Clinton's race initiative: Recasting the American Dilemma

Polity

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 1-196

  Kim, Claire Jean ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034360533     PISSN: 00323497     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3235487     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. The seven Advisory Board members were John Hope Franklin (Chairman), Linda Chavez-Thompson, Suzan Johnson Cook, Thomas Kean, Angela Oh, Robert Thomas, and William Winter.
2. The quotations in this paragraph are from the "Initiative Announcement," http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/One America/speech.html.
3. See Howard Kurtz, Spin Cycle: How the White House and the Media Manipulate the News (New York: Touchstone, 1998).
4. Michael Kelly, "The Great Divider," New Republic 217, 1 (July 7, 1997): 6.
5. The race initiative materials included Executive Order 13050 (which established the Advisory Board), Clinton's announcement speech, the initiative website, White House press releases, transcripts of Advisory Board meetings and other initiative events, presidential speeches, and other miscellaneous documents.
6. Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (London: Verso, 1990), 3.
7. I capitalize "Black" and "White" but leave intact original materials that use the lower case forms.
8. From Carnegie Foundation president Fred Keppel's foreword to An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, 20th anniv. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), xlviii.
9. Stephen Steinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy (Boston: Beacon, 1995), 21. Myrdal's work was liberal insofar it was premised upon principles of individual rights, freedom, and equality of opportunity.
10. This quotation is italicized in the original. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this section are from American Dilemma. Although Myrdal (and his co-author and assistant, Arnold Rose) based much of what he had to say about Black culture on the writings of Black social scientists such as E. Franklin Frazier and Ralph Bunche, he drew sharp criticism from some Black commentators. See David Southern, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of An American Dilemma (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 264.
11. Although Myrdal was most critical of the South, he did not let the North off the hook. Northern Whites, according to Myrdal, disavowed racial discrimination in principle but routinely discriminated against Blacks in practice in the economic realm.
12. See Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938-1987 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
13. This quotation is italicized in the original.
14. Myrdal also believed that historical developments such as increased unionization, labor market regulation, and World War II would hasten the realization of the American Creed.
15. As he was preparing his report, Myrdal assiduously courted the good opinion of representatives of the major schools of thought on race in America. See Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal, and Southern, Gunnar Myrdal, for the reactions of Myrdal's contemporaries to his work.
16. Steinberg, Turning Back, 49. Steinberg (27-29) points out that Myrdal's report was more palatable to the mainstream public than a contemporaneous governmental commission report on the Harlem "riot" of 1935, entitled The Negro in Harlem: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935. Mayor LaGuardia of New York City tried to repress the latter report, which was quite radical in its economic analysis and antidiscrimination proposals.
17. Steinberg, Turning Back, 49. Steinberg (27-29) points out that Myrdal's report was more palatable to the mainstream public than a contemporaneous governmental commission report on the Harlem "riot" of 1935, entitled The Negro in Harlem: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935. Mayor LaGuardia of New York City tried to repress the latter report, which was quite radical in its economic analysis and antidiscrimination proposals.
18. Chief Justice Earl Warren cited Myrdal concerning the psychological harm done to segregated Black schoolchildren in footnote 11 of his statement of the majority opinion in Brown.
19. King and colleagues appealed to Whites' consciences, but it was the disruption and political crisis generated by their direct-action tactics that did the most to bring about civil rights legislation.
20. Southern, Gunnar Myrdal, 290.
21. Charles Silberman, Crisis in Black and White (New York: Random House, 1964).
22. Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Random House, 1967).
23. Michael Lipsky and David Olson, Commission Politics: The Processing of Racial Crisis in America (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1977).
24. Andrew Kopkind, "White on Black: The Riot Commission and the Rhetoric of Reform," in The Politics of Riot Commissions, 1917-1970, ed. Anthony Platt (New York: Macmillan), 378-91.
25. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this section are from Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam, 1968).
26. Among other things, the report recommended creating two million new jobs in the next three years, expanding job training programs, dismantling discriminatory employment barriers, eliminating segregation and discrimination in schools, providing federal funding for disadvantaged schools, setting up early educational programs for the poor, creating uniform national standards for welfare eligibility and payments, having the national government bear a greater proportion of welfare costs, expanding job training and social programs for welfare recipients, passing open housing legislation, making more housing affordable, expanding public housing, and helping low-income families find or purchase housing.
27. Executive Order 11365 (July 29, 1967) established the commission and charged it with investigating the origins and causes of the disorders, methods for averting or controlling them, and the appropriate respective roles of local, state, and federal authorities in dealing with them. The eleven-member commission included a former governor, a mayor, two U.S. senators, two U.S. representatives, a union president, a corporate board chairman, the executive director of the N.A.A.C.P., a police chief, and a state commissioner of commerce.
28. White House officials refused to hire commission staff or consultants who were active in the anti-war effort. The commission staff eventually reached a tacit agreement not to broach the subject of the war in the report. See Kopkind, "White on Black," 379.
29. Kopkind, "White on Black," 380.
30. John Charles Boger, "The Kemer Commission Report in Retrospect," in Race and Ethnicity in the United States: Issues and Debates, ed. Stephen Steinberg (Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2000), 8-36.
31. "Separate Societies: Have the Kerner Warnings Come True?" in Quiet Riots: Race and Poverty in United States, ed. Fred Harris and Roger Wilkins (New York: Pantheon, 1988), 101.
32. I do not want to overstate this trend: many liberals today still defend race-conscious policies, but more and more liberals are moving rightward on the race issue. Mother Jones, American Prospect, and New Republic - all prominent liberal journals - have come out against affirmative action in recent years.
33. Dinesh D'Souza, The End of Racism (New York: Free Press, 1995), 24.
34. Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, 10th anniv. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
35. Shelby Steele, The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).
36. Murray, Losing Ground, 223.
37. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987), 19. See also William Julius Wilson, "Race-Neutral Programs and the Democratic Coalition," American Prospect (Spring 1990): 74-81.
38. Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged, 154.
39. Theda Skocpol, "Targeting Within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States," in The Urban Underclass, ed. Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1991), 411-36; Paul Starr, "Civil Reconstruction: What To Do Without Affirmative Action," American Prospect (Winter 1992): 7-14.
40. Theda Skocpol, "Targeting Within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States," in The Urban Underclass, ed. Christopher Jencks and Paul Peterson (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1991), 411-36; Paul Starr, "Civil Reconstruction: What To Do Without Affirmative Action," American Prospect (Winter 1992): 7-14.
41. See Adolph Reed Jr., ed., Without Justice For All: The New Liberalism and Our Retreat From Racial Equality (Boulder: Westview, 1999).
42. For Clinton's relationship to the DLC, see Jon Hale, "The Making of the New Democrats," Political Science Quarterly, 110, 2 (1995): 207-32; see also Philip Klinkner, "Bill Clinton and the Politics of the New Liberalism," in Without Justice For All: The New Liberalism and Our Retreat From Racial Equality, ed. Adolph Reed Jr. (Boulder: Westview, 1999), 11-28.
43. For Clinton's relationship to the DLC, see Jon Hale, "The Making of the New Democrats," Political Science Quarterly, 110, 2 (1995): 207-32; see also Philip Klinkner, "Bill Clinton and the Politics of the New Liberalism," in Without Justice For All: The New Liberalism and Our Retreat From Racial Equality, ed. Adolph Reed Jr. (Boulder: Westview, 1999), 11-28.
44. Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 5.
45. The charge of racialism is always levelled primarily at Blacks, whether implicitly or explicitly. Many New Democrat articles argue that other racial/ethnic minority groups are not as caught up in the "cult of victimization" as Blacks are.
46. "The New Racialism," New Democrat 6, 4 (August/September 1994): 7-8, 7.
47. For this argument, see Seymour Martin Lipset, "Two Americas, Two Systems," New Democrat 7, 2 (May/June 1995): 9-15; "It's a Black and White Thing," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 8-9; Glenn Loury, "Shall We Overcome?" New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 10-13; and Tamar Jacoby, "Divided We Stand," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 15-18.
48. For this argument, see Seymour Martin Lipset, "Two Americas, Two Systems," New Democrat 7, 2 (May/June 1995): 9-15; "It's a Black and White Thing," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 8-9; Glenn Loury, "Shall We Overcome?" New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 10-13; and Tamar Jacoby, "Divided We Stand," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 15-18.
49. For this argument, see Seymour Martin Lipset, "Two Americas, Two Systems," New Democrat 7, 2 (May/June 1995): 9-15; "It's a Black and White Thing," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 8-9; Glenn Loury, "Shall We Overcome?" New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 10-13; and Tamar Jacoby, "Divided We Stand," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 15-18.
50. For this argument, see Seymour Martin Lipset, "Two Americas, Two Systems," New Democrat 7, 2 (May/June 1995): 9-15; "It's a Black and White Thing," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 8-9; Glenn Loury, "Shall We Overcome?" New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 10-13; and Tamar Jacoby, "Divided We Stand," New Democrat 8, 4 (July/August 1996): 15-18.
51. "It's the Values, Stupid," New Democrat 5, 4 (November 1993): 10-12, 10.
52. Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25-73.
53. See Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield, eds., Mapping Multiculturalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and David Theo Goldberg, ed., Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994).
54. See Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield, eds., Mapping Multiculturalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) and David Theo Goldberg, ed., Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994).
55. For a more in-depth discussion of why Clinton launched the race initiative and why it looked the way that it did, see my forthcoming paper, "Into the Breach Once More: Clinton, Black-White Polarization, and the Race Initiative."
56. Paul Light, The President's Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton, 3rd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 281.
57. James Carney, "Why Talk Is Not Cheap," Time (December 22, 1997): 32.
58. See Howard Schuman et al., Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
59. In the report's terminology, the four groups were African Americans, Latinos, Asian Pacific Americans, and American Indian/Alaskan Native.
60. Unless otherwise noted, the quotations in this section are from One America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Future (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998).
61. The report is ambiguous on whether all racial/ethnic minorities think alike or whether each racial/ethnic group has its own distinct perspective.
62. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/Initiatives/One America/19971009-13216.html.
63. Native American groups protested the fact that they were not represented on the Advisory Board.
64. The report's recommended policy initiatives were limited and unoriginal (several were already being considered or underway when the initiative began). Among other things, they addressed enforcing civil rights laws, fighting hate crimes, collecting data on discrimination, raising the minimum wage, and increasing Small Business Administration loans to minority entrepreneurs.
65. "Initiative Announcement."
66. To my knowledge, Glenn Loury was one of the few commentators who noted the initiative emphasis upon racial/cultural differences rather than racism. See "Double Talk," http://www.bu.edu/irsd/papers/double.html.
67. Angela Davis, "Gender, Class, and Multiculturalism: Rethinking 'Race' Politics," in Mapping Multiculturalism, ed. Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield, 40-48, 44.