Affirmative action
Dionne, E.J. Jr.
E.J. OIONNE, Jr. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION just & unjust at the same time resident Bill Clinton's initiative on race is already running into the classic problem of American ven tures in brotherhood and...
...The largest problem facing Clinton's Commission on Race Relations is deciding on its goal...
...We forget what a big deal this is...
...E ©1997, Washington Post Writers Group Commonweal 8 September 12, 1997...
...The genius of Walzer's little book-at 112 pages, it is shorter than the reports commission members will be required to read-is how realistic it is about the contradictions confronting those who would create an open society...
...American society is a collection of individuals with multiple, partial identities...
...That is its strength...
...It aims only to "produce similar hierarchies" among groups "by supplying the missing upper, professional, or middle class to the most subordinate groups...
...Toleration sounds minimalist-you "tolerate" what you can't stand...
...It "also sustains common lives, the different communities in which we live...
...Walzer then offers this brilliant aphorism: "Toleration makes difference possible...
...Can the president's commission P "1 hate people who carry signs...
...Affirmative action "causes real injustice to particular individuals" who are "usually members of the next-mostsubordinate groups" and thus "breeds politically dangerous resentments...
...AFFIRMATIVE ACTION just & unjust at the same time resident Bill Clinton's initiative on race is already running into the classic problem of American ven tures in brotherhood and sisterhood: We can be nice or we can be honest, but we rarely manage both...
...Without social justice, there will be no racial justice...
...Each group has a very complex relationship with the others--and, if we're being really honest, each is itself highly diverse...
...But a presidential commission won't make us all think along certain lines...
...Can it come up with alternatives...
...Walzer's conclusion is that toleration is easier in societies where economic inequalities are not vast, where individuals have opportunities for advancement, where intermediate associations-family, ethnic, union, political-are strong...
...Toleration, Walzer writes, "sustains life itself because persecution is often to the death...
...To that end, every member of the commission should read On Toleration (Yale University Press) a book by Michael Walzer, my favorite contemporary political philosopher...
...Honest means we're upfront about our differences, not only between blacks and whites, but also among blacks, whites, Asians, and Latinos...
...Yet we also acknowledge that individuals live in groups and that each group, especially minorities, has a right to "a voice, a place, and a politics of its own...
...How many of us are honest enough to admit that...
...Walzer's book should not be oversimplified, so I'll deal with only two of the challenges he poses...
...This is not a cynical statement...
...This can make even the most successful AfricanAmericans feel separate from a society they see as hostile...
...If it is seeking universal understanding, it will almost certainly fail...
...Sure, whites should understand that African-Americans confront a legacy of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism...
...How can we square these two goals...
...Historically, it's extraordinary to achieve-as Walzer puts it"the peaceful coexistence of groups of people with different histories, cultures, and identities...
...Yet affirmative action is not truly egalitarian...
...We think, rightly, that people, whatever their race, ethnicity, or religion, enjoy their rights as individuals...
...Intolerance," Walzer notes, has "group-sustaining effects...
...Sure, nonwhites (and, for that matter, non-Protestants) should appreciate that for all their flaws, our Anglo-Saxon founders created a regime and nurtured an idea that provided unparalleled freedom for outsiders and dissidents...
...Can the Clinton commission-and the president himself-grapple with the fact that affirmative action may be simultaneously just and unjust...
...Slavery and segregation could not survive in the climate they created...
...Nice means we try to get along, respect each other, and not pick fights...
...Failing to open opportunities reinforces black feelings of isolation and encourages the very sort of black separatism that whites condemn...
...difference makes toleration necessary...
...A fair conclusion is that to deal with race, we need to think beyond race...
...help us think that through...
...He is especially good at dissecting our strange time when individuals have very weak attachments to their communities...
...One is the core difficulty of affirmative action...
...Walzer is also wise on the dual-and contradictory-obligations of a free society: We seek the possibility of both "individual assimilation and group recognition...
...The American paradox is that we began with a Constitution that permitted slavery and a Declaration of Independence whose core idea subverted slavery...
...It needs to find practical goals-and practical ways of encouraging us to meet them...
...On the one hand, it is obvious that America owes recompense for its past deeds against African-Americans...
...This only makes them long for stronger identities and shout louder in claiming how important those identities are...
Vol. 124 • September 1997 • No. 15
