American in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible

National Review, Dec 22, 1997 by John J. DiIulio

But folded inside the story of black social resentment is the story of dawning black - white racial harmony. A June 1997 report by the Gallup Organization, "Black/White Relations in the United States," reveals both that most blacks still feel that they are treated unfairly, and that more blacks and whites than ever (sizable majorities of both races) say they want to live, work, go to school, and engage in recreation together, and that they vote for the best candidate regardless of race.

The fraction of blacks who approve of marriage between blacks and whites now stands at 77 per cent, up from 61 per cent in 1972. The comparable figure for whites has risen to 61 per cent, from 25 per cent in 1972, and from 4 per cent in 1958. People of both races are acting on these beliefs (for example, rates of black - white intermarriage are up). For millions of whites and blacks, living the American Dream now includes reading about Colin Powell, rooting for Michael Jordan, heeding Oprah Winfrey, and laughing at the comedy of Chris Rock.

Still, blacks and whites continue to segregate themselves by race when it comes to everyday decisions about schools, housing, vacations, church attendance, cafeteria seating on college campuses, and more. The good news is that many Americans of both races have moved into a post - civil-rights era in which one can question integrationist ideals and policies without instantly being dismissed as a white-hating black separatist or a racist white reactionary.

For example, Boston University economist Glenn Loury, arguably America's leading black public intellectual, has recently spoken out on the need to examine critically the pros and cons of well-intentioned school-desegregation efforts that clearly have not lifted inner-city black children into the education mainstream. Loury and his wife, Linda Datcher-Loury, have also become leading advocates of the need to explore how black-led inner-city churches may help to revitalize black neighborhoods.

Or consider the article by education experts James C. Carper and Jack Lyman in the Winter 1997 issue of The Educational Forum. The title says it all: "Black-Flight Academies: The New Christian Day Schools." According to Carper and Lyman, "black Christian schools are springing up spontaneously, often unknown to government agencies, public school districts, and secularized and religious school associations. These schools frequently serve a particular neighborhood or congregation and rarely advertise outside that constituency. . . . [There are now] between two hundred and four hundred black Christian schools," most founded "since the late 1980s."

The bad news, however, is that continued racial self-segregation is the seedbed of mutual suspicions and inter-racial animosities on everything from the O.J. verdict to the Million Man March, from the liberal defense of welfare rights in the name of the urban poor to the conservative case for abolishing affirmative action in the name of a color-blind Constitution.