Skip to main content

tv   Today in Washington  CSPAN  July 4, 2011 10:00am-12:00pm EDT

10:00 am
bin laden. i think that was a foreign policy triumph for president obama, but the question is how much will that resonates in 2012? what you are seeing -- and by the president obama would say -- this is an election about the economy, not about foreign policy. it will not be unless we have a crisis of some kind. people are worrying about if we are spending the money which should be spending -- we should be spending, given the problems on the home front. i do not know how much credit he will get for that come november, 2012. host: thank you for being here this morning. happy fourth to you.
10:01 am
happy independence day. thank you for joining us. we will be back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time par. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> coming up this fourth of july on c-span, a look at forces uniting and dividing americans, and whether the united states can remain united. after that, gary sinise assesses his -- discusses his
10:02 am
foundation to honor service members and their families. >> c-span has launched a new website. it has the latest from the campaign trail, twitter and facebook updates, and links to partners in the early primary anstage. c-span.org/campaign2012. >> hear the dalai lama and martin luther king, jr.'s speech writer discuss a number of topics. >> the number of people who were killed through violence -- ove
10:03 am
r 200 million, but problem not solved. i think that kind of action and some other sort of exploitation -- it laid down the seed of hatred. the division. >> watch this discussion tonight at 6:30 p.m. eastern. >> tonight on c-span, a look foreign policys with members of his administration and his son-in- law. >> the discussion then in the newspapers were "nixon's secret
10:04 am
plan for peace -- what was it?" of course, rockefeller did not think nixon had a plan. i was waiting for my wife. he comes in after a hard day of campaigning. he liked to listen to tchaikovsky. shall i ask him? i'm almost a member of the family. mr. nixon, what's your plan? he said, i'm going to go to peking and moscow. that's howard going to bring about peace in the modern world -- how we are going to bring about peace in the modern world. >> retired supreme court justice sandra day o'connor led off the discussion. following her remarks, the panel
10:05 am
examines whether americans as a society are more divided today than in previous generations. this is hosted by the center for social cohesion, a joint project of arizona state university and zocalo public square, in partnership with the new america foundation. >> we are dedicated to studying the forces that have seeped -- shaped our sense of social unity. i am pleased to introduce the president of arizona state university. [applause] >> thank you, gregory. what i would like to say today, before i have the opportunity to introduce justice o'connor, even from arizona, of all places, and southern california, where there are tremendous forces for social change and a tremendous stress
10:06 am
that this man is tested every day in citizens and politicians, the one thing we think -- stress that is tested every day in citizens and politicians, the one thing we think is missing -- we help within the complex mix of forces that are out there to make certain that, at the in the of the day, we have a part of the debate -- at the end of the day, we have a debate about our social fabric being indicted in the way that is more thoughtful -- being invited in a way that is more thoughtful. we believe the idea of social cohesion is a high objective.
10:07 am
we have had various levels of success or failure in along the way. -- failure along the way. it is worthy of our time and attention. today, we will continue this discussion by focusing on this notion of the united states itself, its structure, its design, its orientation, its evolution. and we thought that, related to that, we have gone through a number of dynamic forces, who better than sandra day o'connor to help us think about some of the complexities associated with the design of our country? we were chatting briefly -- you hear people talk about, how might we divide the country? the governor of texas reminding people that texas could somehow leave the union. i could have sworn that there
10:08 am
were two decisions that were made along the way. manifest replacement of the articles of confederation by the constitution. the civil war. it basically said, somehow, along the way, this was the united states of america and always would be. and so, it is with that that n justice sandra day o'connor as agreed to share with us some of her thinking -- has agreed to share with us some of her thinking. she grew up on a ranch a long time ago. she was one of the first women to graduate from harvard law school and one of the first woman appointed to the united states supreme court. she remains active throughout the country still. she is still hearing cases.
10:09 am
how many of you are arizonans? she is continuing to work for solutions and on problem- solving through what is now called o'connor house, a place where people gather, her original home in metropolis of phoenix -- in metro phoenix place that raises the level of the of course -- of the discourse, which we are still striving for. justice o'connor will offer some of her thinking to us. she would prefer to sit.
10:10 am
>> [inaudible] >> ok. all right. [inaudible] >> i wish it were. that would be a lot simpler. and i apologize. thank you, michael. [laughter] michael, dr. crow is president of arizona state university, and he is doing a wonderful job under very difficult circumstances. the state has run out of money. that makes it a little hard if you're going to try to run a good university, to be told there is no more money in year and somehow, he is working things out. he is a war -- there is no more money. and somehow, he is working things out. he is a miracle worker. this is an interesting topic,
10:11 am
and good topic for discussion. i look forward to listening and learning something, too. can the united states remain united? well, i'd certainly hope so. i'm sure you do too! now, many nation-states around the world are united by blood, or ethnicity, or religion, or historic territorial identity, or some other immutable characteristics. and the united states is different from most of those places, because it's united based on none of those things, and all of them. what do i mean? we have a unique conception of our role and ourselves, and our concept of citizenship is one that is open and voluntary. the people who became americans
10:12 am
came here because they wanted to, and they wanted to experiment on a new continent. and i think we have, from the beginning, we have placed value on freedom and democracy, and we look to our founding documents, the declaration of independence and the constitution, for our guidance, and we're united by a certain number of ideas that we -- values that we think we share. there are other forms of unity of course, that are not what we're putting forward -- ethnicity, or race, or religion. and so we put those aside and reach for something else. it's the relationship between the american identity and the various sub-identities that
10:13 am
american citizens also hold that i think brings you here today to talk about it. and the sub-identities in our u.s. population capture only a part of what we are, and i guess the question we're going to talk about today is whether the overlying identity as americans, as citizens of this country, developed as it is, are sufficiently strong to overcome the divisions that we see based on the other issues that surround us today, and certainly, we have them. and i hope the answer of course is yes. we've said for years that our strength as a nation is founded on the strength of all the immigrants that came to this country. they brought diverse backgrounds, and they brought
10:14 am
expertise from various parts of the world. they made our "melting pot" in our country. and we have a history that has certainly shown a number of failures in our ideals -- the idea that we would've had slavery for as long as we did is rather amazing, considering what we thought we were doing. but i guess we got over that. we've had a lot of discrimination in this country as an outgrowth along with the we've had things like literacy -- as anoutgrowth along with the slavery. gs likead thins literacy tests for voting, and lots of other things. and many of the things we've experimented with are not
10:15 am
designed to make people feel welcome and included. now some of these problems do continue today because of economic disadvantage, because of language issues and ethnicity. i live in the southwest, and we have a great number of hispanics living in the south west, in some areas more hispanics than non-hispanics. that certainly is true in southern california. so, how do we address that, and what is the dynamic today, and how do we handle it? i think we've had major issues in the country based on some of these concerns of language, ethnicity and class. so, we're going to hear from a number of experts today to talk to us about these different aspects, and see what we do. now, i had a very simple solution. when i was in the legislature in arizona and had a leadership position there -- how could we reach accord in that group?
10:16 am
and i'll tell you what i did. it was pretty simple. i'd get everybody together and cook mexican food, and we'd sit around outside and eat mexican food, and drink beer, and make friends with each other. that worked. so, how as a nation can we sit around and eat mexican food, and drink beer, and make friends? that's the question. if we can do that on a broader scale, i think we'll come out of it all right, but i look forward to hearing some other ideas that aren't quite as off- center as my own. and i will welcome the discussion, and take notes, and see if we can come up with some better solutions. thanks for letting me be here. [applause]
10:17 am
within dot >> now, the firs>> n, "what's dividing us?" mr. martinez directs the foundation's schwartz fellowship program. he was a member of "the new york times" editorial bo
10:18 am
ard. he was also a member of the columbia law review. please welcome mr. andres martinez. >> thank you, gregory. am i on? >> it doesn't sound like it. >> is it working? it's a pleasure and honor to be here. i wanted to first of all say that our partnership with arizona state has been fantastic. my job has been with the new america foundation, a think tank here in washington, and we have a growing partnership with the university. i commend the university president on his leadership. today's my birthday. it is the first time i have been able to celebrate with the supreme court justice. [laughter] i want to quickly introduce our
10:19 am
panel. gregory is a founding director of the center for social cohesion. he is a senior fellow at the new america foundation as well. he is the executive director of zocalo public square. he writes a weekly column for the new york -- for the "los angeles times." he would like to say that this book is a memoir about his family. "the washington post" listed it as one of the best books of 2007. to his left is bill bishop, who lives in austin, texas, and is author of "the big sort." he has worked as a journalist. he and his wife owned and operated a weekly newspaper in
10:20 am
texas, and they now co-edit a web publication covering rural america. we also have michael lind, a colleague of mine that the new american foundation -- at the new america foundation. he is the co-director of the economic growth program and the next social contract initiative duty is a very accomplished journalist -- contract initiatives. he is a very accomplished journalist as well. he writes frequently for the financial times, "the new york times." immediately to my right is james gimpel. his research includes areas of
10:21 am
political behavior, political geography, and u.s. immigration policy. james is top-notch in these fields. i know from firsthand experience. his most recent book, relevant to today's conversation, is "our patchwork nation," published in 2010. having dispense with introductions. i want to start with gregory. tell us why we are here. >> to celebrate your birthday. >> thank you very much. turning 31 is really dramatic. the issue of social cohesion. on the one thing -- hand, i think that justice o'connor set the table very nicely.
10:22 am
i loved her description that we should all go out and eat mexican food. we're approaching this topic that is so timely under the notion of social cohesion. i thought we should start off by a huge describing why you seized upon that as the right framework. why are you -- what are you trying to accomplish? >> i backed into it. i spent a lot of time looking at these issues. my concern was how newcomers become part of the whole. what's the whole? who's upholding it? oddly articulate it in the vision of our country -- how do we articulate it in the vision of our country? in the 1970's, the u.s. had the lowest foreign-born personage in
10:23 am
its history. do we need to readjust how we think? can we always take cohesion for granted? one of my friends on the second panel, time article be -- tamar jacoby, talks about the difference between european and u.s. approaches to integration. she going to this phrase -- coined this phrase. wellgermans talk so po about integration, but do it so poorly. we have done it well, but talked about poorly. what is it that keeps us together? perhaps we should not assume it will happen without a great effort to keep it together. >> is part of your assumption
10:24 am
that brings us here together that we are more divided than we used to be, say 40, 50 years ago? >> i think i have to interact with where i live. i live in koreatown -- i have to answer that with where i live. i live in koreatown, in a state where 50% of the residents are either first-generation or second-generation americans. i am concerned about, in an increasingly-diversifying nation, in which we have the election of obama, which was symbolically taken to signify some sort of fundamental shift in the racial-ethnic composition of the country -- my senses and that, as we diversify, we need a greater sense -- sense is that, as we diversify, we need a greater sense of who we are.
10:25 am
>> i encourage you to use superlatives. we have members of the media here. [laughter] >> i think there is a paradox. at the political level, we are more divided. you look at partisan polarization, at any points since the civil war and reconstruction. on the social level, i think we are more integrated and we have ever been in our entire history. -- then we have ever been in our entire history. society is less divided and in the past -- divided than in the past. american politics is more divided than in the past. let's go back to 1961, close to my birth date. at that public, you had this of the war going on in much of the
10:26 am
south -- that at point, you had the civil war going on in much of the south -- you had a restrictive covenants in much of the united states, preventing not only african-americans and latinos, but also jews and catholics from buying homes in the suburbs. you had wall street clubs that discriminated on the basis of white ethnicity, not simply on a matter of race. that has changed dramatically. we have a new wave of immigrants, beginning in the 1970's, which causes tension. if you look at the largest group, latinos, but the third generation, a majority of latinos marry outside of their group, which is the major index of assimilation that you can come up with. as gregory has pointed out in his work, in the next generation or so, first and second- generation latinos will become a
10:27 am
majority again within the latino community. that is a shift of dynamic again. what accounts for the fact that, even though objectively, we are more integrated, there is more division and more rancor and more partisanship -- my colleagues all have their own ideas. i would like to throw out two factors which might not otherwise be discussed. i think they are internal and external. in 1961, there was an establishment that repressed expression of a lot of the division that did exist. you did not have 900 channels. the media were controlled by mostly northeastern elites, white males, and certain things could be expressed. you did not have the equivalent
10:28 am
-- you did apple local level, the county guy with the radio show -- you did at the local level, the county guy with the radio show. it existed by excluding people. there was a total chaos. things which always existed are now being expressed in a way that they were not in the past. the other idea before iraq up the other idea, before i wrap up, -- the other idea, before i wrap up, the country literally tore itself up during a ciivil war. there was then the era of so-
10:29 am
called "happy feelings." if you go back to the mid- 1930's, you have the liberty lobby accusing franklin roosevelt of being a communist and fascist. you have roosevelt announcing the economic royalists. the rhetoric was toned it down -- toned down until the end of the cold war. the rhetoric that is now mainstream would not have been tolerated even as late as the 1980's. those are two factors, among others. >> so, we can afford to be divided? it is interesting. there was a change about 10 months after 9/11, which suggests you are on to
10:30 am
something. if politicians floors by being decisive -- divisive -- flourish by being divisive, how can people in washington did ahead by being more divisive than their constituents are divided? >> we have the electorate and we also have the selectorate, the people who select the candidates. up until the 1970's, the party chose the candidates, and they wanted the middle of the road candidates. then there was the creation of the modern primary system. it opened up things to popular participation, but, what it meant was, instead of the party elders choosing central right and center-left candidates, you have candidates chosen by the often single-digit percentages of the electorate, the activists
10:31 am
at the left and the right to vote in the primaries -- who vote in the primaries. that is a primary factor. you have to hear over to one side to get the nomination -- and the year -- you have to be side to get the nomination. >> i want to bring in bill to the discussion. this is a good segue. michale is -- michael is saying that the parties have sorted themselves out. there is a longer this significant overlap between republicans and democrats -- there is no longer this significant overlap between republicans and democrats. now, there has been this great
10:32 am
sorting out and the beaufort -- and the overlap no longer exists. your book, "the big sort," goes beyond that. it does not just talk about the starting at the political class level, but you go deeper. -- about this 14 -- about the sorting at the political-cost level, but you go deeper. >> we wanted to know why some places were getting richer and other places were getting poorer. what we found was that, over time, places in the united states are getting increasingly different from one another in fundamental ways. for instance, up until the early 1970's, most cities were getting closer together in terms of the percentage to people who lived there, the percentage of
10:33 am
people with b.a. degrees. since that time, most prices are falling away from the mean. people with college -- places are falling away from the mean. people with college degrees are -- the same issue with patent protection. income becam -- income differentials began to increase. we could take it down to the county level. we saw increasing divergence within these 3100 counties. suicide rates have begun to discern -- begun to differentiate between rural and suburban places. in 2/3 of the counties, counties are tipping, becoming either increase in republican nor democratic -- or democratic.
10:34 am
longevity rates in about 1000 counties has stopped or started going backwards. we are seeiong 0-- seeing this weird event where where we live is becoming more homogenous. from place to place, within the united states, we are seeing diversity. we live in increasing conformity in a country that, from community to community, is becoming increasingly different in fundamental ways. how we form our families, whether we spent our kids or not -- every way you can measure. >> maybe you get tired of being asked this. a lot of coverage around your book is zeroed in on the statistic about the percentage of landslide counties.
10:35 am
i will ask you to repeat that because i think it is a startling illustration. >> we tried to figure out ways of describing this. finally, we look at the percentage of voters who live in counties where, in close presidential elections, the election locally was not close at all. about 1/4 of people lived in counties where ford or carter won by 20 percentage points or more. by 2008, about half of the people lived in counties where obama or mccain won by 20% or greater. it is almost a stairstep pattern. the trend continues through 2010. you saw those statistics that
10:36 am
some democrats went back to their republican roots. >> are pre-existing communities altering as a hole in one direction or another? -- whole in one direction or another? our people picking up to just be with themselves -- are people picking up to just be with themselves? >> i do not think politics has much to do with it. way of life tells you more about politics and policy or demographics -- men policy or demographics -- >> -- than policy or demographics. people have to choose. it is easier to do din a
10:37 am
community where your choices are being reinforced. every few years, that results in communities that vote increasingly alike. it is a lifestyle choice that is a result of a society that has institutions that are falling apart. immigrate. jim, you have added to the canon of literature of how -- emigrates -- >> great. you have added to the canon of literature about this. one of our colleagues wrote a book about "the nine nations of america." you have identified 12 separate nations in america. talk about what you found. >> our work has some overlap with their work. one important concept is the idea of party extensions, the
10:38 am
idea in political science that partisanship has been extended to have more -- ever more disparate parts of our lives. add 1 point, it was about economics, dov -- at 1 point, it was about economics, social economics -- socioeconomicals. the economic foundations of the party system remain, but overlaid on top of that in these cultural issues and divisions. now, republican and democrat does not just mean lower-income versus higher income -- higher-
10:39 am
income, but all of these other things as well. we can look at the music preference you have. some psychologists have done this already. we can predict your partisanship on that basis. we can look at your food preferences, your snack preferences. that is what micro-targeting is all about. i do not think they are as good at it yet as they want to be or they claim to be, but they are moving in that direction. what makes it possible is the partisanship has extended to these and other non-economic properties. -- extended to these other non- economic properties. >> for those of you who are not familiar with his book, i will give you a sense of these 12 americas, which do feel and sound very much like marketing categories. you have people who work in --
10:40 am
is a by congressional district or by county? by county, which could be referred to as service worker centers. evangelicals, empty nests, so forth. go to the website, plug in your zip code, find out which one of these you live in. it's fun. >> it is not just about immigrant and native. so many immigrants are not involved. they do not participate much. they do not have high levels of political knowledge. it is certainly something worth talking about. political divisions are more about rival native groups and how they are defining themselves.
10:41 am
>> this is very interesting. we are very familiar with this debate around media and people self-selecting, where they seek their information. we're in this trend in media and publishing and cable tv news where you can table -- taylor the information you want to be exposed to, as opposed -- where you can tailor the information you want to be exposed to. we now have our own filters. there is a book from the founder of moveon.org about the filter bubble, about the dangers of us being sheltered from anything that challenges our beliefs. jake writing about this on slate
10:42 am
-- i thought he had an apt metaphor. "it's now possible to imagine a world in which every person creates his own mental forces -- fotress and 0-- mental fortress and views the world through narrow arrow slits." some have posited that we're living in areas that -- >> i would reconcile these narratives. we have gone from involuntary optimization -- balkanization to voluntary. if you were irish catholic, you could not it into -- get into the ivy league school.
10:43 am
voluntary balkanization -- you can move to portland, houston, it does not matter what your race, ethnicity, sexual orientation is, necessarily. these are life style communities. is a the kind of absolute dystopian nightmare -- is this the kind of absolute, dystopian nightmare -- i do not think so. from abroad, historical perspective, this is a nice problem to have -- from a broad , historical perspective, this is a bad and nice problem to have -- a nice problem to have. bamut is still a good problem? -- >> it is still a good
10:44 am
problem? >> if some decide to be bohemian and others decided the puritans, it can be a problem. we have an increasingly- stratified class system. the allocation of people by race and ethnicity is not even through the class system. you do have a problem that bill older -- the older system, even though it's gone, can be prepared -- can be perpetuated by class because people tend to inherit the class of their parents. the gated communities where all the suburbs in a metro area are strictly outlined by degrees of $20,000, then within each one, incomes are pretty much the same -- >> and school performance is attracting -- tracking.
10:45 am
gregory, what is dividing us? >> i am less hopeful about a nation of 900 channels. i am trying not to be nostalgic for walter cronkite. it is not really about the choosing of clubs. it is the minority consciousness that often comes with that using. early in my work -- that choosing. early in my work, i did a lot of -- i traced and predicted that the latino population, as a change in -- as it gained, would gain a majority consciousness, the sense that they are responsible for the whole. what i have written about now is that what we're seeing is the emergence of a white minority
10:46 am
consciousness, this sense of an aggrieved minority. i am wondering whether the election of barack obama -- we will look back at it as the point of which all americans became members of an aggrieved minority. there was this headline about the entire white bias being on the increase -- the anti-white bias being on the increase. according to this survey, this -- these respondents actually saw white -- anti-white bias and as the worst social problem and anti-black bias -- according to the survey, the respondents saw anti-white bias as a worse social problem than
10:47 am
anti-black bias. there is a big frea. -- fear. to what extent will whites become more effective aggrieved minority than any other in our history? >> i know this is a subject you have written before, particularly when you want to boost the number of commentators. every time you write about angry white, you get about 500 people chiming in, and they're all well thought out comments. i heard from some last week who wanted me to reference -- someone last week who wanted me to reference a poll. the point that whites are "
10:48 am
ominously more pessimistic than minorities about the prospects for their children." we have reached a point where blacks and latinos are more optimistic about the future of their kids than whites, to your point about the sense of grievance. ron's book would fit well into this canon of books that are examining what divides us. i think he would second that idea that washington is more divided them the rest of the country. you mentioned that there is a source of tension and division. do you want to build on what gregory was in? -- saying?
10:49 am
>> different herbs can have different views on immigration -- different groups can have different views on immigration. i am not sure that immigrants themselves are necessarily the largest component of any kind of pro-immigration, activist community. evidence suggests that too many immigrants are not participants, even when naturalized. they do not have high levels of political knowledge or activism. they are new to the country. they are learning the ropes. obviously, there are exceptions. that is a social science generalization. immigration politics is the discussion that we can have in this warm or elsewhere about when we should have -- in this forum or elsewhere about when we should have this -- where we can
10:50 am
come at this with some intensity. >> do you feel that whites are becoming an aggrieved minority? >> i think that is an interesting point. it is certainly worth monitoring and studying. i certainly think there are quite a few whites out there, as manifest in certain parts of the tea party movement, that are concerned about immigration -- particularly the tea party groups in the southwest, i think. i do not think all of the tea party is animated by immigration. there are elements of it that are concerned about those issues. the idea that they could effectively become an aggrieved minority, with some political influence and power, is definitely worth watching. >> if you go back to the 1960's, you have damien bell and richard
10:51 am
hofstadter saying that america is on the verge of becoming a working-class state. you have every headline in the 1970's, the 1980's, the evil, angry white male. the white working-class became the scapegoat for the white, liberal elites. they were saying this country would work perfectly well if it were not for these reactionaries -- reactionary working-class whites. the complex plan -- the complex plan -- ku klux klan, things like that, over a -- it is more liberal. the -- i am skeptical sabout --
10:52 am
about this. it's a matter of time. in 1914, you might have anglo- saxon protestants wondering if the country has broken down with the irish, greeks, italians. the only reason we can sit here and talk sitwhites it -- and talk about whites is that all of those european ethnic identities have collapsed. int he -- in the 1970's, that was it. we will see the largest minority, the latinos, that we are 20 years or 30 years from that collapse.
10:53 am
it is speculation. >> i want to give back to bill in a second and brought and now the discussion -- to get back to bill in a second and broaden out the discussion. >> this poll was not a survey of to es response immigration. it was not immigration, per se -- it was not that they felt they were being immigrated -- discriminated against. the collapse of ethnicities is part of a bigger, overall problem. a professor at harvard did a book on this. the loss of individual presidents come up ethnic rootedness, the sons of specialist -- the loss of
10:54 am
individual rootedness, ethnic rootedness, the sense of specialness -- there is a notion of people having to create who they are, creating their own god -- it is a tremendous individual burden. we have not really faced what that means. that is ultimate freedom, choosing whom are god's -- who our gods are. that is a problem we increasingly will have to face. >> 1 out of 10 of everybody over the age of 60 in the united states is on some sort of an to the present -- antidepressant. depression is a disease of inaction.
10:55 am
in a society where you have to make choices all the time -- as our big groups break down, politics become more individual. public issues are only thought of in terms of individual solutions. when we think of environmental issues, we -- what can i do as an individual? as the group's break down -- groups break down, more burden is put on the person to create his or her own world, winds up in the depression, and the politics of that kind of society -- it is all individual. the group movement of class -- >> and it is all zero soum. tere is the -- there is the cliche that all government spending is wasteful unless i am getting part of it. >> the earned income tax credit,
10:56 am
tax cuts -- >> where do come down on the issue that michael raised about the idea that perhaps washington -- people here are more divided and more divisive men back, -- than back home where real people live -- where do you come down on the issue that michael raised about the idea that perhaps people in washington are more divided and more divisive than people back home? >> there are the largest pieces of steel fetuses hanging in one anti-abortion display. there's a hell of a big difference place to place. >> austin is a particular oasis
10:57 am
-- island. >> there is a big difference in the way we live and think. and, every four years, how we vote. >> a lot of our conversation is presupposing that this is a problem. there are others who have pointed out that maybe this is not all bad. abramowitz wrote a compelling book about the disappearing center, arguing that there is nothing intrinsically -- was nothing intrinsically sound about having a republican party that was composed of that overlap. he says it is nonsense.
10:58 am
we have a more educated electorate that has sorted itself out. people are more engaged. this is something we should embrace. what is wrong with that analysis? >> i agree with that. i think the trouble is that we have less crosscutting relationships. we fight about one issue during the day and have mexican food and drink beer at night and are friends on other issues. as every issue comes left and right and predictable, we are less likely -- becomes left and right and predictable, we are less likely to have friends. there is a saying in an african tribe -- "they are our enemies.
10:59 am
we married them." now match.com, one of the first thing they match people on his politics. -- is politics. there are few cases in d.c. where enemies are friends. >> jim? >> vigorous competition and political partisanship has always been good for stirring emotion and -- stiumlate -- stimulate the impetus to go out and vote, so participation goes up. from the perspective of tolerance, it could well be that intolerance is extended via these kinds of divisions.
11:00 am
it isn't just race anymore. church or not. lifestyle. dimensions of cleavage. there is hope in the suburbs, where people continue to mix. of course, there are lots of different types with technology. from a geographic standpoint, culture-less suburbs seems to be the place where there is still hope for mixing and integration. >> have you looked at the pre- world war i period? it occurs to me that the period
11:01 am
from the new deal on till further recently, we had this transition with the conservative southern democrats leaving the democratic party, the rockefeller republican norther ners leaving the republican party. with the election of barack obama, we are at the pattern we have before world war i, which is the southern and western party. then you had the more liberal northern, midwestern party. it seems to me that if you go back to that time, you get the same kind of polarization and homogeneity. with the same culture were issues from the civil war really up until the depression with prohibition, which was a huge thing and shopping, all of these
11:02 am
issues that would be culture were issues today, in other words, the idea of the american past, that is a post-new deal phenomenon. >> a lot of social science 25 years ago was looking at the decline of partisanship and the absence of polarization. now we are looking at exactly the opposite. there may be a lesson in that it. social science may be just likes to wring their hands. that could well be. i could not contest with you, but there have been other times in our past that have certainly been polarized if not so. >> i have to say as a former editorial board member that i was struck by something that jim said about the tenor of our times where you can tell people
11:03 am
what kind of music you like and you can just turn out the list of positions. one thing that has changed as of late, from weighing in from an editorial page from a newspaper, i think nowadays there is an expectation that if you take a side on one issue that your readers and politicians should be able to their foreign for where you will come down on every other issue. -- be able to therefore infer kurt darry will come down on issues. it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to even try to set themselves up as arbiters on the sidelines to judge a separate issues on their own merits. there is no issue that you take
11:04 am
one side on trade that it must mean that you take this issue over here on the issue of choice. things ever completely unrelated, but you're supposed to be on one team or the other. people get very angry and confused if you started skiing -- start mixing and matching and plot and independent course. that is frustrating but the media environment, but it is due to the political culture. one last question before we shipped -- shift to take comments and questions from you, i just wanted to ask. we are living in a time of economic anxiety, high unemployment, stubbornly high unemployment. do you drink it would be possible to go back and correlate whether the way we talk about politics and this acrimony in our cultural debate tracks with, sort of, how the
11:05 am
economy is doing as this underlying unease? or are we talking about something that is more broad? >> the look back to the beginning of the industrial. come out that is where you have depressions. -- industrial period, that is where you have the depression. there were no depressions before that. that was a cause i-depression. -- a quasi-depression. for the most part, you have politics on both sides of the atlantic, the rise of the radical right, the authoritarianism, racism, eugenics, militant actualism, imperialism. outside of france in the united states, britain, and if you constitutional monarchies in scandinavia, you have a rise of
11:06 am
radicalism in continental europe through the depression and in hitler's germany, miscellany, and everywhere. when you have slow growth, you might think that everyone would say we should pitch in together and save the nation. it is not just here, but in both democracies. whenever these subgroups may become you want to hang on to what you have in a shrinking economy. it tends to over power politics and it is very frightening. >> there is the zero some mentality. do you want to add anything? >> it does not relate these days. we did not like one another when things were going good. that was because politics is not
11:07 am
based on class groups but lifestyle groups. those sorts of relationships have broken. >> the lack of cohesion that i worry about is not a function of the economy as much as it is a function of demography. one might became a minority in the larger state of the union -- when whites became a minority, that forces us to recalculate what it means to be a member of a minority and what obligations and responsibilities they have to the whole. i did not think the bad economic times help, but for instance in california, the polls of immigration are very good right now. they are shockingly good. is long overdue. the country is changing and we still talk about it the same way we did 40 years ago. >> let's open this up to all of
11:08 am
you, take some questions. please wait for the microphone and identify yourself. we will start in the back. >> there are some point of view is that you expressed that they do not really agree with. there really divided. it is not because people want to be divided but they are forced to be divided. we have a clash with them and people are told that you should not look or communicate with people from the lower-income, in a sense, those lower-income, their houses are being robbed,
11:09 am
their income is being robbed, their social security benefits are being robbed, and they do not want anyone to communicate with them. the torture with guantanamo bay, they're not allowed to communicate with them, no lawyers, no family. can you really put that ever mission to gather -- put that information together? can you really put your efforts to reach out to those people who are minorities, in a sense, who do not have their voices heard? maybe you can look into the legal system. they have a lot of cases, they are being suppressed, and they are not allowed to talk.
11:10 am
>> thank you. it is an interesting question about whether more voices are being suppressed today than were in the past. michael alluded to this, and you made that claim that 40 or 50 years ago we were more united because a lot more people's voices were being suppressed than today. how would you amplify that or address the concern that even today there are people whose voices are not being heard? what can we do about that? >> access to having your opinion broadcast, the cost of access is falling. if you are a billionaire and you youd various media aoutlets, have much more available today even in the age of the internet.
11:11 am
again, i think this is a good problem to have, to have too many debates rather than too few. what we see in the industrial democratic world, it is like the arabs. except you could call at the western spring. there are movements in europe, the u.s., and japan about people rebelling against the political class's which have presided over this 30-year bubble that ended in disaster. the last thing i think we would want at this stage would be to have the three networks, edward r. murrow, walter cronkite, as notable as they work, to sort of say that this is the consensus opinion. there is a time for dissonance. >> i am a physician.
11:12 am
i am a baby boomer. i am 64. you have not really talked about the enormous ship to the right i have seen over my lifetime. in the 1950's and the 1960's, we were proceeding on the new deal terms. there was not the enormous difference between the rich and poor that there is now. i have always wondered why it is that most people, the working class, white or black, the middle-class are voting for candidates whose interests are promoting policies that do not support them. these people do not pay high income-tax is. they are really not affected by the deficit. the economy ran much better when demand was fired, when the inequality was lower, but this has no attraction with people in
11:13 am
the country today. i do not understand why. >> jim, what is the matter with kansas? [laughter] >> for a lot of these people, the metaphorical kansans, they have seen red and blue administrations come and go, come and go. economic circumstances have not changed for them, right? if you see a myriad of administrations of various parties come and go, come and go, and economic circumstances do not change the matter which party is in power, pretty soon you figure out that it does not make any sense to vote on the basis of economic issues because that will be pretty much the same. you are on the periphery of the economy. what do you decide to vote on then? you decide to vote on those things that could be a change, or you imagine they could possibly change.
11:14 am
you have never seen your economic plight change the matter who is in power. that is what is going on here. >> in the new deal time, we were not liberal or social. the new deal coalition was southern segregationists who believed every word in the bible was true. conservative and northern working-class catholics and a handful of former republican progressives in the northeast. let's get that clear. the country is more socially liberal according to the polls on abortion, gay rights, divorce, you name it. at the economic level, there has been a shift from the new deal liberalism to economic conservatism. part of that was the deal that a lot of these social issues have been nationalized in the course of the last half century. no one ever asked john f. kennedy or sdr what -- fdr when
11:15 am
they felt about gay marriage or censorship in the movies. those things were bitterly contested, but at the city and state level, not the federal level. >> the reference to kansas, there is this book written called, "what is the matter with kansas?" he looked at why so many people in red states but against their economic interests. the answer was a provocative one and also bill mentioned that what divides us might be less cost than lifestyle with these cultural issues. you could argue that practical little -- the political classes stir these up. people disagree about the right economic prescriptions, too. >> i am going to throw a bomb.
11:16 am
the title of this session is, "can the united states state united?" i am from illinois, god forbid. we grow up on lincoln. given the division, should we stay united? >> gregory? mr. social cohesion? should this country stay divided? >> we started this session assuming we all agreed that, absolutely, that seems to be the general point. perhaps you believe otherwise. >> i suppose that your worker, bill, and your work are that
11:17 am
people are opting not to stay united. we have a big group of united states, but if you live in the community where 99% of the people voted where you did and had the same sensibilities, in a way we are still succeeding from some common space though we are keeping the country intact. >> can we develop the new institutions to make diversity its strength? the old institutions did not -- have lost their hold. that is the political question. >> can you explain what these institutions are? >> the church. people used to belong to mainline churches. churches worked hard work early. people want to rotary clubs. y. churches worked hierarchal
11:18 am
>> i am a teacher. i did not hear anything about education. some of us did not come here as immigrants. my mother's native american and my father is black. some of our voices are being left out, but in social media there is a way to input a little bit. the problem is everyone does not have broad band. i did not hear any discussion about the equity of access to the conversations that are going on other than in the press. what do you think? how can we change education for teachers, people working with kids? how can we use social media to change? what about the rest of you? >> jim, do you have any ideas? michael did allude to the fact that we cannot presuppose that we are in a society where everyone has the right of access to make the same type of forces, when we were talking about gated communities, i thought was a
11:19 am
voluble point. do you have any ideas? >> political literacy is very uneven across individuals and communities. of course, you can predict in these poor immigrants and minority communities. i think that it is probably helpful to think of other institutions aside from just schools, however, as civic educators. the political parties obviously played a role. city advocacy groups -- so do advocacy groups. there are organizations that can elevate global political knowledge than just public schools. public schools, the civic literacy enterprise there, it is so highly publicized. possibly the way to approach
11:20 am
the dark of civic knowledge as to other means. >> i like your point about broadband. i think increasingly, not long ago that felt it was a luxury, the band width you had to access the informations superhighway, to date myself. that is a measure of how one can participate in civic life. in new america, we have a team of people at the think tank. about how it should be a public right. how do transformed thinking about that? you are right. the penetration abroad and is not uniform across the country and remain expensive for a lot of people. >> another question to your right. >> i would like to come back to what our professors are basing
11:21 am
on the rationale and reasoning why we have this great divide in the local community where citizens are living. there was a statement made that i would like to challenge somewhat and which came first, the chicken or the egg? the statement was that people do not make a decision for where they live having anything to do with politics. in part, that may be true, but it leaves out the entire supreme court decision about one-man, one-vote. since the 1970's what we have seen happening in the local communities, at the state level, at the county level, "one-man, one-vote," redistricting, they laid the mines were they think they will get the majority vote. is it that people have moved into this community for their culture, jobs, or the school?
11:22 am
then the leadership says we would like to win a state office, a local office, or the presidency so we will gerrymander around where all these people who have the same view, the same lifestyle, even though that is probably not true, but they are politically the same. i would like to ask you how you can make these social decisions without looking at redistricting and the lack of leadership in what technology has played in its role about gerrymandering and redistricting. >> here is the short story on redistricting. we look at stuff at the county level. congressional district, over time, have gotten more partisan. it did not become more partisan at the time of redistricting. they came or partisan as people began to move or change their view.
11:23 am
redistricting has not come up overall -- redistricting has not, in overall, not increased partisanship in congress. >> and jim? >> i have a slightly different take on a question. i will try to answer from some recent survey data. some recent survey data by knowledge networks suggests that as many as 30% of movers will take into account the partisan competition -- composition of the destination when they consider a move. that is the primary consideration and it is not usually first on the list. first on the list has always been jobs, family, and friends. notice something about family and friends. many times family and friends, if you make a decision on the basis of that coming in may often be a decision that sorts
11:24 am
to indirectly. it is quite interesting that even if you do not explicitly take into account the partisan composition of your alternative destinations when plotting a move, you can still wind up sorting yourself inadvertently by looking close to the family and friends or selecting a destination based on other cultural preferences discussed in his book. church, for example. you mention it as an important destination criteria, you are not only more likely to be republican but are more likely to settle near republicans. [unintelligible] >> whether this is a minority or majority, whenever the culture is. not deliberately gerrymander to
11:25 am
make sure that the voices of people are so separated and divided that we have had in this situation. >> i think that the kind of sorting that occurs incrementally, as bill discusses in his book, makes a lopsided districts much more likely. i think the important obligation then, possibly, of the court and the court system would be to move towards mandating to the extent possible the drawing of politically competitive districts. that may involve moving the redistricting process and to my non-partisan commission and the way iowa and two other states have gone. perhaps it involves other solutions. that would be one thing that i would like to see or would certainly advocate for.
11:26 am
>> there is a very rich and contentious literature to the extent which redistricting is exacerbating political divisiveness. it seems there are strong agreements and disagreements. there are some unfortunate instances of minority packing, which happens in texas and elsewhere. we could have a whole event around that. >> at this point, we will take our last question. we ask that you join us for a light refreshment back over there and then we will continue with the program shortly thereafter. and >> i am very interested in polling this drain on that intriguing insight that bill davis about lifestyle instead of class and applying it to the idea about whites as a disgruntled minority. we arugala eating liberals are
11:27 am
not disgruntled, but there are some steak and potatoes eating professionals elsewhere who are disgruntled. what did they have to be disgruntled about? >> i do not know about who is a disgruntled and who was not, i just know that they are different. those differences are extending beyond the political boundary. and they are not only different about whether they use lawn chemicals or not but what kind of car that they drive, all of these things that bush and obama used to identify people. demographics becomes less of an issue come up lifestyle becomes a bigger issue. >> this has been a terrific panel. thank you so much. [applause]
11:28 am
[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> a harvard law school professor and former clerk to burger marshall gives a speech about poverty in america today. the keynote address at this event hosted by the center for social cohesion. this is just over 20 minutes. >> we have proposal -- we have a professor randall kennedy with us today. he is a professor at harvard law school where he teaches courses on a contract law, criminal
11:29 am
law, and race relations. preserved as a law clerk in the u.s. court of appeals and for justice thurgood marshall of the supreme court. his most recent books are "nigger," "interracial intimacies," and "sell out." mr. kennedy is also a charter trustee of princeton university and holds a degree from preferred, oxford, and the old school. please welcome mr. randall kennedy. [applause] >> i am grateful to be able to participate in this symposium. implicit in the center's title
11:30 am
is the idea that social cohesion is good. i suppose that it is under certain conditions. there are categories of dictated by dictatorial social cohesion, not the kind this center which is to foster through debate. the go he's in -- the cohesion they want is a pluralistic cohesion that friends a decent society. there have now and how long been a number of all lines in america for the prospect of an -- an attractive social cohesion. there is prejudice against muslims, gender bias in the mistreatment of women, against gays adnd lesbians.
11:31 am
it separates from the impoverished who are consigned to and security, humiliation, isolation, and other baleful conditions. the resources to which are referred are manifold and include parents, nutrition, health care, housing, education, and employment. in the background of each of these resources, nourishing them and conspicuously but essentially, just like water, is money. that is why the boundary between adequate financing and it severe financial want marks the most mystified a division. those without a decent financial minimum are much more tolerable than those with a decent
11:32 am
minimum to the terrors of the nature, bad luck, and communal favor. as one journalist puts it, "being poor means being unprotected." as i use the term "the poor" or those at or beneath the federal poverty line, the poverty threshold was $11,000.161 -- $11,161. $17,000 if you had one child. with three children, $25,000. the formula for determining the poverty threshold has detractors. the formula has not been substantially revised in over 50 years. and it does not take into account regional differences.
11:33 am
it does not take into account certain non-cash forms of income, and by the same token, it does not take into account certain expenses. some, mainly liberals, contend the poverty line is too low and the bus under inclusive. others, mainly conservatives, maintained that it is too high and there for over inclusive. i agree with the former, but my purpose is not to explore, much less subtle, a complicated methodological dispute. my purpose is to highlight a highly toxic condition that received little attention and empathy. this is the condition of severe financial deprivation. for that purpose, the federal poverty line, flawed as it is, works satisfactorily. my direct concern is not with inequality, per se, rather with privation.
11:34 am
it is not the state of the so- so-economic ceiling, or more of its absence, rather i am alarmed about the state of the sodium- economic floor, more particularly its sagging inadequacies. how many people in america are poor? the number is or should be arresting. according to bureau census in 2009, 14.3% of all people in america live in poverty. that represents some 43.5 million people, 10 million more than the entire population of canada. 35 million more are children. what does it mean concretely to be poor? poverty can have many meetings. the poor are not monolithic. most are impoverished only
11:35 am
internationally, but then there are the hard-core porn, the truly disadvantaged, who remain mired beneath the poverty line for long stretches of time. regardless of whether they are short-term or long-term inmates of poverty, however, they face perilous, painful, and worst of all, crippling circumstances. among the consolation of things poverty may mean are the following -- being dependent upon financial institutions such as payday loan outlets that charge absurdities it to service those unable to afford bank accounts. living in housing that, with its mold, mice droppings, roaches, and nearby toxic dumps exacerbates your children's asthma. being unable to pay an ambulance or emergency room bill and having one's credit down
11:36 am
graded on account of delinquency. living in neighborhoods and that are lived in by criminals and police who, in dealing with the poor, failed all too often recall that their job is to protect and serve, not harass and intimidate. growing up in homes in which uneducated adults failed to prepare children for school in their most impressionable years. welcoming jail or even prison as a respite from the other destitution of the street, because after all, in the joint, one at least receives shelter, health care, and meals, even if they are delivered behind bars with the accompaniment of handcuffs and a debilitating effects of a criminal record. the unable to flee a floating city core lack of transportation or alternative housing.
11:37 am
impoverishment means for many living apart from the so-called mainstream of american society, the sectors to which politicians pay some heed. it means being hidden in plain curtain ofd and odd invisibility, residing in "the other america peacoat it means being unable to even enter bankruptcy. this puts me in mind of a case decided by the supreme court in 1973. the united states vs. crass. crass was an indigent to challenge the constitutionality of a law that conditioned his eligibility to file for bankruptcy protection from the payment of $50 fee. reversing the holding of a lower court, a closely divided supreme court upheld the constitutionality of that the requirement. writing for the court, justice
11:38 am
blackmun had the skepticism that often talks about the predicament of the poor. "if the $50 filing fee was paid in installments, as the law allowed, the average weekly payment is $1.28. this is a somewhat less than the payments he makes on his couch of negligible value in storage and less than the price of a movie, a little more than the cost of a pack or two of cigarettes and go if, as he alleges, the bankruptcy will afford him the new start he desires, and if he really needs and desires that discharge, this much available revenue should be within his able-bodied reach." my old boss, justice marshall,
11:39 am
had a different, better view. "i cannot agree with the majority that it is so easy for the desperately poor to save each week over the course of six months. the 1970 census found over 800,000 families in the nation had annual incomes less than $1,000 or $19.23 per week. i see no reason to require that families in such straits sacrifice over 5% of their annual income as a prerequisite to getting a discharged in bankruptcy. it may be easy for some people to think that weekly savings of less than $2 are no burden. no one who has had close contact with poor people can fail to
11:40 am
understand how close to the margin of survival many of them are. aipac for two of cigarettes maybe come up for them, not a routine purchase, but a luxury to indulge in it only rarely. the desperately poor do not go to movies, which they think is a weekly activity. they have more important things to do with what little money they have, like attempting to provide some comfort for a gravely ill child, as crass must do. it is proper for judges to disagree, but it is disgraceful for an interpretation of the constitution to be a premise upon unfounded assumptions about how people live. poverty, and its alleviation, occupies a lowly standing among
11:41 am
the priorities of the nation's most influential political leaders. for a brief moment, after hurricane katrina, the higher circles paid some attention to the plight of the impoverished. once a tender 15th, 2005, in jackson square in new orleans, president george w. bush recognized "deep, persistent poverty" in the gulf region and that we have a "duty." that sympathetic attentiveness, however, was evanescent. and in a cover story in 2005 for "newsweek," jonathan alter said, "it takes a catastrophe like katrina to wipe away the not so benign neglect. it looks like a black eye visible around the world to help
11:42 am
the rest of us to begin to see again." does this mean a new war on poverty, he asked. no, he answered. but this may start a skirmish or at least make washington think harder about what are the richest country on earth looks like the third world. one year later, he complained, justifiably, that president bush had dropped the ball entirely. congress had failed to perform much better. the american public, as a whole, seemed disinclined to grapple with party seriously. to the extent that the poor do make it on center stage, they typically do so as targets for vilification, as was recently shown an florida enacted the temporary assistance for needy families act which required
11:43 am
citizens of the sunshine state to pass a drug test in order to be eligible for state welfare payments. absence of personal responsibility has long been seen in some quarters as the principal cause of impoverishment. proponents of this view include herbert spencer and william gramm summer in the earlier part of the 20th century, charles murray and others in the latter part of the 20th century. this perspective attributes poverty mainly to the defects of the poor. laziness,pposed stupidity, and progress, promiscuity, lack of foresight, lack of foresight, and a pen shot -- penchant for living off of others.
11:44 am
this is profoundly erroneous. poverty should be seen as a communal problem. do personal failings play a role in the predicament of the poor? of course they do, just like personal failings afflict all persons a matter what their costs. bad decisions to drop out of school, to have unprotected sex, to end bulge in addictive drugs often tighten the bonds of the poor. there are multitudes of poor people who conduct themselves with exemplary discipline, fortitude, and plop who nonetheless find themselves stock in the cage of impoverishment and able to burn their way out. one of the many virtues in this work is its vivid portrayal about how hard poor people work
11:45 am
only to remain poor through no fault of their own. our leading politicians including our current president tell us incessantly and that america is a magical place where anything is possible for those who work hard and play by rules. left on said, but stated unpleasantly, is the notion that financial distress must be an indication that if one failed to work hard enough or played by the rules sufficiently. this belief occupies a salient place on the emotional and amended to of landscape of america. many poor people embrace it as they lacerate themselves. it is, however, an idea that is deeply misleading. what we think of as personal failings are typically more than merely personal. the usually derived from sources outside of what can reasonably
11:46 am
be considered a person's self control. for instance, a depressed economy. what is want to say about the 35% of the poor who were children? is there situation there fallbacks know, it is not, unless it is one's fault to be born to surrogate mothers or fathers. thus far come i have said nothing about an important chapter of the party story. it is a chapter that involves race relations. i shall conclude with three points about that subject. first, racial minorities, particularly blacks and latinos, are disproportionately present in the ranks of the impoverished. in 2009, the property rate for white americans was 9.4%, asian- americans 12.5%, latino
11:47 am
americans, 25.3%, and black americans 25.3%. second, although blacks and latinos are disproportionately represented in the ranks of the court, they remain minorities among the impoverished. coursed for people or white. yet the trail of poverty in popular culture nourishes the misperception that most poor people in the united states are people of color. several careful analyses of photographs in news magazines, film footage on television news shows and depictions in textbooks revealed that african- americans in particular are pictured in stories about poverty far in excess of their actual representation among to the impoverished. this is a point well made in, "why americans hate welfare."
11:48 am
when the face of poverty is black and brown, two things happen. blackness and brown as is synchronized with poverty and party is stigmatized with blackness and brownness. it is inherent in the stinginess of the american welfare regime. my third point is that race relations is a major chapter in the poverty storybooks because of racial conflict has contributed significantly to splintering the coalition to help bring about the major anti- party reformer of the 20th century. many once supported the new deal coalition defected from a daily part because of the fears that its leaders have begun to give away too much to colored people. the consequence has been a political environment that that over the last several decades has become increasingly common in the dramatically, and different if not hostile to the poor.
11:49 am
how this is a baleful trajectory to which, alas, both of the major parties have contributed. a decent social cohesion requires protecting the most vulnerable among us from the cruel, miserable, and remediable circumstances that have gripped millions of americans to find themselves mired beneath the poverty line. the united states is often lauded for what some see as its positive exceptional wasn't, distinctive commitments to traditions such as a civilian rule, checks and balances, constitutionalism, private enterprise, and individualism. and in its treatment of the poor, the united states can rightly be criticized negatively. as others have observed, nowhere
11:50 am
is the united states more exceptional than in its policy toward the impoverished. america's child poverty rate is higher than that of any other wealthy industrialized country. that should not be surprising. american anti-party policy, such as it is, does less to compensate low-wage workers and the system in escaping impoverishment than any other advanced nation. president george w. bush was correct when he asserted that we have a duty to respond to the predicament of the poor. especially that 35% your children. sadly, it is a duty that america as a whole is failing to honor. thank you very much gore your attention. and [applause]
11:51 am
>> now, the second of two panels looking at the idea of community. this is following the discussion, arizona state university president will give a brief wrap up of the entire event. this is hosted for the center for social cohesion. this is one hour, 20 minutes. >> he is the author of "replenished authenticity." his current writing focus on how immigration is transforming the society in which immigrants into great. he held a bachelor's degree from santa clara university and a ph.d. in sociology from harvard. [applause] >> think all of you so much for being here for the second panel which is entitled, "what are we loyal to?"
11:52 am
most of us still identify with certain places, beliefs, and community. these groupings may not have amicable relations among one another, but within these groups, the bonds are often strong. americans are finding community in political action, religious faith, ethnicity, neighborhood, but there's a paradox here. the notion that we are bound together and we see each other as one of us, it almost necessarily entails that we see it some other group of people as, not one of us. in many respects, the things that unite us are often the things that divide us. what are the primary entities today calling upon the loyalty of americans, and how did these sub-loyalty's affect our way we review our relationship to the nation as a whole. here to help us and to those
11:53 am
questions is a distinguished group of panelists that i would like to introduce to you. to my immediate right, an associate professor of sociology at university of california at irvine. she is also the author of, "civility in the city." she received degrees from columbia university and has received numerous awards and honors including an award for her recent book, "the diversity paradox." she will be a visiting scholar at the russell sage foundation in new york city. president and ceo of emigration works usa, workers tried to enhance better immigration law. she is a nationally known arthur -- author and she is a regular
11:54 am
guest on national television and radio. she is the author of, "someone else's house -- america's unfinished and struggle for integration." but she has also written about it. melting pot. she has also been a senior fellow at the manhattan institute and a senior writer for "newsweek." choose the deputy editor of "the new york times" op-ed page./ prior to joining the pier foundation, he served as the director of the religion program at the pew charitable trust in philadelphia. he was a professor of political science for 12 years teaching courses on international relations, on religion in politics. he has a bachelor's from the
11:55 am
university of memphis, a master's from villanova, and a doctorate from the university of chicago. please join me in welcoming our panel. [applause] we will proceed much like the first panel did. we will spend the better part of an hour talking amongst ourselves, then we will invite all of you to weigh in with questions and comments. i would like to kick this off by asking our panelists to respond very briefly to the question that headlines our panel. to do so respect above your own work, let me restate the question. what are the primary entities today calling on the loyalties of americans and how did these sub-loyalty's affect the way we view our relationship to the nation as a whole? jennifer, start us off. >> i think it's terrific that we have this opportunity to discuss what is uniting us, what
11:56 am
is dividing us, and what tomas said earlier is quite thought- provoking. the same things that seem to be dividing us also seem to be uniting us. what i wanted to talk about today were three things that i felt were important which are immigration a common language, and race. these things are inextricably tied. for many of you who may not know, immigrants and their children currently account for 23% of the u.s. population and 85% coming from latin america and asia. if you think about how that immigrant stream is very different here from the european, clearly the united states is more racially and ethnically diverse than any any point in our history. it is also more diverse in terms of class origin than at any point in our history. one of the fears that i can
11:57 am
think of a lot of americans have is, given the diversity of the new immigrants come are we becoming a more fragmented society along the lines of language? are we becoming a society with multiple languages, of or if it has been noted, are we becoming a society of but spanish and english? there are a lot of americans who are irate they have to push 1 for english. we look at the figures for the children of immigrants, what is remarkable is the english monolinguism. they uniformly speak english very well. what is sad is the fact that many of them are not maintaining their parents' language. we are becoming an english mano- lingual society on top of bilingualism.
11:58 am
i also managed to talk about identity. i think a lot of people fear that we are seeing each other and identify along racial lines, ethnic lines, and one of the things we are finding in our studies is the adults children of immigrants is that people can identify as mexican, chinese, korean, vietnamese, but that does not mean that they do not also be a land claim an american identity. we have to be careful about how we think about that when we think about people of irish descent, german descent, or italian descent. they are claiming an ethnic identity, but it does not mean that they did not also claim an american identity. we need to be cognizant of that. the other thing i wanted to talk about a little bit was race. we see each other in a distinct racial groups. a lot of people fear that the
11:59 am
united states is becoming an increasingly minority country fragmented along race. one thing that presupposes that the category of lightness -- whiteness will remain fixed. as panelists have noted, groups that were not white at the turn of the senate -- twentieth century are now considered white, irish, italians, jews and. they were not considered white anglo-saxons. i did not think anyone who would argue that of someone that is of irish republic dissent is not white. the boundaries in this racial categories are continue to change and shift. it is not clear yet how that will change. again, what we see as dividing lines are not as divisive as we a

153 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on