Problems with racism persist

Several months ago, I turned on C-SPAN to watch as a young black aide for a Democratic Party congressman defended social welfare programs. A caller telephoned the show to give his opinion. Identifying himself as a middle-aged white male, he began criticizing African Americans for always asking for handouts. \nThen, he threw in the clincher: "Why can't your people be more like Colin Powell?"\nAs a representative of "my people," I shouted, "That's right, you tell those lazy Nubians to stop complaining!" Of course I said that in jest, for Powell is a beneficiary of affirmative action and huge investments (they call it spending) since World War II for defense contractors and the military. \nBut let's explore this a little deeper, particularly in light of the ongoing United Nations Conference Against World Racism and Powell's notable absence. As "America's Favorite Negro," Powell has a stature perhaps unlike any other black man since Booker T. Washington. And as the secretary of state for the most powerful and wealthiest country in history, he has enormous influence in the world, especially among peoples of color.\nHistorically, the United States has been known for crimes against humanity: African slavery and the slave trade, Native American genocide, lynching and racial segregation, Japanese internment, colonial wars in the Philippines and Vietnam, overthrowing democratic governments in Guatemala and Chile, etc. With the U.N.'s declaration of 2001 as the International Year of Mobilization Against Racism and the subsequent conference now happening in Durban, South Africa, Powell had an exceptional opportunity to speak to the world.\nRacism is a global problem that manifests itself in different ways. For example, each year 50,000 women and children are trafficked against their will to the United States alone. This modern-day slavery mostly traps human beings from Africa and Asia. Since the majority of those enslaved are from the developing world and the overwhelming majority are women and children, the links between poverty, race and gender become clear.\nHow can the United States sit idly by with its most important foreign policy representative, a product of five centuries of slavery, racism, and colonialism, on the sidelines? What moral authority does the United States have (particularly in light of its past and current human rights record) to speak in the future on ethnic cleansing in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia?\nMost appalling of all is the American insistence to strike reparations for slavery and any references to Israeli oppression against Arabs from the conference agenda. How arrogant. The agenda is a working document and the representatives are seeking compromise language on this and other sensitive issues. \n Anyway, it is clear to the world that Israel has engaged in a forced removal policy of Palestinians for the last 50 years. That is why many indigenous and ostracized peoples throughout the world sympathize with the Palestinians. If countries that have openly tolerated their own forms of ethnic cleansing are represented at the highest level in Durban, why shouldn't the United States and Israel be?\nAt a roundtable discussion of heads of state to open the conference last week, the presidents of Rwanda, Bosnia, Algeria, Cuba, Nigeria, and the Palestinian Authority appeared, among others. Had Colin Powell attended, he would have surely been invited to spar with the likes of Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro. Here was a unique chance to engage in a dialogue over what do we mean by "all men are created equal." Instead, we have chosen to reinforce the problem.