Another shade of black

So why did the Republicans, and Bush, ask Lott to step down? It seemed to be a fairly strong consensus. Is it all cynical -- was morality not involved here at all? Was it just fear?

Of course. They don't want to be seen as racist because that detracts votes from them, especially those of female, middle-class votes apparently. It's not that Republicans are so in love with black people that they were bleeding about what Lott said. But they think of black people as a potential source for untapped votes, and Lott was standing in the way of that. As far as I'm concerned, and this is a big theme of mine, I'm not interested in white people loving me. It's an unrealistic expectation. Black people don't love anybody but themselves.

Derrick Bell has this thought experiment where, if I'm not mistaken, all the black people are taken out of America by aliens and nobody knows where they are. The issue of the story is, How much would white people really care? Who would want to investigate? That's seen as evidence that racism exists in America. As soon as I heard that story, I thought, OK, so we're in America and instead of black people, all Filipinos are taken out of the United States. How many black people would care? None. Frankly, it wouldn't really change my day. I don't know any Filipino people. You have a love of your own. We can't say that white people should be exempt from that because of the nature of the past.

No, but the past is always hanging over us. It seemed from the way the media reacted to the Lott scandal, digging through his past and showing photos from his fraternity, that this was a history lesson. There was this sense that Americans aren't all that educated about who their leaders are.

We live in a transitional era. Just a few decades ago, we lived in a segregated society. It would be strange if there were not closet racists in our governing bodies. There are people in our governing bodies who are white and 50 or 60. Why in the world would some of them not be closet racists? It's 2003. It really hasn't been that long. So, it was nice that we were made aware of it. My issue is whether those things affect legislation, and to the extent that they can  Trent Lott as a leader, he has to go.

But the fact is that despite the racist history, the conventional wisdom is changing, and even if it just means you can't say certain things in public, that is progress. The fact is that even in terms of private feelings, the feelings of most of the people representing our government today are different than they would have been 40 years ago. We're not all the way there, but we're close.

Don't you think that the residual sentiments could be affecting legislation in ways that we're not totally aware of? Or vaguely aware of? I just can't believe that residual sentiments don't play a huge factor in how these people decide to run the country.

I don't think so. The only way that residual racist feelings could affect legislation, in my opinion, is through a lack of priorities, from not doing things. Perhaps you could argue that that's already the case. Although it's also true that I'm sure very few people today in any position know exactly what should be done for black people. It's not easy. It's not a matter of we just need more money, or we need more childcare.

You cannot be a Democrat politician and not do things along the civil rights line. So I'm not that scared. And more to the point, even if I was, what would you do? A lot of people like to strike this melodramatic note that the government isn't doing anything for black people. They typically think that what we need is a Marshall Plan where billions of dollars are dumped into Detroit and North Philadelphia and the South Bronx. But that wouldn't help. It's not about money today. There's a much deeper and more complicated problem. The typical people -- Derrick Bell, Al Sharpton, bell hooks -- all those people, they don't know what needs to be done. I can't say that I have the magical answer either. The Congressional Black Caucus doesn't even know what needs to be done. What have they proposed? Reparations, that's about it, and what would they do with the money?

Politicians have brought up unemployment insurance, affirmative action, as ways to heal after the Lott scandal. Some good might have come out of this, don't you think?

There's some of that, but the problem is that a lot of what's considered to help black people doesn't. For example, affirmative action. If what comes out of this is that the White House decides to nudge the Supreme Court into agreeing with the University of Michigan, they're supporting a policy where black people of any circumstances are allowed into top universities with lower grades and test scores than other people. That's what affirmative action is. We say "affirmative action" and we get kind of rosy inside, but it's a euphemism for lowering standards for people with pigment.

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