09 Jun 1997 Racial Reconciliation Needs to Start at the White House – June 1997

On Eve of Presidential Announcement, African-American Group Releases Top 10 List of Acts by the Clinton Administration That Divide America By Race and Ethnicity

June 9, 1997
Contact: Arturo Silva at (202) 507-6398 or [email protected]

In anticipation of President Clinton’s scheduled June 14 speech on racial reconciliation, the African-American leadership group Project 21 has released a “Top 10 Acts of the Clinton Administration to Divide Americans By Race and Ethnicity.”

“The Clinton Administration must be held accountable for attempting to further the divide between the races,” said Project 21 coordinator Arturo Silva, author of the paper. “This ‘Top 10’ list is Project 21’s attempt to attach footprints to Clinton policies that have trampled all over Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an America where people will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

On June 14 at the University of California at San Diego the President is expected to announce that he will appoint a seven member advisory board to solicit and gather research on race relations over the last fifty years and make projections on how they will change over the next fifty years.

“The President’s ‘race initiative’ to date has been nothing more than a racial/race lottery, where only Clinton’s ‘chosen’ minorities are allowed to get a ticket and win (goverment contracts, appointments, and other favors),” said Project 21’s Edmund Peterson. “Black Americans who aren’t one of the chosen few and white Americans are the losers in Clinton’s race lottery. The Clinton Administration may defend this race lottery as being good for America, a sort of ‘good racism’ if you will. But racism has never been good, whether it’s the kind instituted on behalf of minorities or against them.”

The four-page Top 10 list includes criticisms of the Clinton Administration for some of the following transgressions:

* Defending and continuing racial preference programs.

* Unfairly accusing political opponents of the Administration policies as being racists.

* Backing special interests over the interests of the nation and minorities.

* Violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

*  xploiting ethnic and racial politics to get votes and raise money.

Each item on the Top 10 list includes supporting evidence that the Clinton Administration is guilty of the alleged transgressions. For example, memos, court cases, and statements by the President himself are cited as incriminating evidence of the Administration’s efforts to divide Americans by race and ethnicity.

Project 21 member Roderick Conrad commented: “The President can show he’s really interested in addressing race relations by appointing people with different views to the advisory board. In other words, the President should include a few conservatives on the board. By doing so, Clinton could atone for his Administration’s role in enhancing racial divisions in this country. The more views he excludes, the more likely this latest race initiative is likely to be a sham.”

For a copy of the Top Ten list, released as National Policy Analysis paper #163 by The National Center for Public Policy Research, or additional information, contact Arturo Silva at (202) 507-6398 or [email protected]. The paper is also available on the web at https://nationalcenter.org/NPA163.html.

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