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Senator Bill Bradley
July 10, 1991
Mr. President , this is an open letter to President Bush. I hope he will hear it and I hope the American people will listen, too. I hope this letter will put the issue of race relations in a broader context than simply the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas. I offer this letter recognizing that when a black or white American speaks about race one necessarily speaks for someone else of a different race . That is awkward and subject to misinterpretation. But silence is worse.
Dear Mr. President : In 1988 you used the Willie Horton ad to divide white and black voters and appeal to fear. Now, based on your remarks about the 1991 Civil Rights Bill, you have begun to do the same thing again. Mr. President , we implore you--don't go down this path again. It's not good for the country. We can do better.
Racial tension is too dangerous to exploit and too important to ignore. America yearns for straight talk about race , but instead we get code words and a grasping after an early advantage in the 1992 election. Continued progress in race relations requires moral leadership and a clear sighted understanding of our national self-interest. And that must start with our President .
There is a place and a time for politics. The Willie Horton ad in your 1988 campaign will be played and analyzed by political pundits for years to come .
There is a place and time for leadership. The place for leadership is here--for our people, uncertain and divided once again on the issue of race . And the time for leadership is now.
So, Mr. President , tell us how you have worked through the issue of race in your own life. I don't mean speechwriter abstractions about equality or liberty but your own life experiences. When did you realize there was a difference between the lives of black people and the lives of white people in America? Where did you ever experience or see discrimination? How did you feel? What did you do? What images remain in your memory? Tell us more about how you grapped with the moral imperatives embodied in race relations and how you clarified the moral ambiguities that necessarily are a part of the attitude of every American who has given it any thought--any thought at all.
Do you believe silence will muffle the gunshots of rising racial violence in our cities? Do you believe that brotherhood will be destroyed by candor about the obstacles to its realization? Do you believe ignoring the division between the races will heal it? If you truly want it healed, why don't you spend some of the political capital represented by your 70 percent approval ratings and try to move our glacial collective humanity one inch forward.
Mr. President , you say you're against discrimination. Why not make a morally unambliguous statement and then back it up with action? At West Point you said you `will strike at discrimination wherever it exists.’How will you do that and when? Why not try to change the racist attitudes of some Americans--even if they voted for you--so that all Americans can realize our ideals?
Mr. President , if these concerns are wrong, please dispel them. Please explain the following bases for our doubt.
DOUBT ONE--YOUR RECORD
Back in 1964 you ran for the U.S. Senate and you opposed the Civil Rights Act of that year. Why?
I remember that summer. I was a student intern in Washington, D.C., between my junior and senior years in college and I was in this Senate chamber that hot summer night when the bill passed. I remember that roll call. I remember thinking, `America is a better place because of this bill. All Americans--white or black--are better off.’I remember the presidential election that summer too, when Senator Goldwater made the Civil Rights Act an issue in his campaign. I came to Washington that summer as a Republican. I left as a Democrat.
Why did you oppose that bill? Why did you say that the 1964 Civil Rights Act `violates the constitutional rights of all people?’Remember how America functioned in many parts of the country before it passed? Separate restrooms and drinking fountains for black and white, blacks turned away from hotels, restaurants, movies. Did you believe that black Americans should eat at the kitchen steps of restaurants, not in the dining room? Whose constitutional rights were being violated there?
Were you just opposing the Civil Rights Bill for political purposes? Were you just using race to get votes?
Did you ever change your mind and regret your opposition to the Civil Rights Act? If so, when? Did you ever express your regret publicly? What is your regret?
When you say today that you're against discrimination, I don't know what you mean because you have never repudiated or explained your past opposition to the most basic widening of opportunity for black Americans in the 20th century, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It sounds like you're trying to have it both ways--lip service to equality and political maneuvering against it.
What does you record mean? What have you stood for?
DOUBT TWO--ECONOMIC REALITY
Mr. President , over the last 11 years of Republican rule the poor and the middle class in America have not fared well. The average middle income family earned $31,000 in 1977 and $31,000 in 1990. No improvement. During the same time period, the richest 1% of American families went from earning $280,000 in 1977 to $549,000 in 1990. Now, how could that have happened? How could the majority of voters have supported governments whose primary achievement was to make the rich richer? The answer lies in the strategy and tactics of recent political campaigns.
Just as middle class America began to see their economic interests clearly and to come home to the Democratic party, Republicans interjected race into campaigns, to play on new fears and old prejudices, to drive a wedge through the middle class, to pry off a large enough portion to win.
Mr. President, most Americans recognize that in economic policy Republicans usually try to reward the rich, and Democrats usually do not. I accept that as part of the lore and debate and rhythm of American politics. What I cannot accept, because it eats at the core of our society, is inflaming racial tension to perpetuate power and then using that power to reward the rich and ignore the poor. It is a reasonable argument over means to say more for the wealthy is a price we pay to `lift all boats.’It is a cynical manipulation to send messages to white working people that they have more in common with the wealthy than with the black worker next to them on the line, taking the same physical risks and struggling to make ends meet with the same pay.
Mr. President, I detest anyone who uses that tactic--whether it is a Democrat like George Wallace or a Republican like David Duke. The irony is that most of the people who voted for George Wallace or David Duke or George Bush because of race haven't benefited economically from the last decade. Many of them are worse off. Many have lost jobs, health insurance, pension benefits. Many more can't buy a house or pay property taxes or hope to send their child to college. The people who have benefited come from the wealthiest class in America. So, Mr. President, put bluntly, why shouldn't we doubt your commitment to racial justice and fair play when we see who has benefited most from the power that has been acquired through sowing the seeds of racial division?
DOUBT THREE--YOUR INCONSISTENT WORDS
We Americans hold a special trust on the issue of race. We fought one of the bloodiest wars in history over it--brother against brother, state against state, American against American. Our communities and our schools and our hearts have been torn by the issue. We have come too far, Mr. President. We do not need to be torn further. Most Americans who have absorbed our history know the wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston's words that, `Race is an explosive on the tongues of men.’Race is most especially an explosive on the tongue of the President * * * or his men.
We have come too far. We need to be led not manipulated. We need leadership that will summon the best in us not the worst.
Yet you have tried to turn the Willie Horton code of 1988 into the quotas code of 1992. You have said that's not what you're doing but as you said at West Point, `You can't put a sign on a pig and say it's a horse.’
Why do you say one thing with your statement against discrimination and another with your opposition to American businesses working with civil rights groups to get a civil rights bill most Americans could be proud of. Are you sending mixed signals or giving a big wink to a pocket of the electorate?
We measure our leader by what he says and by what he does. If both what he says and what he does are destructive of racial harmony, we must conclude that he wants to destroy racial harmony. If what he says and what he does are different, then what he does is more important. If he says different things at different times that are mutually contradictory, then we conclude he's trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes.
Mr. President, you need to be clearer, so that people on all sides understand where you are, what you believe and how you propose to make your beliefs a reality. Until then, you must understand that an increasing number of Americans will assume your convictions about issues of race and discrimination are no deeper than a water spider's footprint.
DOUBT FOUR--YOUR LEADERSHIP
Racial politics has an unseemly history in America. For only about five decades of the last 220 years have our politicians actively tried to heal racial wounds. Slavery blighted our ideals for nearly a century. Then a burst of hope from 1865 to 1876. Then nearly another century of exploitation and inhumanity including harsh and discriminatory treatment of Hispanics and many other immigrant groups. Then from 1945 to 1980, another burst of hope. Much was accomplished in this last period. But, all of us deep in our hearts know there's more to do.
Demagogues--both white and black--seek to deepen divisions. Misconceptions grow. Fears accelerate. Outlandish egos thrive on the misery of others.
Both races have to learn to speak candidly with each other. By the year 2000, only 57% of people entering the work force will be native born whites. White-Americans have to understand that their children's standard of living is inextricably bound to the future of millions of non-white children who will pour into the workforce in the next decades. To guide them toward achievement will make America a richer, more successful society. To allow them to self-destruct because of penny-pinching or timidity about straight talk will make America a second rate power. And Black Americans have to believe that acquisition of skills will serve as an entry into society not because they have acquired a veneer of whiteness but because they are able. Blackness doesn't compromise ability nor does ability compromise blackness. Both blacks and whites have to create and celebrate the common ground that binds us together as Americans and human beings.
To do that we must reach out in trust to each other. By ignoring the poverty in our cities, white Americans deny reality as much as black Americans whose sense of group identity often denies the individuality that they themselves know is God's gift to every baby. There is much to say to each other about rage and patience, about opportunity and obligation, about fear and courage, about guilt and honor. The more Americans can see beyond someone's skin to his heart and mind, the easier it will be for us to reveal our true feelings and to admit our failures as well as celebrate our strengths. The more Americans are honest about the level of distrust they hold for each other, the easier it will be to get beyond those feelings and forge a new relationship without racial overtones. Both black and white Americans need to recognize that what's important is not whether the commanding officer is black or white but how good a leader he or she is. That's true in war and it's equally true in peace.
Above all, we need to establish a social order in which individuals of all races assume personal responsibility. In a contest that's fair a chance is all someone needs. In a contest that's fair the gripes and excuses of losers don't carry much weight.
So individual responsibility is essential. And so is facing reality clearly. Crime often causes poverty. Racism exists, and so do horrible living conditions in our cities. To accept any of this as natural or necessary or unchangeable is to insure that it will continue.
The most important voice in that national dialogue is yours, Mr. President. You can set us against each other or you can bring us together. You can reason with us and help us overcome deep-rooted stereotypes or you can speak in mutually contradictory sound bites and leave us at each other's throats. You can risk being pilloried by demagogues and losing a few points in the polls, or you can simply ignore the issue, using it only for political purposes. You can push the buttons which you think give you an election or you can challenge a nation's moral conscience.
The irony here is that as a Democrat, I am urging the Republican President t o do what will serve his own party's longterm political interests. Why do I do it? Because I believe that race-b aiting should be banished from politics. Because I believe communicating in code words and symbols to deliver an old shameful message should cease. There should be no more Willie Horton ads. Mr. President, will you promise not to use race a gain as you so shamelessly did in 1988? If you will not promise your country this, why not?
DOUBT FIVE--YOUR CONVICTIONS
Mr. President, as Vice President t o Ronald Reagan you were a loyal lieutenant. To my knowledge you never expressed public opposition to anything that happened in race r elations in the Reagan years. You acquiesced in giving control of the civil rights agenda to elements of the Republican party whose strategy was to attract those voters who wanted to turn the clock back on race r elations.
The Reagan Justice Department tried to give government tax subsidies to schools that practice racial discrimination as a matter of policy. And you went along. They were reluctant to push the Voting Rights Act renewal--and you went along. They vetoed the 1988 Civil Rights Restoration Act--and you went along. For eight years there was an assault on American civility and fair play and you went along. On what issue would you have spoken out? Was your role as Vice President m ore important than any conviction? Obviously, the issue of race w asn't one of them. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from his jail cell in Birmingham, `We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of bad people but for the appalling silence of good people.’
Mr. President, you saw black America fall into a deeper and deeper decline during the Reagan years. From 1984 to 1988, the number of black children murdered in America increased by 50 percent. Today, 43 percent of black children are born in poverty. And since 1984 black life expectancy has declined--the first decline for any segment of America in our history. Yet in the face of these unprecedented developments, you said and did nothing. Why did you go along?
In 1989, when you took over you promised it would be different. But it hasn't been. The rhetoric has been softer at times, but the problem is the same. At Hampton College, a predominantly black school, you recently promised `adequate funding’for Head Start, but three out of four eligible children are still turned away. Do you believe what you say? What is more important than getting a generation of kids on the right education track? I'm all for the important work of the Thousand Points of Light Foundation but for it to really succeed a President a nd his government must be the beacon.
Maybe you have no idea what to do about kids killing kids in our cities and people sleeping on the streets. Maybe out of wedlock births are outside your experience and not of importance to you. Maybe you really have concluded that urban enterprise zones and the HOPE program are a sufficient urban poverty strategy. Maybe families to you don't include white and black families living in cities, struggling to make ends meet against the same high odds, which you refuse to reduce. Maybe you just don't understand. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Who knows? We rarely hear your voice. At West Point, you exhorted America to be colorblind. But without doing something about inequity and poverty the call for colorblindness is denial and arrogance. Mr. President, you have to create a context in which a colorblind society might eventually evolve. Right now you are neither similar to the stern father administering bad news and discipline to his children, nor the wise father helping his children come t o terms w ith emotions they don't understand or prejudices they can't conquer. And you are certainly not the leader laying out the plan and investing the political capital to change conditions.
So, Mr. President, my concern is not just the 1991 Civil Rights Act or the fate of Clarence Thomas. Your Civil Rights Bill, the Democrats’Civil Rights Bill, the Danforth Civil Rights Bill all say pretty much the same thing to business: Pay attention to your hiring practices; make an effort to find minorities who can do the job because it is in the national interest for pluralism to truly work. There is no reason we can't find language that 60 Senators can support.
But you, or those working for you--don't appear to want a compromise. Not yet. Businessmen wanted a compromise and your White House pressured them to back off talks. Senator Danforth wants a compromise--but he hasn't gotten much encouragement. Some Senators, Republicans, want to be responsible but they say you're not dealing in good faith. Your operatives apparently don't want to lose a political issue--not yet.
Mr. President, as you and your men dawdle in race p olitics consider these facts: We will never win the global economic race i f we have to carry the burden of an increasingly larger unskilled population. We will never lead the world by the example of our living values if we can't eradicate the `reservation’mentality many whites hold about our cities. We will never understand the problems of our cities--the factories closed, the housing filled with rats, the hospitals losing doctors, the schools pock marked with bullet holes, the middle class moved away--until a white person can point out the epidemic of minority illegitimacy, drug addition and homicides without being charged a racist. We will never solve the problem of our cities until we intervene massively and directly to change the physical conditions of poverty and depravation. But you can still win elections by playing on the insecurities our people feel about their jobs, their homes, their children, and their future.
And so our greatest doubt about you is this: is winning elections more important to you than unifying the country to address the problems of race a nd poverty that beset us?
The important thing is not whether you veto a bill in the pitched battle of politics but whether you will veto or voice the desire we feel in our hearts to build a new trust in this country--trust in unity and opportunity, trust in ourselves, trust in one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Mr. President, this is a cry from my heart, so don't charge me with playing politics. I'm asking you to take the issue of race o ut of partisan politics and put it on a moral plane where healing can take place.
I believe the only way it will happen is for you to look into yourself and tell all of us what you plan to do about the issues of race and poverty in this country. Tell us why our legitimate doubts about your convictions are wrong. Tell us how you propose to make us the example of a pluralist democracy whose economy and spirit takes everyone to the higher ground. Tell us what the plan of action is for us to realize our ideals.
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