THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 28, 1994 TAG: 9407280014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By BOB HERBERT
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
The speech was delivered in Indianapolis without a lot of flamboyant rhetoric. It spoke the truth, unadorned, without crude appeals to prejudice. It was courageous, intelligent and important.
Hugh P. Price, the new president of the National Urban League, said it was time for a new, more realistic approach to the problems plaguing African-Americans. He warned: ``We must not let ourselves, and especially our children, fall into the paranoid trap of thinking that racism accounts for all that plagues us. The global realignment of work and wealth is, if anything, the bigger culprit.''
In the overheated, oppressive, finger-pointing atmosphere in which much of our racial discourse is conducted, Price's speech was a welcome breeze. He was direct and unapologetic in his opposition to racism of any kind and to the fantasy of black separatism.
``Belief in racial inclusion goes to the marrow of my bones,'' he said. ``I fully understand the instinct to separate when we are incessantly under economic siege, when we're still discriminated against some 40 years after the Brown decision, and when, thanks to those recurring images on evening newscasts of black youngsters being hauled off to jail, even our honor students are trailed like common thieves when they enter stores.
``Even so, it's suicidal economically to become so bitter that we isolate ourselves from others.''
Price's speech, the keynote address to the Urban League's national convention, was the latest acknowledgment that the role of traditional civil-rights organizations has changed.
Like the NAACP, the primary focus of the Urban League is on finding remedies to the desperate situation facing poor blacks in America's inner cities. But the NAACP has alienated many of its traditional supporters by embracing Louis Farrakhan and others whose messages have been divisive at best, and at worst blatantly racist and anti-Semitic.
Price was clear on the direction the Urban League would take under his leadership. He said: ``Many whites of good will have accompanied us on our long journey for racial, social and economic justice. None has matched the Jewish community as long-distance runners in the civil rights movement. Just as we denounce misleading media stereotypes of African-Americans, it is morally repugnant as well to impugn an entire people, especially longstanding allies, like Jews, because of the unconscionable behavior of some of them.''
The essence of Price's speech was his recognition that the catastrophic circumstances enveloping so many African-Americans are in large part the result of changed economic conditions that are having a devastating effect on many whites as well. Blacks, with the least in the way of resources, are being hammered worst; but no ethnic group has been spared. Long gone are the days when the local manufacturing plant was the gateway to the middle class. The new world of employment is one that is steadily buffeted by technological innovation, radical corporate downsizing and the wholesale transfer of low-skilled jobs to low-wage workers overseas.
Said Price: ``This ruthlessly competitive world waits for no nation, no ethnic group and no individual.''
No substantial improvement in the condition of African-Americans in general and inner-city residents in particular can be achieved without a heroic effort to cope with these complex economic forces.
That will require sophisticated leadership, unrelenting hard work, intellectual rigor and a firm commitment to reality. The belief that all evil is the result of the white man is worse than not helpful, it's monumentally destructive.
Hugh Price is one of many African-Americans throughout the country who have long since rolled up their sleeves and gone to work in a serious way on what has become a hideous array of social and economic problems.
They have the talent and the will to succeed but not nearly enough support. Needless to say, they don't get the same attention as Jew-baiters and celebrities in handcuffs. But they are the true leaders. They are the ones who will make things better for future generations.vpeIn America: Blacks' problems, plainly seen MEMO: Mr. Herbert is a New York Times columnist. by CNB