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                                                                                THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 36               

Straight Talk About Race


By Michael Kramer


    Back in the Dark Ages, when Vice President Spiro Agnew
attacked the press as "nattering nabobs of negativism," Eugene
McCarthy agreed with Agnew's critique but disagreed with his
right to say it. Authentic advocacy requires standing, McCarthy
argued, especially in politics, where any fool can speak and
every fool does. If record and reputation defy one's rhetoric,
even the right talk fails the heft test. The same standard
applies to the current Vice President. It is not that Dan
Quayle's family-values sermon missed the mark; much of what he
said was right. It is that Quayle represents an Administration
that has only rarely supported the programs that actually
promote strong families -- everything from child care and
parental leave to infant nutrition, Head Start, apprenticeship
training, gun control and -- well, the list is almost endless.
In a callous drone, the less fortunate have heard a single
Republican note for 12 years: "You're on your own." Quayle's
complaint may be smart politics -- the White House is convinced
that the November election will be a three-way battle in which
core conservatives will determine the outcome (and so is now
suddenly urging a continuation of the "Reagan-Bush
partnership"). But because of what two G.O.P. Ad ministrations
have failed to do, Quayle's calculated rant rings hollow and
deserves little more than a bemused shake of the head.

    Which about sums up New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley's
reaction to Quayle's comments -- and unlike Quayle, Bradley
possesses the requisite standing. Bradley has been talking about
racial tensions for years, most recently in a series of speeches
(before the Los Angeles riots) in which he castigated George
Bush for "playing the politics of race while economic inequality
increases."

    Slumped in a chair in his Washington office last week,
Bradley was depressed not only about the Administration's
penchant for law-and-order solutions to the virtual exclusion
of other remedies but also by the lack of an insightful response
on the part of his own Democratic Party. "I had hoped that L.A.
would provide the opportunity for people to be candid with each
other about the dimension of the problems as well as the aspects
of the problems, and to treat them with urgency," said Bradley.
"But that hasn't happened."

    Bradley supports the better-than-nothing Democratic addition
of $1.45 billion to the Administration's urban-emergency-aid bill
but agrees with Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who says that even that
sum represents little more than "a small down payment" toward
what's necessary. "To say that you don't need a massive
investment of perhaps $20 billion a year to reclaim the cities is
ludicrous," says Bradley, who has his own litany of prospective
family-bolstering programs. The centerpiece is a proposal that
would establish a nationwide network of "15-month homes" in which
poor babies and their (typically) unwed mothers would be housed
in order to provide a nurturing environment where cognitive
stimulation would be emphasized. "The most important year for
public investment is the first year of life," says Bradley. "You
can get kids back on the right track later, but it's costlier and
not as effective. Get them early, and the studies show you can
increase their I.Q."

    As just about every elected official hunts for
programmatic answers, Bradley acknowledges that even if all his
proposals were enacted tomorrow, the ugly core of the matter
will survive as long as "white Americans resist relinquishing
the sense of entitlement skin color has given them throughout
our history." In other words, says Bradley, even "walking our
talk" is insufficient. In essence, Bradley is after the hardest
solution, attitudinal change, which the most enlightened
government action can only marginally influence. "Every
individual has to understand the extent to which each of us is
central to healing our divisions," he says. "Until whites reject
seeing most blacks as Willie Horton and blacks reject seeing
most whites as Archie Bunker, there is no hope. Unless we remind
each other of our common humanity, too many of us will continue
to think of ourselves as islands of privilege and comfort."

    Bradley suffers few illusions and so constantly hits at
the interdependence of all Americans as the only realistic
route toward capturing the public's imagination. "By the year
2000," he says, "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 nonwhite children. To allow them to
self-destruct because of penny-pinching or timidity about
straight talk will make America a second-rate power." At the
very least, says Bradley, the exercise of moral leadership
demands that the President make the case for enlightened
self-interest.

    Yes, it feels and sounds a bit mushy, but as Bradley says,
"When politicians don't talk about the reality that everyone
knows exists, they cannot begin to lead us out of our current
crisis." He, for one, is trying. It is past time for others to
follow.