Rights Groups Hopes Dim for Clinton Speech

WASHINGTON — As President Clinton prepares for a long-anticipated address on U.S. race relations this weekend in Southern California, black and Latino rights organizations are pressing for concrete commitments from him to fight housing discrimination, reduce police abuses and provide education and job opportunities for racial minorities.

But as Saturday’s speech at UC San Diego approaches, the civil rights community’s once-hopeful expectations have dimmed, with minority leaders bracing themselves for what they expect to be an emotional appeal for racial healing--but few, if any, proposals to make it happen.

“We have no idea what his program is,” said Charles Kamasaki, an official in the Washington office of the National Council of La Raza, one of many groups represented at recent White House meetings to discuss the speech. “In all honesty, not knowing is what makes me worry the most.”

Other black and Latino leaders said that they have left the meetings with Clinton or his aides--including one Tuesday at the White House living quarters--thinking he is leaning toward dealing with the serious issues of race and discrimination mainly through what one leader described as “feel-good, Oprah-type show” that could “backfire and make everyone feel worse after all is said and done.”

Not wanting to upstage their boss, White House aides have been reticent about releasing details of Clinton’s speech. But they have acknowledged his intention to call for a “national dialogue” on race, to be conducted by a seven-member task force of nationally known experts on racial issues. The task force is to travel across the land, inviting diverse groups of Americans to engage in honest conversations about race and ethnicity in a rapidly changing nation, officials said.

As Clinton made clear in his inaugural address this year, helping to heal America’s racial breach is a key goal of his second term. He often has mentioned his “obsession” with race and frequently has urged Americans to “come together to heal racial divisions” in society.

However, civil rights leaders have criticized him for taking so long to articulate a comprehensive national policy to improve race relations. Indeed, the wait for a comprehensive statement on race from Clinton has been made more difficult by a spate of racially tinged events that occurred during his first term, rights leaders said. These included the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the Million Man March on Washington, the suspicious burnings of black churches across the South and repeal of California’s affirmative action programs.

In the eyes of many in the civil rights community, Clinton is at the point where he must move beyond rhetoric.

“They have been dragging their feet for [a] summit on race relations in America for as long as they could,” said the leader of one prominent black-led civil rights organization. “Now, the White House has to, as that guy in the movies says, ‘Show me the money,’ if he’s serious about improving race relations.”

The task force that Clinton apparently intends to create would have a 50-member staff and a $900,000 budget to spend on its nearly two-year assignment to conduct town hall meetings, collect data and draft a document to be given to Clinton.

Laura Murphy, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office, said town hall meetings were inadequate to address inequalities between black and Latino Americans and white Americans.

“What I was hoping for was something more like the Kerner Commission, which conducted hearings and interviewed experts and released a detailed report,” she said of the document that emerged in the aftermath of the urban riots of the 1960s.

Murphy said her conversations with White House officials have led her to believe the president wants to talk about race but not have the federal government actively influence conditions that might improve racial attitudes.

“We are a people desperate to talk about race,” she said. “But what I would tell President Clinton is that he’s not a disinterested party in this situation. That hosting a conversation is OK but inadequate because the president controls millions of dollars in federal resources. Given that, talking is not enough.”

Part of the frustration civil rights leaders express about Clinton is that when he took office in 1993 as the first Democratic president after 12 years of GOP control of the White House, they expected a dramatic turnaround from the estrangement they felt during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Under those Republican regimes, their alarms over what they perceived as underlying reasons for racial tensions--growing poverty, discrimination and unfair police activities--were either ignored or dismissed.

While the White House has been more accessible to them under Clinton, they have watched in dismay as his focus has been on such issues as balancing the budget and reforming welfare.

Mary Frances Berry, who chairs the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said she expects Clinton to say that with the economy doing well, crime declining and anxiety about the nation’s future lower than when he took office, now is the time to address the race issue.

She said Clinton seems sincere about “using his bully pulpit” to call for improved racial tolerance. But, she said, “it’s not enough.”

Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, said he has asked Clinton to strongly back tougher antidiscrimination laws and curbs on police abuse of black people.