Monday, January 21, 2008

The wide support expressed for Barack Obama's presidential campaign -- and from some unusual sources -- is a measure of racial progress in this country. And while some raise the prospect that bigotry could doom Obama's candidacy, it's possible too, that near-100 percent voting participation by blacks and an energized younger generation could more than make up for people who weren't likely to vote for this Democrat in the first place.

Anyway, in considering the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I was reminded of something that Cliff Montiero of the NAACP told me during the aftermath of the shooting death of Providence police officer Cornel Young Jr.

[The arrival of flashy Los Angeles lawyer Johnnie Cochran, to represent Young's mother] wasn't appreciated by Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr., who says Cochran and the $20 million claim came as Providence was beginning to "heal" from the pain of the tragedy. "If anything, he'll inflame things," Cianci says. "We're not going to let him divide this community."

The fact, however, is that Providence -- like virtually every city in America -- was divided long before Cochran came to town. Although Rhode Island's capital has become a symbol of urban rejuvenation, which is celebrated subliminally in NBC's Friday-night soap Providence, long-standing concerns about racial inequities and police-community relations were ignored until Young's death galvanized a storm of grassroots activism. As Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence chapter of the NAACP, put it: "There was polarization before the shooting, but it was quiet polarization. Now we have loud polarization."

As with last year's Papitto controversy at Roger Williams University School of Law, the issue of race is almost always present in America, although it is acknowledged and discussed far less frequently. So it's not surprising that much of what civil rights veteran Julian Bond told me eight years ago remains true:

Q: As a veteran of the civil rights movement of the '60s, how do you see the outlook for progress?

A: As Yogi Berra said, it's déjà vu all over again. Many Americans think that the Civil Rights Acts of '64 and '65 solved whatever racial problems the country had, and that there is no necessity for any vigilant action against racial discrimination. Secondly, I think people are suffering from race fatigue. They've heard about racial problems so often and for so long that they are tired of it and they want it to go away. There are probably more reasons. Finally, there are so many competing concerns for the public's attention that weren't as prominent in the 1960s -- environmental concerns for one. A combination of these and other concerns make it difficult to focus attention on what I believe is the most pressing American problem. ...

Q: How can individuals and communities do a better job of coming to terms with this?

A: We all have to take some ownership of this problem and say, I'm implicated in this, because all of us are implicated in it. There are no innocent bystanders here. Each of us, in his or her own way, has to find a way to work toward the amelioration of these problems.

Matt has a good rundown on today's MLK events here.