REGARDING RACE

July 2000
		A New York Times series is examining the state of race relations in everyday America. Where do U.S. race relations stand in the year 2000? Are there racial issues that need further discussion? Times reporter Dana Canedy, former Times writer and George Mason University professor Roger Wilkins and Dartmouth College professor Mary Childers take your questions.

Forum introduction What's behind racial separation? Why are native peoples left out of conversations like this? Don't these discussions reinforce racial separation? Will casual racism ever decline? Why do discussions of racism focus on white people?     July 11, 2000: Five experts discuss a New York Times series examining race in everyday America. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of race relations and the media.     "How Race is Lived in America" The New York Times Learning Network The New York Times

Alec Greyhorse of Stateline, Nevada asks: Are we again forgotten? Either invisible out on the reservation (out of sight, out of mind). Or co-mingled in the urban centers, statistically insignificant for purposes of discussion. Indigenous people are the roots of government in this country. We are the keepers of this Nations spirit. Why do you think indigenous people are left out of conversations such as this?   Dana Canedy responds: A great question. We did not set out to do a statistical analysis of race in America. And this series was certainly not all inclusive. Rather, what we offered were portraits of people living with race day to day. We set out to tell the best stories we could find based on a number of factors, including the access to and honestly openness of the people we profiled. This is certainly not the last word The Times will have on this topic, but we think we offered a series that advances the dialogue on this difficult but important social issue. That said, your point is well taken and gives us valuable feedback going forward.   Mary Childers responds: I was also disturbed that a lengthy series entitled "How Race is Lived in America" referred only briefly to indigenous people. One of the New York Times reporters indicates in her Web journal that she uncovered a story about a state park built on the sacred grounds of Plains Indians, but her published piece focused exclusively on a former plantation and the black/white dynamic that disproportionately dominates the New York Times series. The Times wisely recognizes the particular salience of African-American history and the inadvisability of designing a series according to strict formulas for being inclusive, but unwisely omitted an explanation of how it defined race and the parameters of the series. At the same time that Native culture is being adapted by some spiritually hungry European-Americans and appropriated for commercial purposes, many people in the United States are unaware of the continued existence and struggles of indigenous people. Deep knowledge of our country must include grappling with what Vine Deloria, Jr. calls "the distinctive status of Indian rights." There are a number of reasons why Native Indians are more likely to be represented in museums than public debate. Deep discomfort with the country being founded on genocide, preoccupation with east and west coast urban problems related to race, and the small size of the indigenous population are all elements of this neglect. Although I agree that representatives of Native groups should be called upon more often, the history of racism obliges me to balk when any group is assigned the role of being "the keepers of this Nations spirit." It is time for us to summon a different national spirit together.   Roger Wilkins responds: Your perception is right. Indigenous people are largely forgotten in these conversations. I think there are several reasons for this. You have a very good handle on most of the reasons -- out of sight and out of mind and statistically insignificant in urban settings. Nations -- like people -- tend to sweep hard problems under the rug whenever they can. Reservations in Arizona, Montana and the Dakotas are very far away from the consciousness of most Americans so the issues can't be made to stay long in peoples' consciousness. In this sense, numbers do count. Blacks were twenty percent of the population at the time of the Revolution and were intermingled (though subjugated) with the white population. The plight of blacks just wouldn't go away because we've been intermingled ever since--and won't today because we're all over the place. The same is surely now true of Latinos as well. By contrast, indigenous people have always been forced to the geographical rim of white life in this country and then into reservations. As a result of that physical segregation, it was also easy for the mainstream culture to create psychic segregation by saturating the culture with hideous fantasies about who indigenous people are and their history in dealing with white "civilization." There is one final reason for forgetting indigenous people. Our crimes against them are too horrible to contemplate. They were here and then all the rest of us (including blacks) came. Then the American nation in essence conducted a two century war against the indigenous people (ethnic cleansing in which blacks also participated) which didn't end until Wounded Knee. That's pretty hard to contemplate and mighty expensive to deal with. So the problem is swept under the enormous rug of American fantasy and forgetfulness.