Interview With Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine - part 2 - President Bill Clinton - Interview

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

The ironic thing is, there's no reason here--when we tried to pass the Brady law they said, "Well, this won't do any good because all these criminals get their guns either one-on-one or at gun shows or urban flea markets."

Mr. Wenner. Let me change the subject. This is absolutely amazing-

The President. I feel passionately about this, and I'm glad I took them on. I'm just sorry I couldn't win more. There are a lot of good people out there in America who work hard; their only recreation is hunting and fishing; they don't follow politics all that closely; they get these NRA mailings. They're good people, but they think they can believe these folks. And they know that if they can stir them up, they can raise more money and increase their membership. And they do it by basically terrifying Congress.

Race Relations

Mr. Wenner. How would you characterize race relations today, as compared to when you took office?

The President. I think they're considerably better.

Mr. Wenner. In what ways?

The President. Well, I think, first of all, the country is changing. It's growing ever more diverse and, therefore, more and more people are having more contacts across racial, ethnic, and religious lines. And I think that, ultimately, the more people relate to each other, the more they come to not just tolerate--I don't like the word "tolerance" in this context because it implies that one group is superior, putting up with an inferior group and tolerating them.

I think the more they come to genuinely appreciate each other's heritage, find it interesting, and find a fundamental common humanity--I think a lot of it is just systematic human contact. And beyond the human contact, I think that the race initiative we started led to hundreds of efforts all over the country to have honest conversations. You know, sometimes people work around each other for years and they don't know the first thing about one another. Forget about race. I mean, there are people who probably work in the White House who see each other every day that don't know the first thing about one another.

So I think that the one thing we did was to spark all these conversations and also to highlight systematic efforts that were working in local communities and try to get them replicated around the country in communities, in workplaces, in schools. I think that there was a genuine effort to deal with that.

I think the third thing is that we may have had some impact on it, I and my administration, because we were so much more diverse than any other administration in history. And I think people felt, who had never felt that way before, that the White House was their house, too; the Government was their Government, too. So I think the climate in the country was positive for that.

Mr. Wenner. And you sense that change in climate from those factors in--

The President. Absolutely. Look at the difference--

Mr. Wenner. Because this is one of your main priorities.

The President. Yes. And look at the difference in the rhetoric in the Presidential campaign this year. All the rhetoric is about racial inclusion. Now you know, we could argue about the policies. I think that the Republican policies are still divisive, but the rhetoric is about inclusion. And even they- a number of their members have taken a different tack on immigration.