Speculation About a Post-Racial Society
numbers seem less interested in organizing on major policy issues. Many seem beguiled by a technology that enables them to communicate continually with small circles of friends. And it is not clear what diversity means to many Americans. It seems promising that so many young people are at ease in the company of people of other ethnicities and races, far more so than people of my generation. But there is little evidence of the depth of interest that diversity holds for people. Is it limited to expanding one’s appreciation of foreign menus? Or does it include an appreciation of the culture, history, music, arts, and values of people of different backgrounds? President Obama may also undertake initiatives that stimulate interest in cooperative and altruistic enterprises and encourage those as citizen values. Such an effort already launched with a new AmeriCorps law tripling the number of slots for volunteers echoes the idealism of the Peace Corps, Vista, and Teacher Corps years and supports valuable initiatives such as Teach for America. But, for all of his brilliance, his omnivorous interest in issues, his broad grasp of American society, Barack Obama is a prudent man. He is unlikely to undertake campaigns that have little prospect of success. So the question may be whether by example he will ignite a new generation of leaders at all levels of society and whether he can stimulate people to detach themselves from the dreary materialism that the American dream seems to have become for many. Obama (in Lincoln’s phrase) has already “appealed to the better angels of our nature.” The rest may be up to us.
William L. Taylor is a lawyer, teacher, and writer in the fields of civil rights and education. He practices law in Washington, D.C., specializing in litigation and other forms of advocacy on behalf of low-income and minority children. Taylor began his legal career in 1954 working for Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In the 1960s he served as General Counsel and later as staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where he directed major investigations and research studies that contributed to the civil rights laws enacted in that decade. In 1970, he founded the Center for National Policy Review, a civil rights research and advocacy organization funded by private foundations that he directed for 16 years. A long-time leader of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, he currently serves as vice chairman. He is also founder and chairman of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights and the author of his recently published memoirs entitled The Passion of My Times: An Advocate’s Fifty-Year Journey in the Civil Rights Movement (De Capo Press, 2004).
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PHOTO BY JODI MILLER
In some of these places, it is possible that new development initiatives or a merger of education or political jurisdictions may bring new life to the area. But these measures are often resisted by the more prosperous jurisdictions and by taxpayers, and an amelioration of racial isolation and economic despair seem remote indeed. The spatial separation of Whites and Blacks and of wealthy and poor is not something that yields easily to policy initiatives. It extends not just to education and housing but also to the location of institutions that seek to rehabilitate and treat dysfunction. These too are often resisted in affluent neighborhoods. In sum, the functioning of communities and key institutions in our society may be more a product of individual values and choices than of public policies. Even when political leaders seek to shape policy for what they regard as the greater good, they may be thwarted by strongly held individual views opposing tax increases or resisting community change. So it may well be that a successful Obama administration, by promoting education reform for disadvantaged children, by pursuing desegregation policies where feasible, by increasing college admissions, by securing health protection, may help increase the ranks of racial and ethnic minorities in the middle class. In the coming years, there may be an interesting churning around of American values. But it is not certain in what direction that will go. The nation’s young people who ensured Obama’s election by organizing and turning out in large