Apartheid. USA 1988

January 28, 1987:

The civil rights leader, the Reverend Jesse Jackson commented on race-conscious behavior and recent racial incidents in the Times as follows. ‘The truth is that black, white and Hispanic workers are economic neighbors, sharing assembly lines, lunch-rooms and public transportation. We wait in line together for unemployment insurance and for bleacher seats at the stadium where our young men perform as modern gladiators while the business elite enjoy their tax deductible view. Our young people work together at whatever jobs they can find; enlist together in the armed forces and serve together in the same battalions. There is, in fact, more integration in Queens County (Howard Beach) than in the board rooms of our major newspapers,

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or any television network or any Wall Street firm. Those good, comfortable people who react with righteous indignation to the headlines about Howard Beach work in more segregated offices, send their children to more segregated schools, go home to more segregated communities than the residents of Howard Beach. Dr Martin Luther King's dream is closer to reality in Queens than on Wall Street. Meanwhile, for the last six years, President Reagan and his Administration have combined regressive economics with race conscious behavior. Mr Reagan has never met with the Congressional Black Caucus or with the national civil rights leadership. He has suggested that the question is still open whether Dr King was a Communist - 19 years after that great man's death. Representative Charles Rangel, an expert on drug policy, was excluded from a meeting on that subject in the White House because there was “no chair available”. The White House is more segregated than Howard Beach.’ Jesse Jackson referred to the white farmers in Forsyth County, Georgia ‘as feeling like an endangered species’. He added, ‘What can they expect from an Administration that has presided over the decimation of family farming?’ He further stated that Americans had to move beyond the battleground of race-conscious behavior onto the common ground of economic progress.^37.

37. The New York Times, Op-Ed page article (excerpts)
• Perhaps Jesse Jackson could apply the same high standard to South African race problems, instead of advocating disinvestment and economic boycott.