. . . Conservatives Need to Face Facts

David Horowitz claims that since President Clinton is talking only to liberals, his dialogue on race is a dialogue of the deaf. But is conservatives’ hearing any better on social issues? While I agree that conservatives should be included in Clinton’s dialogue, my guess is that the sum of their contribution will be to pawn off the same tired litany of racial stereotypes and slanders that Horowitz does about African Americans. Horowitz claims that blacks are disproportionately unemployed (lazy), are underrepresented at colleges (stupid) and have fewer businesses (lack initiative and discipline).

Now that we have gotten Horowitz’s racial bashing out of the way, these are the realities that many conservatives don’t want to hear: Most violent crime in America is committed by whites. Most drug users and abusers are white. Most of the poor and those on welfare are not black. In “Living With Racism,” sociologist Joe Feagin rebutted the sneaky storehouse of racist dodges and tactics that many bankers, corporate officials, real estate lenders, hotels, restaurants and cab drivers still use to perpetuate racial discrimination.

The prisons are increasingly jammed with poor, young blacks due to Draconian drug laws that target African Americans. The U.S. Sentencing Commission pointed to the blatant inequity in the criminal justice system when it recommended that the harsh sentences handed out for drug possession to black offenders and the light sentences given to white offenders be modified “or equalized.” Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno agreed. Congress refused to make any changes.

And what are the job prospects for those blacks when they are released from prison? A study by the California Commission on the Status of the Black Male revealed that one-sixth of California’s 625,000 black males 16 and older were arrested in 1996. The study concluded that those arrests “thereby create police records which hinder later job prospects.” The perception that blacks are inherently violent and prone to crime is fed by much of the media’s continued obsession with crime-drug-violence-gang in the ghetto features and news stories. This almost certainly makes many employers believe that black communities are vast wastelands of rot and that blacks are chronic social and educational failures not fit to be hired.

They are not. In 1996, according to the National Urban League’s “State of Black America” report, 80% of African Americans graduated from high school and nearly 30% were enrolled in college. Contrary to popular belief, the high school dropout rate for African Americans was no greater than for whites. But this was back page stuff in the papers, if reported at all.

The bad news is that many blacks who want college degrees are losing ground. Since 1994, elimination of scholarships, grants and financial assistance, funding cuts and the pulverizing of affirmative action have badly thinned the ranks of blacks and Latinos admitted to medical and law schools at several University of California campuses. While Horowitz lectures blacks to get an education and solve their own problems, he is stone silent about the segregation and the funding shortfalls that keep ghetto schools poorer.

And that brings me to affirmative action. This is the hands-down favorite issue Horowitz and conservatives use to bludgeon Clinton and “liberals” into political submission. They dangle before the public horrific visions of hordes of unqualified minorities and women driving qualified white men from jobs, and they ignore such “preferences” as nepotism and school ties, which unqualified white men always have enjoyed. Other than a few highly publicized and anecdotal cases, there is not a shred of evidence that whites are being displaced en masse by minorities. Corporate America is the proof. In 1994, there were fewer than half a dozen black chief executive officers at Fortune magazine’s top 1,000 corporations, and 97% of senior managers were white men.

Horowitz happily ignores this and screams foul at Clinton for nailing affirmative action foe Abigail Thernstrom at the Akron town hall meeting with the point that affirmative action aided Colin Powell. Horowitz calls it the liberal lie, and claims that Powell in his book says his success was not due to affirmative action preferences. Actually, Powell said: “I benefited from equal opportunity and affirmative action in the Army.” Powell understands that fairness is not preferences and equal opportunity is not “reverse discrimination.”

Conservatives did everything they could to bully and badger Clinton into packing his town hall meetings with anti-affirmative action hired guns like Ward Connerly. Now that they’ve gotten their wish, let’s see how they hold up when confronted with the realities of racism and economic inequality that they pretend no longer exist.

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of “Beyond O.J.: Race, Sex and Class Lessons for America.” E-mail address: [email protected]. This piece was written in response to Horowitz.