Clinton Calls for Dialogue on Racism

Re “Clinton Calls for ‘National Effort’ to End Racism,” June 15:

President Clinton’s UC San Diego commencement speech may prove to be the most dynamic accomplishment of both of his terms. It is of major importance in establishing a philosophical pronouncement from a president that we the people are to change the way we think and act toward others. It echoes what Martin Luther King Jr. first spoke about so many years ago. This will at last begin to instill in all of us the notion that it is right and just to accept one another equally.

CHARLES H. WOHLKEN

Orange

Clinton calls on Americans to break down the “barriers” lest we resegregate America. Please, will someone point out to our clueless leader that it is his pals in the multicultural education industry, the professional race preference shills and the victim du jour lobby who have been reconstructing the barriers that Americans of genuine goodwill sought to dismantle by passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

If our president wants to make himself useful in the process of racial reconciliation, he might consider renouncing the race card as a political weapon. Otherwise, all his talk about race is just so much “picking at scabs” to ensure that they never heal.

PAT PARKER

Los Angeles

It is well and good to have a “blue-ribbon panel” study the problem, and to defend disputed policies that have grown old yet remain useful, and to lecture graduates about worthy goals.

Meaningful, revolutionary change will occur in race relations when ordinary citizens become passionately involved in attempting solutions. Without intense, voluntary personal engagement by ordinary citizens, without extraordinary voluntary sacrifice, without a transforming commitment by those who, through selfless work, change themselves in order to effect change, there will be no extraordinary consciousness-raising, no radicalization and no revolution.

FRED T. UEBBING

San Diego

As long as President Clinton’s initiatives to bring about “racial reconciliation” are discussed in terms of blacks and whites, the initiatives will fail. African Americans are not the first or only minority group in the U.S., nor do blacks claim to be affected by racism and discrimination in the same way other minority groups do. If all minorities are equal, why then do other ethnic groups continue to arrive in America and within one generation achieve the collective success that has eluded African Americans since their emancipation 130 years ago? It’s wrong to place an emphasis on diversity and speak only in terms of blacks and whites.

President Clinton and the American people need to make a decision or two. 1) Help all minorities, or 2) help African Americans. Do one or the other, if not both.

LEWIS L. LESTER

Los Angeles

Scour Randall Kennedy’s June 12 commentary as I might, I could find no clear solutions offered, just inflammatory invective aimed at the amorphous “Great American Middle.” He sets up his piece with harsh words like: “despicable acts,” “poisoned society,” “isolated, miserable, criminogetic circumstances,” “deprivations,” “menace,” “havoc,” “malevolence,” etc. Then he hits the reader with the punch line: An “expensive reconstruction” is required. “Redistributing wealth and opportunity downward” is critical to his vision of social justice. But where are the specifics? What does he want the Great American Middle to do? The answer of course is hinted with the word “redistributing”!

KENNETH J. ARTINGSTALL

La Canada

The national task force to combat church arson found no racist conspiracy or clear pattern to the widely reported fires at African American churches last year. President Clinton poured fuel on the flames instead of water to reduce tensions in an election year.

Both the human debris under the KKK’s white sheets and the shrill voices of left-wing activists incite crimes and encourage copycats. Many voters see a pattern of political opportunism, which seems to have escaped the jaded eyes of the media.

ANDRE MINUTH

Fresno