Remarks at a National Italian American Foundation Dinner

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 25, 1999

And all these other examples - the young gay man Matthew Shepard, a year ago this week being stretched out, literally, upon a rack; James Byrd being pulled apart in Texas because he was an African-American. Not because all Americans are like that - almost all of us aren't - but because in each of us there is this fragile scale, like the scale of justice Mr. Scalia must try to balance in his work. And in this scale we wake up every morning with some curious balance of light and dark, of hope and fear. And when the scale gets badly enough out of whack, the easiest thing to do is to strike out against the other.

So I say again to you, Italian-Americans have been subject to discrimination and bigotry in times past in America. You still are subject to stereotypes that I think are unfair and unrepresentative, to be kind about it. But it is because of the values you share with other Americans that we have a prosperous economy and a healing society. And we just have to remember that overall. Yes, I hope a lot of your children make hundreds of millions of dollars by starting Internet companies; yes, I hope that my plans to take care of the aging of America and save Social Security and Medicare will prevail; I hope our plans to elevate the quality of all of our schools will prevail; I hope I can convince both parties in Congress to resist temptation and save enough of this surplus to get us out of debt for the first time since 1835 over the next 15 years. I hope all of that. But remember this: The most important thing is to build one America out of this crazy quilt of all of us who live here.

Last week Hillary and I had the eighth of her Millennial Evenings at the White House. And we had an expert in the Internet, who helped to design the architecture of the Internet; and an expert in genomics, who talked to us about the human genome project and the miracles it will bring. He says one day the intersection of computers and gene studies will enable us to put digital, microscopic digital pieces in all parts of the human body to do even the repair work on shattered nerves to the spine. And we talked about all the miracles out there.

And the genomics experts said, but what I want you to understand is that of all the possible permutations among people, with all many, many parts of every gene, 99.9 percent of us is identical to that of every other human being. And the genetic differences among groups - that is, individuals among the Italian community, for example - are more significant and greater than the aggregate average genetic differences between Italians and Irish and Africans and Latins. It's important to remember. For people of faith, it reflects the wisdom of our Creator.

So I say again, I'm indebted to you for many things - your work ethic, your family ethic, your creativity, your energy, your passion - it made America a much more interesting place and it fueled this remarkable run we have had. But your commitment to see that neither Italians nor any other human beings are subject to degradation and prejudice because of who they are, that we will learn to honestly and openly express our differences and enjoy our differences, but reaffirm our common humanity, make no mistake about it - just pick up the paper any day; look at the perils of the present day. We are in a conflict between modern possibility and primitive hatred. One America is the only answer, and you're leading the way.