Being African American, I am confronted with racially oriented issues every single day of my life. While my ethnicity is not much of an issue to me, not a day goes by that someone finds some way to remind me that it matters to others.

The recent midterm election was a case in point. It's easy to tell when an election is coming up: The GOP goes into its song and dance about how everyone is welcome in the ranks of the Republican Party. And after the laughter dies, the song shifts into the chorus where the GOP claims to be "reaching out" to minorities.

I set out to write an essay about the GOP and race. I started several times, and every time, my tone was sarcastic and full of jokes about how ridiculous the situation is, and how stupid they seem to think we are. Every time, I found that what I was saying referred in some way to an interview that I did over the summer.

Finally, I decided just to publish the interview, as there is no way I could say any of this better than the way it was said to me. This interview is a long read, but I hope it is worth the time. It covers racial issues in a way that we don't often hear, and whether it is accurate or not, it shows how far from a real, meaningful debate we are in the United States. And you don't have to suffer through any of the jokes I had written in the other essays I had started to write.

I did this interview for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
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University of Minnesota law professor and Institute On Race and Poverty Executive Director john a. powell insists on spelling his name in lower case. He says that in the 1960's when many African Americans were changing their names, using lower case, "...was a way of taking my name and making it my own".

The soft spoken powell, who will be leaving the University in January to head the Institute of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas at Ohio State University, spoke with me on a number of issues that he has studied over his career.

"As you know, I'm the director and founder of the Institute on Race and Poverty, and the work is really about dealing with issues that affect low income communities of color...at the intersection of race and class in the United States and around the world. To some extent, even though that's the focus, those issues affect all of us. We have large numbers of the population that are excluded from participating fully in society. It affects the whole fabric of society.  So even though the issue certainly is about low-income communities of color, it is really about the aspiration of creating and building a just, democratic society.

"Democracy and justice associated with democracy, in this country, and around the world, really is an aspiration. One of the things to think about is, what are the implications? We have segregated housing patterns, segregated schools, we have people isolated from health insurance, and we have communities ravaged by unemployment. What are the implications for the entire society?

"Toni Morrison probably said it best: 'For years we studied the history of what racial segregation and slavery has done to the emotions and psychology of black people, but we haven't really looked at what it has done to the emotional and psychological health of white people'. "

IP: What would you say has happened with their emotional and psychological health?

" In some ways I think it's crippling. W.E.B. Dubois said we've traded democracy and justice for white supremacy. The whole society has been crippled by this. The struggle, I think, is about the soul of America, and about the future of democracy. So in some ways, it's a much larger struggle than what most people acknowledge. And I would go further and say that even when we deal with it in practical terms, like racial profiling and schools and health care, ultimately it's also rooted in a sense of spiritual being. We increasingly recognize our relationship to earth matters, how we abuse the earth and our trust. We still have to realize that in relation to each other. So part of it is to sort of rethink how do we not just change lives, but how do we dream again? How do we make those dreams real? How do we dream of a society as a loving community, where we all recognize that we really share a common destiny, that we are a family?"

IP: Would it be fair to call your point of view a holistic one?

"I think that would be fair. I think this sort of comes both from reflections and experience. On some level, if we fail in this process, we will fail as a nation. It won't be simply that black people, or Latinos, or Native Americans in some way have failed.

"When I teach property classes, I always start by teaching about the taking of Native American land. I always get a few students who ask why we're studying about Native Americans. And I say we're not-we're studying about European Americans. This is the start of European American development of culture here in America. If we want to study Native Americans, we have to study what was going on before the European Americans got here. Once they got here, the defining moment for them, and for Native Americans, in many ways, was the taking of the land."

IP: So, in many ways, when we study Native Americans, we are studying their reaction to European Americans.

"Exactly. In the same way, African American history is really American history. When we talk about slavery, we're talking about Europeans more than we're talking about African Americans. Now, the experience of being a slave is the African experience, but the experience of owning slaves and being in a society that built on a slave system is the European experience. And that's something we don't realize. We think that studying slavery is studying about Nat Turner or John Brown. It's not. It's about humanity.

"I think what's great about this country is its aspirations. And sometimes people get concerned when you're critical. But if we're not going to languish as a society, (we need people), whether it's people like Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Jefferson, or Martin Luther King, or Mahatma Gandhi. What made those people great, they were able to get people to move closer to those aspirations. It wasn't simply patting people on the back and saying everything is fine. Because everything is not fine."

IP: To realize those dreams and aspirations, what is the part of the communities of color?

"A couple of things. I think we all have a responsibility, but it's a different responsibility. If you think of a family, certainly the wife has a responsibility, but the husband has responsibility, but it's not the same responsibility. So, people of color...have a different responsibility.

"It's very deep. I think we can learn a great deal from South Africa. (After apartheid), they talked about truth and reconciliation, both saying that we all have to reconcile, but we first have to acknowledge the truth  There's going to be some contestation about what's true. But we need to sit down and have that. And then, I believe that we have to talk about arranging structures in society so that we can achieve-it's not just simply liking each other, it's not just simply understanding each other. That's an important part, but it's only a part.

"It's the way we divide cities and suburbs, the way we fund schools, so that we don't have good schools and poor schools, for examples. These are problems that have very serious consequences for fairness.

"...Forgiveness does not mean acceptance.  Forgiveness occurs, in the biblical sense, when someone acknowledges and repents. If someone is beating you up, you don't forgive them while they're beating you. They have to first stop beating you, and they have to repent, have deep sorrow about it. In a sense, forgiveness is not just about having sorrow for the past, but having implications for the future. To give you an example of a husband who beats his wife: as long as he's abusing her, I think it disrespects him for her to accept that. So she doesn't forgive him while he's beating her, she forgives him at the point where he's really ready to change. That's what's called for, respect to both parties-'I'm willing to accept you if you're really ready to change'. In terms of apartheid, if you're willing to say 'we're ready to end (apartheid) and move toward justice, and what we did was wrong, and we're ready to correct that', (then forgiveness can occur).

"I think certainly black people have been a very religious and spiritual people, I think that's what has kept us intact, and I think we have to deepen that. My understanding of spirituality, I think, is not simplistic...The point where we really recognize our common humanity-becoming a humane being is a project.  The question is: how do we actually build a society, build structures, build institutions, build relationships that support our humanity? ALL of our humanity. All of us have some responsibility.

"In many ways, whites have continued to benefit from a set of arrangements. It doesn't mean that they are personally racist."

IP: A lot of people overlook the economic dimension of slavery--that the economy of this country, to a large extent was based on labor done by slaves.

"That's right.  But then we had Jim Crow after slavery, which was extended legally until 1954, but didn't really end until much later. The reality is that slavery was a big, powerful part of the economy, not just in the United States, but in Europe. As a result of that, slave labor in a slave system built this economy. Now, what does that mean in terms of the sons and daughters of slaves? What does it mean in terms of Native Americans?

"Here we have the richest economy in the world, and it was kickstarted for well over a hundred years by the slave trade.  What does that mean in terms of fairness?

"I'll just give you an example. There's some writing that suggests that white baby boomers will inherit close to ten trillion dollars when their parents die. Black baby boomers collectively will inherit debt when their parents die. Native American baby boomers collectively will inherit debt when their parents die.  The way that wealth is transmitted is inter-generational.  We can trace why that's the case to very explicit racist policies in the past.

"That doesn't mean that today the white baby boomer who will inherent that wealth has done anything wrong him or herself.  All they've done is to be there to inherit, but that's a problem. If you're going to make things right-I think you can make things right by looking at the past, and by looking to the future. It's a problem in a society when you distribute resources based on wealth-for one population to have trillions of dollars, and another population to have debt.

"Dr. King talked about that when he said he was presenting America with a check for a debt unpaid. He was talking about that very same thing, that we haven't paid, we haven't addressed it. So slavery wasn't just an institution in terms of how people treated each other. It was an institution that created a disparity in opportunity that was largely reflected throughout the land.

"The great land giveaways happened after slavery, but even after blacks were apparently freed, they were not able to participate in the giving away of the Native American land. 2/3 of white Americans were poised to become landowners, where blacks were not.

"(Government programs in the 1940's and 1950's) enabled many white Americans to become homeowners for the first time, heavily paid for, subsidized, and insured by the federal government. Blacks and Native Americans were excluded...When we talk about whites inheriting ten trillion dollars, what we're talking about is inheriting homes that their parents bought in the 1940's and 50's when Jim Crow housing policies prevented Blacks from acquiring homes.

"The residue of that policy...black people are inheriting the consequences of that kind of apartheid. Whites are inheriting the consequences of apartheid.

"Take Bill Gates. Bill Gates has more wealth than all the black community combined.  How is that so? Now you can't tell me that Bill Gates works harder than 37 or 40 million black people. He works hard, obviously-he's a smart man. And he's doing some good things, funding AIDs research and medication in Africa. So I'm not talking about him personally. But the system is rigged in such a way (that we have institutionalized problems), and we've never stepped in and corrected it.

"We never said 'hey you don't have any land-I have all the land.  You don't have any wealth-I have all the wealth'. In South Africa, that's exactly what they're looking at. They're saying 'How is it that the black South Africans can be full members of society if they don't have economic resources?' And the reason they don't have economic resources is because of apartheid.

"If they're going to address that, they're going to have to engage and disturb the situation with non-whites."

IP:  Where would reparations for slavery fit in?

"Reparations is a very complicated issue. It means different things to different people. What I will say is this: Society's resources in this country have been distributed along racial lines, and are still being distributed along racial lines. That's wrong...At the end of WWII, we said Germany had to pay reparations to both individual German Jews, and to the country of Israel. We didn't just say 'You lost, you can no longer kill Jews'. We said 'You have to pay something; you have to do something to help Jews re-establish themselves economically'. We have not been willing to do that with African Americans. I would say as long as you have this huge disparity between Blacks and whites in this country, there's a problem.

"At least raise the question: Are we serious about justice?

"I don't know if you address it through reparations, but it seems to me that we have to have some mechanism for really addressing the huge economic disparity. Not just the economic disparity, but the huge disparity between blacks and whites in all areas."

IP: Statistics show that socioeconomic factors are a better indicator for crime rates than racial factors...

"Certainly. And I would say, although income is a very important indicator, I'd say wealth is a more important indicator. And not just individual wealth, but community wealth. When you live in a community where most people are white, even if you're not, you're likely to benefit from it...even to the ability to decide what's a crime. I argue that we're all constitutionists, we should all be involved in constituting society. We all should be involved in making the rules of the game.

"Maybe the most important thing in a democracy is the right to fully participate. It's through the participation in democracy that you create structures, that you create land reform, that you create laws, that you create a constitution. The person who makes the rules is a very powerful person. . It's not just playing by the rules; it's having a chance to make the rules.

(Referring to the riots in Los Angeles after the police officers who had beaten Rodney King had been acquitted), "Riots were an expression of this feeling that institutions don't work for us. And that's part of what we have to change, not so we can just feel that, but that it's also true, that people have real, not meaningless access to institutions and structures and life opportunities. That means, economically, culturally, and politically..."

IP: In the last week [this conversation happened in July of this year], we've had two black males who were beaten by police on videotape. And earlier this week, Bush was asked at a press conference about his failure to appear at the NAACP conference. He essentially pointed to having Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in his administration as an expression of his concern...

"It's interesting...Bush chose Cheney as vice president; Cheney represents corporate America. When corporate America has a convention, Bush doesn't say he doesn't have to go, because Dick Cheney or any of the other corporate elites have jobs in the administration; he shows up.

"He doesn't say 'I paid rich white people off, so I don't have to listen to them any more. He's with them every day."

IP: Before we end, what more can you tell me about the position you are leaving the University of Minnesota for?

"I'm going to Ohio State to run the Institute On Race and Ethnicity In the Americas. It will look at a number of similar issues throughout the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and also throughout the world. We will also bring together a group of scholars from different disciplines that can have a synergy by looking at these issues in concert with each other. In many ways, it will be similar work (to Minnesota's Institute On Race and Poverty), but it may be a slightly different emphasis.  I will be moving to Ohio at the end of the year."

Information about the University of Minnesota Institute On Race and Poverty can be found on the internet at http://www.umn.edu

isaac

I report. I decide.