids exposed other kids of different races and backgrounds and you've got to be willing to say we got to see some people merkel said that african americans back in chicago warehouses because we want to keep the senate house and you've got a tall black folks as well as white folks hey we got

you know who right now and that's a hard thing to do but you know we couldn't immigration this variation that might come by just good wishes go work at that like some mechanical steps to get from here to there at the weekend with him wow who would talk about film which really would somebody have to get hurt your productivity helped lead to a new job isn't paying more when everybody talks about this what is the problem with the president i've written a saw that isis to our show i feel like one problem with the race that law was that i think you were allowed to deal with the question of affirmative action is the most diverse of question but we got wind of race in this country right now besides crying with another question for the fall off but oh we needed ivory which unfortunately the men did not and we need affirmative action to how we define it and how do we deal with those people who feel like their

sacrifice and i think the sacrifices of an overrated the polls and bear me almost white postal philippine government action or so called autism center but it's a great political to war until we deal with effectively a lot about it's going to be exploited politically let's then i guess i'll have to say how do you feel about that in terms of other kind of falling of tiptoeing around the subject of places and i believe i frankly i believe that the real reason it's a problem in the uk is more prominent education and economics was employment rates so low in prison jobs are opening up the most gifted people feel that that's their work hard they can find jobs you don't see we don't have the anxiety about affirmative action for help when the police department the fire departments being integrated into promotion to reveal a renowned universities that the most of the controversy now is

about education was the familiar face of really important and a fan parents and children like a decision about where they would go to school in the case of the line of it was good or college there for the younger women wanna get indigo substandard education i have a different view of the reason i support affirmative action as long as you don't get more people in here what we don't qualify anything is that that i think no one test scores at all these so called objective measures are somewhat ambiguous and they're not perfect measures of people's capacity to grow but secondly and more importantly i think our society has a vested interest and having people from diverse backgrounds and then when i went to college in the dark ages one reason the plot the torso was ahead for instance they're an impulsive immature from everest it and you know maybe i'd done in the government and the people from arkansas apply for a loan i think that there are independent educational virtues to a diverse student body and young

people learn different things in different ways so and i don't think the objective measurements of perfect so i don't have a problem but i think the most important thing is we have to understand that this is one of the hard questions and it is best workout in my view the people sit around a table trying to work out the specifics like and sentences go in and where people feel like they have no voice in it a lot but there will never be a perfect resolutions virginia reno particular i do play i think generally not perfect solutions like i left university of affirmative action and saw hall i consider myself a few comfortable when it came time for me to get a position over you because you were white because america perceive me to belong to this new ground race it's a complete fiction does not exist there's no hispanic race laughter right you love the wheat we my father is very light skinned my mother that's very indian other white hispanics are blocked hispanics but the university didn't care about anything i was this new ground races new spin at a

point in the american political discussion when the only person who was not a minority was people that you came from poor whites protect the poor white males in the society who were in the language of production is that they are somehow represented in the public society like health care where were the appalachian which were presented because older white man on the front of the airplane and it came to me at a time when i was middle class mexican american perfectly capable of dealing with with the competition for jobs and the jobs came looking for me because i was their prom and i threw the jobs but the money didn't want those jobs and if that's the way we are going to discuss race in america with these bureaucratic understandings of who who is who's a hispanic what it is without even knowing what a hispanic means we're in real trouble scott lilly as phyllis kiribati with it for so long but you said they're covering the business of defying stereotypes and i think all of us who have worked hard to get where we

are more prone than i was when i was a young man i was the only person on the law school faculty bodegas it repulsive that there were a political leader of long time i really identify with which probably suppose you're the president of the universe would you like other things being equal to have a faculty that one ot it worker that worked reasonably racially diverse and even more important would you like a legal have a student body that reflected the way america was that the way these young people that women once they graduate and if you believe that will infuriate people like you've been injury like yourself how would you go about achieving that i thought like this is tough stuff my position is easier foley defensible i discounted build wealth and i said yeah i think you would start with a father of a lot of the social ladder you would start of first grade rather than apprentice will try to decide which ones of us get into law school you would make sure that america had a system of

education that save children interesting because reducing their product yeah i think that's absolutely right and i think that even though it sounds like a distinction without a difference goals of that in quotes and if you know what you want in a particular situation be the workplace or alma moore a college class tom then you're not stuck in the fact the situation only mention that the job in which you doing something happening on fear also the nice thing about goals is you don't always have to reach of the ideas to keep them keep your eyes on and hope that you get the proper an unreasonable makes an agreement was alexis i'll ask you to value don't go into the what exactly was the reason they do is that the fact there were no guarantee you a job where you really going on or did you resent the fact that there were looking for hispanic faculty i resented two things every person if i resented the fact that i was

i was being rewarded for the seclusion of other people of my ethnic group in other words it was a numerical minority of one which i was not a culture of my own and the absence of those people because nine people weren't were were not there it is the tenth person became their minority and i resented the present for all the political liberal reasons why haven't had that there was something that didn't play on my so the notion that i was a television show that you weren't because i had darker skin and it didn't play on monday i was never a primary victims of racial discrimination in this country i got a lot of california and i'd i'd group and portuguese and irish kids never never primary victim and in the name of the primary victims i was advanced to grad school some saw that the situation was explicitly that there are times when i i have consciously not want to be regarded as a hispanic girls and don't find that as a central part of my definition of qualifications

and even with the hope that i can deal with anybody and when i when i won i was easily recites a very consciously can go to latin america but this is now he draws this distinction that the richard razor think the primary victims of discrimination people of different kinds of history and we're dealing with now how do you determine whether enough for that was started as a historical remedy when johnson speech here was about that the foot race was a reflection of history and question is what you do when people when you we have people who don't have the same history along the minority mo what he knows now you help people who have experienced real discrimination and have a real history of discrimination places like south texas and the people who arrived yesterday yet our system of looking at them put them all together so do the difference is in other words do with people before long that this may be

one of those places where in fact the black experience in america is distinct i didn't grow up suffering of discrimination real in your face i grew up in southern alabama under jim crow and now i am not offended by affirmative action programs at all i am i happy and to think a bit that does not mean that the person isn't qualified but i also remember only too well when people that i knew were denied jobs because they were bought and sold that is one of those places where the black experience is different perhaps from any others experience in this country with the possible exception of native who are clearly the history this is a very tragic event and it's clear also that we don't live in a perfect world in which there is equal treatment for everyone but i think it's absolutely an incumbent upon all of us to remember that that is the ideal equal

opportunity must exist for everyone in this country the promise of color or race or creed or whatever and we talk about diversity for the wonderful notion this of course most of the support either one deathless support it but the issue is how does one create this diversity and who gets to sacrifice as clive svendsen and who gets to suffer worse diversity is implemented right now it's basically implemented through a numerical quotas goals whatever they're called basically the pop song word as they want to be representative of america which means that its thirty percent african americans eight percent latino americans three percent asian americans and perhaps need a certain percentage of native americans in the best light when no one we don't evaluate things that we don't offer opportunity based on merit how to decide otherwise and what becomes over roughly comes over representing minorities who becomes underrepresented minorities

and that just snowballs treatment preferential treatment for one group versus another i think we should hear in to the overall core value of this country equal opportunity plans for auditions same standards for everyone there i'm listening to the berkeley ucla i define marriage is at a citizen basically well i think clearly near the mission remember where it when to leave americans fit into the affirmative action the things you know i think i had to describe question ocelot i would say there were taking the jobs and we were taking slot to college and why are we having jobs and wire in college about blacks are you know the yeti and medical school last one i worked at the hospital only on the brown people are in the lobby so you know i think all these debates about affirmative action and the clintons illusionary medical unit has never been a black person who's

been denied a job was when a lawsuit i guess the company for not hiring because they're black and yet returning national policy based on apple to lawsuits and you know and they end up and one example in texas would change the whole entire admissions system of diversity in texas based on one person's losing a spot because of their job and was one lawsuit but decided that that that turned the tide and secular talk about affirmative action that serve a legal permit of action where a white person has more power in the court's bringing a lawsuit against the university that a black person would have presented its university for not getting in order or so that if i could because it's not anecdotal evidence there is a great database of a differential standards that do exist are different racial groups that is common practice in emissions of universities today all across america that it's common practice for many the educational

facilities institutions of the lower levels as well say no question that is just not anecdotal but at the center for equal opportunity has compiled many others in tanks or compile a substantial database that do show this is part of the racial politics in america today and you wanna say one thing about it i think the show things that when i was going to say i think education which has the education is important that we not what we ought not to talk about it go up to me at this late stage but how to we get back to kaine twelve our schools are falling apart it fits our schools hungry slash crime in our neighborhoods have a great economic opportunity for everyone and that's the real goal for our country just nonsensical and i think the operative phrase was in your question all things being equal what we like a diverse community particularly only in the academic glory and i was looking around the table and thinking gee whiz i've gotten the only one here at the table that has to make admissions this

hour and and you write all things being equal out when we like to have a diverse community that's where most people in america are most people in america of course acknowledge an and have high esteem for diversity and recognize that their lives are much more enriched in that environment but what they have a problem with this feeling like their set asides of preferential treatment for some class of people that exist for them only because of their race as an example i guess i run across so many middle class african american students who don't deserve to have a preferential treatment based solely on their rights they've had every opportunity they've been given every chance in america and and so it makes no sense to give them preference for purely race based that maybe we should look more at the summer programs exist in america but hiv treatment in preference to people out of poverty that give preference in treatment for a variety of reasons but purely have race based

solutions in america today doesn't make a whole lot of soul some classes beginning the one that we talked about president's discrimination research on the diversity of moments i think indeed if i could go back the very first time that all of the store talking about we need a vocabulary that embraces america's future and we needed a vocabulary that embraces americans president a pass on this race issue and we need to know we were making distinctions and then we needed to fess up in effect at least it comes to native americans that if we don't do something dramatic futures don't be like the pressure to bp so for example i think most americans whether conservatives are levels are republicans or democrats would support the for example the budget proposal to give more resources that he'll say to get rid of apple because all the surveys

show that eighty five cent american people nine percent believe the actual discrimination against individual person in the workplace is wael mosul is now the the real problem is that affirmative action i think now since there are a lot of middle class blacks middle class hispanics that that it is almost people are not so sure that in the workplace in the school plays whether it is for entering the goal of getting rid of the lingering effects of discrimination which is cynthia's experience and minuses out you know all weather it is now being used to create a more diverse environment which people feel is a good thing but not a good thing if it is sticking it to this hardworking chinese mother and seven sisko children's listener circumstance and i guess one of things that bothers me is that a lot of weed we need to take to make these kinds of discussions

article an institution because i'll say again i think that we want we want our children to grow up to learn to live in the world of the world five live and therefore if you forget about discrimination from you can't ever to the us just assume there's no discrimination america has a wonderful system of higher education are hundreds of schools i think you get a lot less integrated education and i believe that therefore it's worth having some policy trauma divorce was to buy its interesting to see what taxes they weren't really awkward decision came down there so will we don't have a totally segregated set of colleges universities in texas so the so the top ten percent of every high school mr lively going ito says this is the right place but of course it's not getting warmer place than the other decision because they're segregated high schools and their differences in test scores and all that so and so we need to

leave believing ten hour to discuss this and i'd like to listen to you but only now one for native american people have got to decide you know they want a housing project in chicago in this case argued chicago so thats integrated is so if the people don't demand they have a reasonable time realistically if a child doesn't get into a good school that year she was going to do they have adequate alternative if they don't believe it may be a part of what is important to get those are in the case with a catastrophic change no one likes his innocence and in a school that has a certain religious and value based approach lots of the child it's the carbon going into even as a kid goes to harvard it might not be the cultural environment education again jack watts without saying that a child might lose something non educational film and all these things are

i just want the american people start talking about this in a world where the president thinks that we need to do because americans is also wonder whether these terms were using the anything anymore we are and the fact is we have been falling in love with each other for over two hundred years in this country and pocahontas to thomas jefferson's children the five likes in america the fact is that the pope that increased the now i'm meeting young people who don't wanna define themselves as belonging to pay raise and the two largest hispanic groups in this country quote a lot of puerto ricans mestizo mexicans are entering this country and injecting a complete complexity into the hallway where we understand race as a singular thing and teachers in fact we wheeled loans and some future to many races right when i said that there is not a vocabulary for this and it also in seven sisko i know this young woman who has lived i asked her what her racial identity was just that her for her father is african american business of this of what you see such a somewhat subdued and she said he's a

mexican because there was there were fourteen when you asked the question why young people i think american young people are gonna be redefining the very the very sparse dollars oh old creole us and we have been drawing americans visit him into a rug or on this question of the president raised the new dialogue the new one is the image and richard what are the new word to your reporting what we talk about in this world well i think one of the things we have to do is to simply acknowledge how much the world has changed richards right i have a mexican brother in law and my sister and you're about to have a baby and she too i suppose will be black second letter and so i think first of all more americans need a stronger sense of history i think there has to be an acknowledgement that african americans and native americans especially have suffered burdens others have not what i also think that all of us including african americans need to acknowledge how much the world has changed i think one of

the reasons we hear so many interesting things from california elaine is because california is cutting at sunday's outlook in california and i think that's the wave of the future and i think oh goodness no i just it just to go to school there some may be california's john mccain but i do think that the struggles among the various ethnic groups in california are cautionary tale quite frankly rather don't you think about how much the world has changed around it flew into a mode for the moment put a one where exchanges lot a lot of things done better not only have they got more interesting moment they got more complicated all of which is true but you are you grew up in a world tom in which hatred was a musical instrument or people going on the same school he couldn't vote we can do this we can do that and not only that it was an instrument that was in some

darkened deeply stupid way approved of by the silence of the majority now as you say the majority does not approve any more but about racism in the country no i'm not i'm not sure if we were talking about anything like the same racism with which you two grew up one of which we were a prize it isn't to say that everything is getting better it as fast as we could horton affirmative action as an issue for debate really is because i think eventually it's going to be phased out and who is going to get their farm and that the battery troops in reputable point to get down to the youngest people and the best education for them and all social programs it came to that would seem to be part of a new vocabulary or parole it without would you define the new vocabulary year we talked a lot about

how to describe population and how it's changed rather terse and a world where we have to have a new tablet just never added is discrimination is a different thing in this country than it was twenty years ago that what would work out of i think if you take the african american example it's a hilltop a young black male lives in an intercity experiences being black differently than middle aged middle class female lives in the southern states and it's a different experience of what it means to be a black in this country and we talk about remedies of discrimination its state would discourage is it simply they spend all black people excluded from certain institution says it was that that was case earlier our lifetimes it more subtle run these were complicated raids and we're confident cavaliers describe attitude where people are are our class right where the multiple markers not just in the words of variety of different things established status in this country and so the remedies have to

address each of those different things the last black and lives in the suburbs and in my sober right now there are numerous complaints about why you'd think stopped by the cops i'm fairly justify what a couple years ago and virginie not literally a la riots and i do we had this discussion on this program i told them about my three year old son were my fault was quite cute images like not mine and i know i have to say for your show now because it's going to be a teenager and the dental spirit creature on urban streets today as a young black male and that is the future and look a port with my son one but they're like for maisel everybody else does and like the old law the gilded yellow is what lopez

wives find themselves in out the suburbs now because of the white folks who use their neighbors have moved farther out what's always get rid of years ago when he buries son about why this is that we treat race talk like sex talk and we answer a question he went to relive it but fortunately interview very integrated neighborhood our sons were well aware of racial differences reasons for years all adult children are but he doesn't see racial value of the sea one racing down the aisle on its early but by associations he has now it looks like that i hope that if our future but the state and richard vile with the government and at and eventually paige the future so we're going to throw cold water about that say the nineteen ninety eight we're still sayed a suicide like someone still live mostly separate lives who were better off and where thirty years ago we are still outside the workplace also the

workplace we've with what has ever lived in my life in the workplace and i've been reading nineteen ninety eight we're still unable to say that in fact we are part of each other's bloodstream and nineteen and this is this is a heritage of racism that point where we were never allowed to marry each other and now we didn't lie to ourselves we say that but that doesn't make any difference what i get stopped by police and seven sisko when i go jogging running for da on the last time i got stopped was by two white policemen and i think to yourself this is a very complicated societies will we go i'm a you know i'm very sympathetic to what you say and i wanted to be as you say and i agree that we all kinds of overlapping stereotypes we haven't talked about or later came up with a los angeles watching of the attitudes of that african americans to the korean grosses roses and hispanic customers and all that it's you

know it's a lot more complicated these days but as a factual matter if you just look at the prison population whenever you look at all the at the unemployment rate among young single african american males without an education if you look at the physical isolation people in these inner city neighborhoods we have the lowest unemployment rate in twenty years they're still new york city or leverage with employers fifty percent if you look at these things if i could just come like to sort of what i think is practical here i think it is imperative that we somehow develop a bipartisan consensus in this country that we will do those things which we know will start another generation of these kids who get in trouble with it and i had my best model now i guess is what they're trying to do in chicago in the school system and what they've done in boston with the juvenile justice system but they had the boss and i went for two years about one generate even

killed about one hundred in suicides so what the end they get if you look within in houston and we we need to at least about those strategies that that will invest money in keeping these kids out of trouble in the first place the pride he'd murdered joan given the chance at a better life and gave it and if there's a disproportionate manifestation of rice and so many of them will have an affirmative action problem fuel that invests in those kids' future and given the chances they'll fly out today that it's the kids that are being lost altogether and that and the disproportionate presence of racial minorities among those years that is still the most disturbing thing workers to get these kids up there at the ninety figaro figaro but i think we we have to recognize that still being raised on this country especially for plants are raised poet sherman race talk and his family in revenue but revenue said you had trouble getting people to talk bluntly and honestly about what

puts the body to give the talk about race though just walk into a room i think people are always talking about race so is coded language that college classes or you know they used coded language know what exercise a lot of letters about a black says the noise and the coming out of the cherokee cowboys and indians so i don't have to worry about that we are not being talked about when i walk by the water in others what's been redskins that you're out there on the bumper sticker on a walker and i think you're the lead and it's they're doing you thought about rose oh yeah we're actually probably a lot more conservative races than any other single group of people were much more reactionary it's funny political year many democrats will vote for republicans engage with our hhs the kgb was talking they didn't talk about race only have to do is get people

start talking out of their own personal experience and it gets there pretty quickly and everyone has a story to tell i had noticed around the table were even today that as we talk about race in america and ends a distinct isn't being african american and that it's really a black why at issue a guarantee of a bring an irish american in here they would tell you they've experienced discrimination in this country and if you get it you know you talk to people in the jewish community and they'll say well you know our experience in america has been this and so when you get people to talk out of their own experience it gets they're fairly quickly and the bottom line is i think there has to be that has to be out that allocation of a farm programs based on preferential treatment of all that the equal opportunity and one that conversation broadly about rates write this is i think this is part of that happened the present one of the asset classes thomas classified in a question about the net ok but we have to i have to interrupt you all of them and learn to say thank you mr president and thanks

to i don't mind but they're from washington this has been in conversation with president clinton about race on jim lehrer thank you and good night and as you say may the conversation continues made possible by the sea and it grew businesses raise money anyway mr wharton race with president for pbs home video and one hundred and forty years says business pbs

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that you think about every cultural strife in this country has got some dominant think about what it is we are that the fix a positive cut and he's now working on the problem is that it might be that we would demand is the problem but getting people together to bring their gifts are probably hearing the races he arrived at colonus that racial violence is a moment a minute there there are i think with our differences in a very poor job that essay on the question of their taxes with a professor who tortured me the college admissions mania i know

now is going to that next video of the president can come in its members to get it look like you're lending was from the dangers that can give a solely they had the name should go