Obama Presidency Stirs New Reflections on Civil Rights

CAMILLE CHARLES: You know, this has sort of been an ongoing question and I think part of the confusion is a kind of static sense of what it is to be black or African-American in the 21^st century.

And I think there's sort of this sense that the community now has expectations similar to those of the community 40 or 50 years ago where, you know, I think there was more of a nationalist bent and I think that notions around identity have changed and I think that notions of what we can expect realistically to get done and our perceptions of that have changed.

And I think that one of the important things is that President Obama really stresses notions of fairness. He comes out of a community-organizing background that, you know, where he worked in black communities. I don't think there's any question about his dedication to issues that certainly disproportionately impact the black community.

And I think that as long as he stays true to those goals and has been very clear about addressing poverty, addressing urban policy, which is often, you know, the code for black issues because in terms of issues around employment, around fair and affordable housing, around public education, in urban areas, those things disproportionately negatively impact the black community.

And so I think that really the language has changed and that there is confidence that he will deal with the issues that are "our issues," quote, unquote, but that also they are not specific exclusively to the black community; they affect other communities as well. And I think that gives him more latitude to address those things without being perceived by non-black communities as elevating the needs and concerns of blacks over those of all other groups, which I think would be problematic for him.

BILL LANN LEE: May I supplement what Camille said?

RAY SUAREZ: Sure. Bill Lann Lee, go ahead.

BILL LANN LEE: Camille made the point that African-American specific issues often are not so. And I think that that's a very important point. Issues of hate crimes, police misconduct, problems with mortgage lending, voting rights, problems we have in our public schools, segregation and achievement, those are not just African-American issues.

And I think Camille's point that these are concerns that affect other minority groups, particularly Latinos, Asians and other groups of that kind, but also affects poor people generally. And I think that that's an important point because the civil-rights struggle was always intended by Dr. King not to be just about the African-American community. And when he gave those wonderful speeches, I think, particularly toward the end, he was talking about a broader group of people and he was talking about the entire country.

RAY SUAREZ: Janet Murguia, you wanted to jump in there?

JANET MURGUIA: Well, no. I would just echo that I agree that President Obama seems to be taking a broader view. There's not sort of necessarily a particular minority or race-driven filter in which he is looking at the country. And I think that's appropriate.

Even those of us who represent organizations that represent communities of color understand that we want what's best for the country. But by investing in these communities and helping lift them up, we will be advancing our country. So we, I think, share the great vision that President Obama has for this country and understand that we can find ways to achieve solutions that address needs in this country, but also help close the gap for many of these communities that still find themselves far behind.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor, let me follow up with you because you noted in your answer that while some of these maligned forces in society don't solely affect black people, they often disproportionately affect them. But at the same time as that is true, whether you look at life expectancy, access to health care, numbers of years of schooling, median income, all of the metrics we use to measure progress in the society, at the same time, you've got this celebrated human being who has just broken the toughest glass ceiling on the planet.

And if you're trying to move people politically to a place where they're going to back legislation that serves the interest of heavily burdened Americans, can you ask a mass population to keep both things in their head at the same time, that minority Americans are disproportionately impacted yet have access to the highest reaches of the American opportunity structure?

CAMILLE CHARLES: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think - again, I think in many ways we're sort of stuck in an obsolete way of thinking about this, so that, you're not going to find a poor black person who thinks that when President Obama talks about reducing poverty that he is not talking about them, whether he says black poverty or not.

You know, you're not going to find a black person whose kids are stuck in an under-performing school who thinks that he's not talking about their kids when he talks about doing something to reform urban and public-school education - again, whether he speaks specifically about black people in those circumstances or not.

Part of that is sort of, you know, a - pardon a pun, guilt by association, right? He looks like we do. There's also part of it that is an understanding that he couldn't get to where he is by, again, elevating black issues over and above everyone else's issues.

And I think that third, there is an increasing understanding among minority populations - not just the black population, but Latinos as well and poor whites who, again, often really get short shrift because those - that almost seems like an oxymoron, I think, in sort of mainstream conversation. But I think part of what President Obama benefits from is that things got really bad for everybody and that at least in this moment, you know, there is a lot of sort of common understanding about tough times and suffering.

And while it may be a newer experience to be facing foreclosure or eviction for some segments of the population than it is for others, you know, we could all use a hand in one way or another right now. And I don't - I think that as was said earlier, the fact that President Obama does take a very King-like approach to this - you know, he's talking about our common humanity, which has been important in the black community for a long time anyway.

And so again, I just - I just don't believe that folks in my community, in my neighborhood, for example in Philadelphia are really sitting around waiting for him to roll out the black agenda.

I think that they can see that his agenda includes us as it includes many other Americans and ultimately, all Americans. And I think part of what is so refreshing is that he's doing this and approaching this in a way that really just forces us to think about our better selves as Americans and what we claim to aspire to be about and maybe get us closer to being that. And the common humanity that comes along with that.

JANET MURGUIA: Ray, I would just add - just briefly add to that is that one of things that was remarkable about the speech that he made on race in Philadelphia was that he said that it's okay for us - somehow that speech opened up a window that created space for us to talk about this so that it didn't have to be about race anymore.

And in some ways, de-stigmatizing conversations about how you address certain issues without it necessarily always having to be about race creates, I think, a real window of opportunity for him to address these greater needs in the country and allow us to understand that communities of color can be part of that conversation and yet somehow, it doesn't always have to be about race.

BILL LANN LEE: I think in the years to come in this administration, I think you're going to see long thought about reforms in this area of addressing the concerns with, you know, the issues that the LGBT community faces that are very much like the issues that other groups face. And I think that that is part of a historic pattern of greater inclusion. Hate crimes legislation is likely - it's been introduced in years past. It's almost pass before and I think that it probably will pass - that will extend the protections of federal prosecutions for hate crimes to LGBT communities and to those victims.

And I think you're going to likely see that with respect to employment and there's a bill called the ENDA Bill and so I think that - our society has changed and the courts have recognized more of these issues. And some of these issues are sort of gender kinds of issues - treated gender kinds of issues but I anticipate that the administration will be - the Congress will be moving on these issues.

RAY SUAREZ: We got a lot of questions from a lot of viewers that really were venting more than they were questions. Maybe venting is the wrong word but wanting to get into the conversation to express a point of view. So let me just give you a couple of those.

Brendan writes from Toronto, "When will we finally admit there is, to the best of my knowledge, only one race of humans on this planet? I keep hearing the word race used to refer to ethnic or cultural groups. I belong to the human race and my background is Celtic."

A Worried Viewer writes from Columbia, Md., "Why the emphasis on our first black president? You seem to miss the fact that he was the best person for the job with an attitude and moral compass that our country needs right now. I didn't hear anything about the color of his mother's skin or the race of the grandparents that raised him to be the man he is today. Obama is the man of the people; don't turn his presidency into a racial proposition."

Jimmy writes from New York, "Civil rights mean many things. It's not just a black struggle. It's so many different colors of people. Does the fact that a black man is in office change how Native Americans, Hispanics, all those different people will be treated?"

Many more coming in this week as Americans are still trying to digest this week's historic inauguration. Janet Murguia, somebody who didn't want their name used writes in from a state that they didn't want used, "What about immigration? That's a civil rights issue too. What's going to be done to help immigrants gain status?"

JANET MURGUIA: Well, I think we would agree that immigration could be seen as a civil-rights and human-rights issue as well. What we're seeing as a result of the lack of reform of our immigration laws is a very negative, vitriolic environment that is creating real, dire consequences for many.

We've seen the rise of hate crimes against the Latinos rise at least 40 percent, as documented by the FBI and the Department of Justice in the last three to four years. And we've seen the debate grow more extreme.

So we welcome the debate over immigration policies. I think, you know, we need to take the hate out of this debate that seems to be emerging. And we recognize that, you know, race-baiting and scapegoating and fear mongering should have no role in shaping this federal policy and cause much harm in communities all across the country. So there's no question that our country's current immigration policy needs to be reformed. You know, this environment of demonization and detention and deportation is expensive, ineffective and inhumane.

So we do need a practical solution that brings basic common sense to the immigration process and strengthens our borders, documents the 12 million people living in the shadows and restores the rule of law. And we certainly are going to make this a priority. In fact, President Obama, when he addressed our National Council of La Raza conference and many other Latino national audiences in his campaign, promised that this would be a priority for him, and we intend to hold him accountable.

RAY SUAREZ: Go ahead, Bill.

BILL LANN LEE: I think that there's - the targeting of immigrants makes law enforcement, in many communities, very, very difficult, because people are not cooperating. And that creates a terrible situation and that's an additional reason to address these issues.

And I think it's one of these great issues of our time that we're going to have to do something about. I wonder, could I say something about the expressions that you read?

RAY SUAREZ: Mm-hmm. Sure.

BILL LANN LEE: You know, it's interesting, because race is sort of about self identity, and that's how we often think about it, but racial discrimination and racial perceptions are really about how others see us, not how we sort of see ourselves. And that's the problem with - that's where discrimination arises, how others see us. And I think the fact that we have a man who is half-white and half-black and that he is perceived of as black in our society says a lot.

And also, we - you know, this - when we talk about discrimination, we're often not talking about purposeful, hateful, intentional kinds of things; we're talking about stereotypes. And here we have a president who has busted a lot of stereotypes about African-Americans. And I think an interesting question is, how did we come to elect a person who's perceived as African-American, and does that - you know, how do we deal with discrimination?

And I think part of it is looking at how we got beyond stereotypes to look at the qualifications of this superbly qualified individual who's been elected president. And do we do that when we, you know, sort of see black people as lazy or see, you know, brown people as falling in this way and we see yellow people as this and we see gay people as this - I mean, we got beyond stereotypes. And there's a social science term for this: We looked at individuating factors. And we need to look at more individuating factors in our daily lives when we make decisions.

Are we on the verge of some renegotiation of what all of these terms that we use so easily and so sure of what we mean by them, on our way to something else?

CAMILLE CHARLES: Sure. You know, I'm biracial and actually, so is my husband. So we are both half-white and half-black, you know, basically using the terms that society - or using the logic that we have used in this country, because for sociologists and for most of us, race is a social construction. There's nothing that can be measured in my DNA.

And I think that there certainly is a generational shift if you think about biracial people. So I am of the same generation, as is my husband, as Barack Obama.

And in our generation, as much as we may have wanted to try to claim all that was our heritage, there were external forces pushing us into a particular box. And I think that if you read President Obama's autobiographical accounts, despite who raised him, he was being pushed in a particular direction and he felt - and those social experiences help to form one's identity.

I would say that I went through a similar set of experiences - though my primary caregiver was African-American, I went to all-white schools, I lived in an all-white neighborhood, but had many of the same struggles.

Biracial people were much more rare when we were kids. And facing those identity decisions, you know, I think that we're reaching a point, certainly, where there is more latitude to claim alternate identities - identities that weren't common. And we are trying to move beyond American notions of a one-drop rule in terms of how one ends up being defined as black, or non-white, as it were. And so, you know, I'm not sure. I don't think we're in the post-racial era that was being pushed in the media, in particular during - certainly during the primary season and then during the campaign season.

I think that one of the other things that we learned in this process is that, you know, Barack Obama benefits from what sociologists call exceptionalism - that we can see him and see his individual qualities and that doesn't necessarily change anything about our group stereotypes.

And so if you look at some of the polling that was done, I think Google and USA Today had a big poll toward the end of the campaign season where they showed that there was a high level of adherence to negative stereotypes about black people among Democrats - among likely Obama voters. They just see him differently than they see the group as a whole.

That's a start, obviously, but it doesn't mean that we're definitely on the edge of, you know, becoming a post-racial society.

RAY SUAREZ: One down, tens of millions to go. Professor, I want to thank you for joining us today. Bill Lann Lee, good to talk to you. Janet Murguia, I'll see you around Washington.

JANET MURGUIA: Thank you very much.

CAMILLE CHARLES: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: And thank you all who joined us today. That's all the time we have. I want to thank our guests, Janet Murguia of the National Council of La Raza, Camille Zubinsky at the University of Pennsylvania and Bill Lann Lee for being with us today.

And I want to thank all of you who took the time to submit questions. Until next time, thanks for listening. I'm Ray Suarez.