
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 30, 1995                   TAG: 9507280060
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FREDRICK McKISSACK JR.
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON DISAPPOINTS BLACK VOTERS

ALTHOUGH ``Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow'' may be Bill Clinton's theme song, he'd better start learning how to beg like Barry White if he plans on courting black voters in 1996. Then again, it may already be too late for a man in serious need of a backbone.

If Clinton thinks the heartfelt speech he gave on affirmative action is going make up for everything, he should guess again. While his aides may claim he was being brave given the current political climate, there are many African Americans including myself who are asking, ``What took you so long?''

In 1992, African Americans hoped that Clinton would be the funky president who would help erase the memory of the oppressive and unhip Reagan-Bush years. There were early signs of Clinton's trying to be a hipster for at least two generations of Americans waiting for a leader not bred on Bing and Dorsey, but Chuck and Little Richard. After all, it was Clinton, not George Bush, who appeared on the Arsenio Hall show toting a saxophone. It was Clinton, not Bush, who made an appearance on MTV before and after the election.

For 21/2 years, African Americans who voted in hope of a champion have watched in horror as Clinton has backpedaled his way on everything from Lani Guiner to welfare policy. And I know I am personally tired of watching the president getting continually punked out by Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and Rush Limbaugh on issue after issue.

Clinton did make some good points during the speech about affirmative action, especially a big slap in the face to the right wing, which has used affirmative action as an explanation for every problem in America.

``It is wrong to use the anxieties of the middle class to divert the American people from the real cause of their economic distress - the sweeping historic changes taking all the globe in its path, and the specific policies or lack of them in our country have aggravated those challenges,'' he said.

And I nodded a few sentences later when he added: ``If the real goal is economic opportunity for all Americans, why in the world would we reduce our investment in education from Head Start to affordable college loans?''

With all the hostility to affirmative action on the right, you'd think that white males were being squeezed out of the work force by hordes of unqualified minorities. Apparently, this is not the case.

The Glass Ceiling report showed that sixth-tenths of 1 percent of senior management positions in the nation's largest companies are held by African Americans, one-fourth of 1 percent by Hispanic Americans, and three-tenths of 1 percent by Asian Americans. Women hold between 3 percent and 5 percent of senior management positions. White males, who make up 43 percent of the work force, hold 95 percent of senior management positions at the nation's largest companies. The old white-boy network is alive and well.

The earnings gap has narrowed slightly, but women make only 72 percent as much as men with comparable jobs. And the average income for a Hispanic woman with a college degree is still less than the average income of a white man with a high-school diploma. The unemployment rate for black males runs twice that of white males.

Racism and bias are obvious to any African American trying to obtain a mortgage. The Chicago Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that even with their qualifications being the same, black candidates for home loans were turned down twice as much as white candidates. With Hispanics, the figure is 11/2 times as much as white candidates.

Clinton cited these facts in his speech as if it were some great surprise. Yet even without the figures, there was enough anecdotal evidence available for Clinton to have made this speech back when Lani Guiner was being called a ``quota queen.'' Or he could have made it six months ago, when Republicans began using affirmative action again as the scapegoat for all middle-class, white America's ills. Instead, Clinton said then that he sympathized with the plight of the white male.

Clinton's speech is a case of too little, too late. Even if he could, I don't think his best ``please, baby, please,'' Barry White imitation could soothe the anger and mistrust of black America.

Fredrick McKissack Jr. is co-editor of the Progressive Media Project in Madison, Wis.

- Knight-Ridder/Tribune

by CNB