Tutu and Franklin: The Present (continue)
For instance, when someone would come along and say, "I have been tortured," the, the judiciary tended to believe the police as against the evidence of the person who said, "I have been tortured, and what I said I said under duress." And we, we are saying--it's a blessed word but it is an important word for us, coming out of a situation where things were hidden so much, where, where there was so much secrecy. We, we say for goodness sake, government must be transparent. It must be quite clear what is happening, and that links into the accountability thing.
But we also recommended that, as a matter of urgency, there should be a summit called on reconciliation, because our process, although it has assisted recommendation--reconciliation to some extent, has also, I think, perhaps exacerbated the alienations and the tensions, because when you, when you hear all of these stories about atrocities, it doesn't then make you want to stretch out your arm of friendship to the people who were responsible for the atrocities.
And we're saying that it would be important for people to try to find ways of building bridges.
DR. FRANKLIN: Yes. There is--this other difference, namely, that so many of the perpetrators of the worst practices are no longer living in the United Sta--they're--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
DR. FRANKLIN: --no longer alive.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah; yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: And, therefore, amnesty cannot be held out to them.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
DR. FRANKLIN: Nor can we get any, any, any expression of remorse, or, or contriteness on their part. So we have to depend on, on other, other ways of getting at this, and what has happened in our country is that while the, the government, now, has turned its attention to legislation and practices that may be, that may be just, such as the Civil Rights Act, and so forth, and such as executive orders that improve housing conditions, at the same time the reaction of groups that are literally opposed to this--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: --not only remain, but increase.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah; yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: But increase in such a way, that it's difficult for our, our legislative, or, or law enforcement arm to get at these people.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
DR. FRANKLIN: Subtle practices--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
DR. FRANKLIN: --of, of, of a thousand different kinds. So that you've got this kind of--this sort of situation. Take the employment picture, for example. We have clear proof that, that young white boys with a high school education have a better chance of getting a specific job that's described and advertised than a minority with a college education.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Is that right?
DR. FRANKLIN: With four more years. Yes. There's plenty of evi--there's plenty of evidence of that. We also have evidence that, that if you--if a young minority couple is attempting to rent or purchase a home, the owners, or the real estate company, will simply say that home is not available, it's been sold, or it's under contract to be sold, or the owner has changed his mind. And the only way we know that that's discrimination is then the--then we send out a white couple--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: --to seek the same property, and they get it.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: You see.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: But of course this is a long--a long--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: --and difficult--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: --process.
DR. FRANKLIN: Yeah.
DR. FRANKLIN: You can then secure justice for the aggrieved party, but it's sort of one by one by one, like Churchill says he's going to battle the invasion of the Nazis block by block--
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
DR. FRANKLIN: --by block, you see.
ARCHBISHOP TUTU: I, I would want to say two things to that. I believe that there is significance in someone representatively saying we are sorry, we are sorry for what our forbears did to you. I mean, it is, it is not--it is not a legal thing, and yet its impact is phenomenal. Your, one of your presidents, I think, George Bush, apologized to Japanese-Americans for what happened to them after Pearl Harbor, and sent--I, I gather sent checks, after he had, he had spoken in a representative capacity.
