The panelists, without exception, referred to society’s past mistakes and misconceptions and the resulting impact that is still felt. Michael Honey, a professor who teaches labor and ethnic studies and American history at UW Tacoma, noted that the economic impacts of slavery and white supremacy impoverished many African Americans over generations while helping whites accumulate capital and pass it on to the next generation.

“White supremacy is still a very active, social, economic, political construct that works. In our day and age it particularly works, I hate to say it, through the Republican Party.”

Honey said that beginning with the Richard Nixon presidential campaign, a “Southern strategy” was developed that sought to attract working class white voters who had traditionally voted Democrat.

The key to getting those votes, according to Honey, was to make white workers think they would benefit over blacks via Republican representation. Since Nixon, Honey said, the Republican strategy has gotten even worse. He cited the privatization of many programs and cuts in funding that have hurt public schools. These and other policies, he said, have polarized people along racial and class lines.

“The danger in a state like Washington, with a relatively small black population, is that many will see racial disadvantages as things of the past,” Honey said. “But in fact, they’re still very structured into our society.”

Political Science professor Andrea Simpson took a look at unemployment rates, which she said are impressively low for society in general, but much more disturbing when compared by race. Overall, she said, the unemployment rate was less than 4 percent. But for blacks it’s more than 8 percent. When black men are compared to white men, the disparity is even greater. More than 8 percent of black men are unemployed during these times of economic prosperity. Only about 2 percent of white men are unemployed.

But Simpson said some of the problem comes from within the African American community. She questioned the institutions that historically have advocated for blacks. The NAACP, she said, has focused more energy on blacks’ image on television and throughout the entertainment industry than it has to combat AIDS, which she said was one of the leading killers in the African American community.

Maria Root, who has extensively studied interracial marriages, noted that there is a growing acceptance of marriages that cross racial lines. She said there was an especially encouraging increase in the number of black women marrying white men. Those numbers had remained mostly static for many years, but within the last decade they doubled, she said. Root attributed the statistical change to a number of factors, including improvements in civil rights and women’s rights.

But there is work to be done, Root said. She pointed to the prevalence of segregated neighborhoods as one example that racism is continuing to thrive. Another example of racism, she said, can be seen during times of economic troubles. She said that economic downturns, to this day, prompt finger pointing toward the minority community as the cause.

“On the surface, Washington state likes to think we’re very progressive on these issues,” Root said. “But racism is alive and well in the workplace and some of it really revolves around perceived competition for resources.”

Angela Ginorio considered some of the obstacles that minorities in rural Washington face in obtaining higher education. Using data she had collected, Ginorio showed that virtually all families, regardless of race or class, want their children to go to college. But minority children, she said, rarely see examples of college-educated people within their community.

In fact, she said the most common example of a college-educated person - often the only example minority students see - is their public school teachers. Without a family member to model, students are more likely to see college as inaccessible. And if minorities do break into the academy, they face challenges that whites don’t, she said.

One member of the audience asked about the internal conflict of one’s roots and one’s professional accomplishments. He asked the panelists how to balance his working class background with his role in academia.

Ginorio responded, recalling the advice a friend had once given her: “You will be suspect no matter what, so you may as well do what you want to do,” Ginorio advised the questioner. In that way, she said, one ceases to be a victim and instead challenges the system, becoming a healthy threat.

Diane Gillespie, a liberal studies professor at UW Bothell, talked about what it meant to be white and to be a part of the movement for racial equality. She said that whites’ unconsciousness about race stems from inherent white privileges.

By shifting the focus from the victim to the perpetrators of racism, Gillespie highlighted another difficulty involving race. Becoming aware of white privileges leads to questions that have no easy answers. Do whites relinquish privilege? Can privilege be extended to everyone?

But despite the difficulty of the issues raised, Honey said there was no reason to give up.

“I don’t think it’s a hopeless struggle at all,” he said. He said society needs to emphasize an agenda that includes programs and policies designed to address inequities. Also, he said society needs a rallying point that would bring different people together around a common cause, as Martin Luther King tried to do during the Poor People’s Campaign for racial and economic justice. ¶

Steve Hill