The Audacity of Hope

Americans figure that they haven’t engaged in discrimination themselves and have
plenty of their own problems to worry about. They also know that with a national debt
approaching $9 trillion and annual deficits of almost $300 billion, the country has
precious few resources to help them with those problems.
As a result, proposals that solely benefit minorities and dissect Americans into “us” and
“them” may generate a few short-term concessions when the costs to whites aren’t too
high, but they can’t serve as the basis for the kinds of sustained, broad-based political
coalitions needed to transform America. On the other hand, universal appeals around
strategies that help all Americans (schools that teach, jobs that pay, health care for
everyone who needs it, a government that helps out after a flood), along with measures
that ensure our laws apply equally to everyone and hence uphold broadly held American
ideals (like better enforcement of existing civil rights laws), can serve as the basis for
such coalitions—even if such strategies disproportionately help minorities.
Such a shift in emphasis is not easy: Old habits die hard, and there is always a fear on
the part of many minorities that unless racial discrimination, past and present, stays on
the front burner, white America will be let off the hook and hard-fought gains may be
reversed. I understand these fears—nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a
straight line, and during difficult economic times it is possible that the imperatives of
racial equality get shunted aside.
Still, when I look at what past generations of minorities have had to overcome, I am
optimistic about the ability of this next generation to continue their advance into the
economic mainstream. For most of our recent history, the rungs on the opportunity
ladder may have been more slippery for blacks; the admittance of Latinos into
firehouses and corporate suites may have been grudging. But despite all that, the
combination of economic growth, government investment in broad-based programs to
encourage upward mobility, and a modest commitment to enforce the simple principle
of nondiscrimination was sufficient to pull the large majority of blacks and Latinos into
the socioeconomic mainstream within a generation.
We need to remind ourselves of this achievement. What’s remarkable is not the number
of minorities who have failed to climb into the middle class but the number who
succeeded against the odds; not the anger and bitterness that parents of color have
transmitted to their children but the degree to which such emotions have ebbed. That
knowledge gives us something to build on. It tells us that more progress can be made.
IF UNIVERSAL STRATEGIES that target the challenges facing all Americans can go
a long way toward closing the gap between blacks, Latinos, and whites, there are two
aspects of race relations in America that require special attention—issues that fan the
flames of racial conflict and undermine the progress that’s been made. With respect to
the African American community, the issue is the deteriorating condition of the innercity
poor. With respect to Latinos, it is the problem of undocumented workers and the
political firestorm surrounding immigration.
One of my favorite restaurants in Chicago is a place called MacArthur’s. It’s away from
the Loop, on the west end of the West Side on Madison Street, a simple, brightly lit