Racism and prejudice.

Racism and Prejudice

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We present in the follov:ing pages a summary of the remarks made by moderators and panelists, ~vith some of the questions and comments offered by participants, in the discussion sessions of the joint conference held by the Academy of Religion and Mental Health and the Metropolitan Applied Research Center, Inc., in Ne~v York on April 29-30, 1970. The theme of the conference v:as "The Collaborative Responsibility of Religion, Psychiatry, Psychology, and Education in Dealing ~with Racism and Prejudice. Beyond the Dilemma--What Can We Do Next?" ThE EDITOR

ISSVESgun ALTERNATIVES(Section I) Moderator: Stephen Graubard, Ph.D., Editor, Daedalus, Harvard University. Panelists: Matthew P. Dumont, M.D., Chief, Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems, National Institute of Mental Health; James Turner, Ph.D., Director, African Studies and Research Center, Cornell University.

Recent events seem to fall into something like a pattern of serious abrogations of that subtle, delicate, friable thing that is democracy, said Dr. Dumont. Experience shows that we--especially the white middle class--soon come to accept these abrogations when they are often enough repeated. For example, the refusal of the mayor of Seattle a few months ago to direct his police department to assault the local headquarters of the Black Panthers as part of a nationwide attack on that organization by the Justice Department confirmed the existence of that co-ordinated plan, even though the Department denied the charge. Preventive detention for the control of crime, the existence of the U. S. Army's computerized data storage and retrieval system for two million protesters throughout the country, the trial balloon about

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the Justice Department's subpoenaing transcriptions, notes, and other records of reporters, are further instances of what Dr. Clark has called "soft fascism." All this has nothing to do with involvement, with malice or conscience; it has to do with incredible technologies emerging from our proficiencies. Social science has a sacred duty to push back the frontiers of truth. It is not concerned with who uses what information. N o w our technologists, our predictors, have become extremely sophisticated in their ability to point out who follows what very specific behavior patterns, and this at a time when rage against protesters is getting out of hand. The budget of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration of the Justice Department has increased in recent years at a rate unimagined in history for such purposes. Much of the money is being spent to increase the hard weapons of local police departments to control citizen behavior. A great deal of it is spent for computers, which is terrifying because of the rapid development of computers. A computer generation is three years, which means that three years ago we could not have conceived of the capacities of today's computers. Demonstrations of what computers can do are amazing. For example, it is now possible to put spotters on the Palisades side of the George Washington Bridge and pick out randomly selected license plates of crossing vehicles so that by the time the cars get to the New York side one of them can be picked up as a stolen vehicle or for any other reason. W e have produced psychopharmacological wonders that can control affective states and behavioristic modes with increasing precision. W e can modify all kinds of behavior with great finesse. Even though these technological proficiencies are emerging from people with great good will, people carrying on pure scientific tradition and concerned with alleviating suffering, the implications of these techniques for the control of deviant behavior are a little frightening. Perhaps in the past some of the great evils of mankind have arisen not from malicious people, but from people of good conscience who have been part of the monstrous phenomenon. Perhaps the difference between the greatest and the worst of us is not much greater than the difference within each of us at various times, or even at the same time. It may be that the moralizations we have heard from


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our speakers today have little relevance to the kinds of terror that will soon be upon us and that the anxiety we should be feeling is not about the bad people who are saying and doing bad things, but about our own unexamined, unquestioned, unstated behaviors as part of what may be some monstrous social forces. Dr. Turner said that although the questions of repression, of fascism, are very real and there are many signs of imminent danger to the security and liberty of all citizens, fascism is not new in America, but only recurrent. With relation to the position of black people in this country, it does not supersede the more threatening forces of racism. Progress for black people has been advanced from hard to soft fascism, from relatively hard, brutal, barbaric, overt political repression and physical abuse to a more soft, subtle, benign position of soft fascism, though they have never escaped the oppression that comes from the context of fascism, no matter how benevolent. There is an almost irresistible imperative among sensible and concerned people to talk about racism primarily in moral terms. Though questions of moral values and ethical integrity are important in the over-all problem, Dr. Turner suggested that this approach has serious limitations in our theoretical formulations and analyses and subsequent conclusions affecting policies. It is the tendency of concerned, liberal social scientists to talk about the moral defect of the individual racist, the psychology of the racist, and to feel the need to refute the arguments of the racist about the inferiority of the victim that has, in many ways, brought us to where we are now. There has been a kind of emphasis that has distorted our way of looking at the reality of race relations in the United States. Emphasis often determines the nature of the message we receive. With this approach, there was great jubilation over the decision of the Supreme Court sixteen years ago, but now we are somewhat dismayed at the results of what we celebrated then. W h e n we see reactionary, regressive, fascist evils reappear in Congress, we ought to ask ourselves whether we did in fact seal the coffin on those elements at any time in our campaigns against racism. Did we ever turn out the racists from government? Was that our concern at all? The fact that the deliberation in Congress over

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whether the 1965 voting rights act should be extended brought very little if any response from liberals illustrates the kind of concern Dr. Turner had in mind. It is not surprising, he said, that five years after the passage of legislation that was hailed as the hallmark of social progress and political liberalism we are confronted with debate over its extension, because the major limitation of most of the civil rights campaigns has been that their concentration on the moral element did not arouse people to approach the structural problems in the society that needed attention. Concern for the normative as well as for the structural order of the society must be combined in any political program for change. Not to understand that more than a question of attitudinal change is required, that a structural change of the entire nation must be brought about, is to fall far short of what is needed to adjust the problems of race relations in America. For example, we have talked much about the dehumanizing, barbaric cruelty of racism, but we have not talked about the basis for survival of the continued activity that creates dehumanization. W e must look in depth at the question of why black people are so defenseless in the face of the inhumanity of others. Dr. Turner believed that the answer can be found by observing more closely the structure of society and the normative process that establishes relationship between structural components in the organization of the state.

A liberal social scientist recently suggested that the solution to the race problem was the dispersion of the concentrated black populations to reduce their visibility so that they may be more tolerable to the majority group. Many who consider themselves liberal found this a reasonable idea. Would it reduce the barbarity, the inhumanity, of the conditions in the ghettos? Would the personalities of the ghetto inhabitants be any less distorted? Would these people be able to exercise any influence in the body politic? Much confusion arises from our use of terms. We use words like "ghetto," "high crime areas," and "slums" as if they were synonymous. They are not. Again it is a matter of emphasis. Often we do not consider the legitimacy of community and the correlating institutional and political positions of community among or for black people. Since we do not accord political legiti-


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macy to black people, we can hardly accord them human legitimacy. W e must reappraise the nature of racism in its relation to institutional organizations. To do the work necessary to change people's attitudes and not to address ourselves to the problem of reducing the status of oppression and providing black people with the resources to become self-suffcient and to defend themselves from others is to be self-deluding. An illustration of this kind of problem is the proposed N e w York State office building in Harlem whose vaunted benefits for the black residents of the area seem to many to be more likely to complicate things for them. W h o would be there? W h o would be the businessmen drawn to the rejuvenated district? For whom would the social services be provided? H o w many cocktail lounges would there have to be for the workers in the office building? H o w soon would the black people be forced out of the area to make way for luxury housing for the white workers? Another illustration is the recent construction of South Commons, Lake Shore Drive and Lake Meadows Drive apartments in what was formerly a predominantly black area of Chicago. There are now less than ten per cent of black people in the area. Many of the former inhabitants have been moved to a swampland filled with quonset huts. There are many other cases of completely broken communities. Black people are not so much the victims of individual acts of discrimination as they are subject to a comprehensive organization throughout the nation that conspires to keep them propertyless, dependent, and powerless. Most of those in every black area depend upon external institutions and people for the resources necessary for subsistence. An early instance of the property deprivation of the blacks goes back to the Homestead law under which the blacks, who were not citizens, got none of the land west of the Mississippi, although they were the largest work force in the clearing of the land. There is a tradition in America that, though a man may not have a legal deed to land, there is a higher deed that grants him land by dint of the labor that he and his forefathers have put in on the land. Millions of blacks have qualified for that kind of deed, but because the mechanization and specialization of agriculture requiring considerable education have made black people economically expendable on the farms, they have

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been forced to leave the land with no heritage title. T h e y have been driven from the land by the uselessness of their labor. They have found no commensurate opportunities in the North and so are now again threatened by increasing fascism commonly called white backlash. If this repeated cycle is not to destroy most of what we know as the republic, we must broaden our concerns for race relations beyond the moral imperatives to concerns with political programs that will bring a new political shape to America. Without a transfer of power there can be no adequate revision of race relations in our community.

Eugene Ayres, of MARC, observed that the political structure that created our democracy came out of a compromise between the repressive forces much like those we have now and some Jeffersonian ideals. The only change during the years is that the ideals dropped out. In the current political climate, he asked, how are we to restructure our democracy when the original ideals that were behind the present structure are no longer very powerful? Dr. Turner replied that the question brings up the matter of the context of our political activity. What are the limitations on our activity that we accept? Though most of us have considered the present political structure satisfactory, there is a defect in it--a dichotomy between the ideal and what actually happens. W e are working to improve that. The assumption must be seriously considered. To talk about ideals outside the sociopolitical context seems to be metaphysical and existential, having little to do with realities, particularly to the inner group reactions around race relations. For example, continued Dr. Turner, in Chicago there has been built a police station with five underground stations, a helicopter landing pad on the roof, things that would not be recognized as windows, tripods for guns, all surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence. Through the courtyard a railroad runs; forty miles out it reaches Joliet, where there are detention camps. The building is located strategically near an all-black housing project. No white community would allow such a thing to be built within it. A police station is supposed to be a social service institution. H o w can anyone go into


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a barbed-wire-enclosed place to file a complaint against his landlord? There are said to be plans for building such structures in other cities. In almost every black community, the police force is from 90 to 99 per cent white. Dr. Turner said he knew of no white community with a police force that is 99 per cent black. We must do some conceptual thinking about our political activity. It is apparently not being done. W e simply make the same compromises mentioned by Mr. Ayres, the kind that lead to the building of that threatening institution on Chicago's south side. Dr. Dumont remarked that in talking about the transfer of power, bringing the decision-making capacities closer to the people, one must remember that the rules of power are constantly changing. At the moment when we are beginning to shift power and allow black men gradually to enter city halls, power is being redefined so that it will still rest in the hands of the white middle-class professional group. The problem is the professionalization of power, Dr. Dumont continued. This means that the real revolution will take place not in the barracks or the streets, but in the laboratories. The important redefinition of power is one made by the professionals, whether of medicine, law, city planning, or other, in rethinking their own imperialism so that each encounter with a client would be a transmission of information and power, with the distinction between helper and the person helped beginning to blur and eventually to be lost. The self-exploitive aspects of programs of professionalism will have to be modified. Dr. Turner said that Mr. Ayres had raised the question of the nature of the constructural relationship between components of the state, particularly if he was talking about the tyranny of the majority over black people. That was his reason for talking about new political forms. Can they in fact ever be secure? Can they ever have any mechanism by which to influence the political rules to insure that the things they need will be provided? That was why he had said that simply placing black men in city halls without changing the normative order, the power relationship in the society, would not change the position of the black people in the community. Maybe the question of how to do it is the big question Of the next decade.

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A participant suggested using the word "authenticity" instead of either existentialism or metaphysics, which of course are not the same. In the effort to change race relations we have overlooked the authenticity between two human beings or groups. The pendulum has been swinging too far in both directions. We want equalization, but not false emphasis on any human beings, regardless of race, color, or creed. W e seem to have become artificial, and therefore unauthentic, in our effort to overcome race problems. Perhaps we have learned our lessons too well, so we have become sociologically, politically, and psychologically contaminated. In response to a question about the possibility that one of our problems is that we do not have any ideal or vision that is capable of moving people except the American middle-class definition of success, which means money, Dr. Turner said that there seems not to be a comprehensive national ideal that can galvanize people in various social categories and pull them in any other than a kind of upward mobility. The problem is to create what has been called the nation--the question of whether there is a nation. Miss Maureen Allen of the Metropolitan Life Research Center spoke of another danger about ideals: the abandonment of power. There seems to be an idea that power is somehow dirty. W h y are we abandoning these methods that are said to be so filled with finesse? W h y are the liberal people making them and then abandoning them to people who could not produce them themselves, but who use them in a powerful way? W e have got to get beyond ideals into some sort of structural action. W e have the intelligence and the methods. "I think you have said something terribly important," said Dr. Graubard. "Anyone in the White House knows how little the President's power is. So is the power of every political and public office in the country. I think it is a mistake to say that the election of Mayor Lindsay last year did not matter. I think it mattered very much, but it did not matter totally. Not every power within our society can be changed by a political power. "There are a vast number of things that the President of the United States will say he wishes to have done, things that fall within his compass, but nothing happens. On the other hand, real authority exists there. It is entirely


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in the matter of emphasis, for instance in the allocation of resources, that political power can be so effective. But I think we make a mistake when we imagine that political power in any moment or in any form can undo or redo everything. "I think we have gone too far in our dismay with what power has been when we disparage that power. There are certain kinds of interests that predominate when certain kinds of men are in the Department of Justice. People respond differently to different kinds of officials. I think many of the young people today, in their justified questioning of power, go too far when they say that it can do nothing. It can and does do a great deal." Dr. Dumont remarked that he did not think that the liberal professional abrogates his power. He probably does not recognize it. A person may play a significant role in the Defense Department's activity, which is all highly professionalized, even though he is against the war. The liberals in the Department, almost all against the war, feel that they are just doing a iob, not elaborating national policy. Like Eichmann, they say "I was just administering." Policy is now a matter of professional skill. Unless that power is acknowledged, recognized, and then shared through some mechanism of distribution, of community control, along with other mechanisms of increasing the numbers of black people who can share professional power, we are not going to be successful, regardless of the ideologies. It is going to be the technocrats who determine what happens. So long as technology itself holds power as it does, we will have a bad form of control. Dr. Graubard disagreed that the expert now rules. Although there are many experts who think simply that policy is not their affair, they are not yet wielding great power. Benjamin Green spoke of Dr. Dumont's remark that it would be good if the professionals--doctors, lawyers, ministers--made every contact with a client a transfer of information and power. Agreeing, especially in the theological context, Mr. Green wondered why the person should want to make a transfer of power and information in this way. The idea seemed to Dr. Dumont to make more sense outside the theological context than within it. There is a new kind of professional coming up now

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in medicine and other professions--people who have a different sense of their science. Student health organizations are redesigning curricula for the medical schools and, in many cases, redesigning the nature of the practice of physicians. This kind of thing would have been inconceivable a dozen years ago-even the idea that anyone should question what was taught in medical schools. A new and pertinent sense of conscience is coming through young lawyers, physicians, city planners, architects, social scientists. Young people in medicine are working in community-based clinics today, sharing their expertise with the client, so that each experience of getting help is also a gain in the mastery of knowledge that is increasingly real and important. It also sets the issue of community control. When a community board runs a health resource or a legal aid or welfare resource, there is a sharing of professional power. How this is going to be translated into organizational life on a large scale has yet to be determined. Miles J. O. Gullingsrud, M.D., representing the Whittier branch of the Academy, suggested that it might be possible to get a grant from a foundation to support a rather large-scale study of some of the factors that have been talked about in this meeting. A participant remarked that, from working with many young people around the country, he had observed that a large number who were formerly interested in the problem of race relations no longer are so, at least not to the degree of committing time and energy. There is a profound feeling of passivity and despair among them for a variety of reasons. What has happened, he wondered, to the momentum of the civil rights movement? How much has the black separatism movement turned off some of the idealistic white youth who participated in the freedom marches? How can we generate interest among the young people? Dr. Graubard did not think the lack of interest can be accounted for by the black separatist movement. He did not find it easy to explain why the young people today are no longer turned on by the issues under discussion. A pdrticipant suggested that the lack of interest in the civil rights movement displayed by the national Administration may be considerably responsible


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for this lack of interest among the young. Dr. Graubard agreed. With all the limitations of presidential power, it is remarkable that so little attention has been focused on the matters discussed here. The Administration wishes instead to give attention to "crime in the streets." Lacking that kind of direction, people can only go ahead as members of groups that may be individually weak, but that collectively may be strong enough to make some impression eventually.

ISSUESaND ALTERNATIVES(Section II) Moderator: Harris Wofford, LL.B., President, State University of New York at Old Westbury. Panelists: James P. Comer, M.D., Assistant Dean, Yale Medical School; S. M. Miller, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Sociology, New York University.

"Racism is a low-level adaptive mechanism," said Dr. Comer. In America, it is a way for white people to maintain economic, social, and psychological advantage in the face of economic, social, and psychological threats to their sense of security and adequacy. In the long run, it costs the nation--white and black people--dearly in money, lives, human suffering, loss of talent, hampering of psychological and social development of black and white children. It prevents the nation from adequately preparing for the scientific and technological age of the present and future. 'One example of financial cost is the fact that in 1961 it cost the people of Louisiana a million dollars for five special sessions of the legislature to pass legislation to maintain segregation. The price in lives has been great: many thousands of black lives since Reconstruction days. Now, while the nation should be planning methods for distributing wealth and at the same time maintaining individual feelings of worth in a not so distant future when many people will not be working, we are still tied up with developing legislation that keeps low-cost housing (for the poor, the black, and other minorities) out of the suburbs. W e are still asking black men to pay taxes a

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large portion of which will be used to educate white children better than black children. Neither rational nor emotional appeals will serve. If racism is to disappear from American life, changes in social policy that will reduce the need for racial, class, or ideological scapegoats must be developed. Social policy promoted by responsible leaders will be the means of bringing about constructive changes in the hearts and heads of people. Guaranteed annual income, election reforms, the opportunity not to have unwanted children are but a few of the reforms that will come. A time table and a commitment to develop a humane society are needed--the same approach that enables a business man to turn out a product, that put a man on the moon, that rational men always use when they prefer community to chaos. The question today is not whether we shall have change, but whether it will be evolutionary, systematic, rapid, nonviolent, and humane, or revolutionary, repressive, chaotic, violent, and inhumane. What are the alternatives to creating a climate that will foster humane living? What must we do to make it possible to move systematically and without violence toward that end? The conclusion of his recently published book, The Future of Inequality, Dr. Miller said, is that unfortunately inequality has a long future in our country. That probably expresses the issue under consideration in this meeting. All too frequently one encounters situations revealing the many subtle ways in which old attitudes are maintained-old attitudes of condescension, of stereotyping. People become more sophisticated about such matters, but one often sees that the sophistication is not real and the changes have not been profound. H o w do we begin to change people's attitudes? Dr. Miller expressed his greater concern with structural changes, with the larger changes that we should be attempting to make that might affect the most significant thing: the way we relate to one another both within and across racial groupings. Here we must talk about the kinds of new structures and experiences that Dr. Comer was talking about--the importance of a society


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that is really open, that is committing itself to the development of all individuals in a realistic way, not just as a slogan, a society in which we invest emotionally and financially in the development of black children as well as in the development of white children. The need is not only to break down the barriers of racism, but to transform our society so that it will be better for all to live in, more satisfying for both blacks and whites. This is the basis for bringing about more coalitions in society so that the issues are not that some group gains and another loses, but that many groups can gain at the same time. Though the transfer of power and economic resources is of great importance, we must think of moving beyond that goal to the transformation of society. Once we raise the question of the nature of what is to be transferred, we usually find that there is something unsatisfactory about the situation: one wants to transform the resource, the activity, in some important way to make it more worth while, more humane. There is often a feeling of powerlessness for many of us these days, Dr. Miller continued. It is a feeling that there is a juggernaut of opposition, of reaction in our society that we have little chance of dislodging. Many of us hope that the world may change and improve, but looking at the situation with a historical perspective one realizes that we have lived through cyclical episodes of increasing depression because we were unable to build resistances against them. In times of economic or international crisis, depression tends to grow in our country. The Laos and Cambodia situation may change things; there is some chance that international tensions in the United States may be further relaxed. But the country's economic di~culties-for example, the drop in real income of factory workers in the last five years as compared with a decided improvement in their conditions in the preceding five years---is producing a kind of anger about what the young people are doing. The continuing economic loss suffered by many workers, including the lower-middle-class white-collar workers as well, may worsen with the expansion of unemployment as a result of national policies. In such circumstances reaction and repression call for overthrowing those who are disturbing the society. The reaction may be temporary. W e really need to move in the direction of

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responsibility, to recognize that our effectiveness as individuals depends upon our organization, our willingness to work with others, our capacity to draw allies from those who had formerly not been with us, our readiness to develop issues that people will pay attention to. The reaction to the Vietnam war started out with a small group, a narrow sector of our society. It has spread to groups who are not usually given to disrespect and doubt about their government. A large section of people came for the first time to doubt the validity of what their government was doing and even the truthfulness of their government. N o w turning toward those we typically neglect, those we do not usually talk to, is where our task lies. W e must not just talk to ourselves, but organize to be more effective in dealing with those we find most difficult to convince. Some significant changes have taken place in American life, encountering enormous resistance in the process. But it is not the end of the road. W e should not give up hope, but should move out beyond the narrow boundaries we usually work in and try to deal with that disturbed, unclarified majority in American life who are turned off by what they see to both the left and the right and are looking for a course. W e must talk to them. William J. Schneider, a chaplain at Harvard, asked how we can talk about racial equality in the United States while we are conducting a racial war in Southeast Asia and using a higher proportion of blacks than of whites to do it. He did not think the kind of approach being talked of here would accomplish any change in our society. W e do not have the kind of time being talked about. He hoped for a response on a much broader base. Dr. Comer replied that he had been talking about changing social policy in the whole social organization, not just about the terrible things that are going on both at home and abroad. The question is where does one start to change? While it is important to do everything possible at the local level, change comes from above. For example, a locality can have the best possible Head Start program, but if the people at the top decide that Head Start is bad because it is getting people in Mississippi


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concerned about politics, they cut off the funds and the project is lost. Congress has always wielded power through money. It has, for example, given away huge tracts of land under the Mineral Rights laws, determining who would have the riches above and underneath the ground and who would have secondary power, who would have schools and who would not have schools in the community. Until it is determined whether the presumed representatives of the people really do represent them, there will be no change in the system. The little improvement that has occurred in both North and South in recent years was not brought about by informing the people, changing their attitudes, but by changing the system so that it affected people's pocket books. The structure was changed--from the top. There are things that can be done, said Dr. Comer. One question is whether the mass media should be a part of big business. Perhaps they should be publicly owned and even subsidized. W h y not subsidize the voter, or the candidate so that he can seek the votes of the poor people? The seniority system in Congress gives additional power to those who stay around the longest. There might be more people monitoring the agencies, people who really represent the people. Through such methods as these it would be possible to change the system without destroying it. Following a statement by President MacColl about the reasons for the Academy's interest in holding this conference--trying to bring the segments of the collaborative resources of the professions represented by the Academy to bear on the problem of racism--Mr. ~Vofford suggested that all the people taking part in the conference should follow the actions on both sides of the issue wherever they led. It seemed that Chaplain Schneider's road could lead him and many others to the conclusion that there is no time and no possibility of working within our system, that the alternative being advocated by many people is violent revolution. Chaplains, teachers, psychiatrists, and doctors must figure out their role in responding to the people who are choosing this course. They must also go down the other road, if there is time, as Mr. Wofford believed there is, and if our system is one than can be worked in effectively. The pathology that is here must be dealt with.

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Ruth Gilbert of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church asked whether the group assembled here should not be more bold in setting forth subjects for consideration. Changing the system ought to mean guaranteed annual income, a decent standard of living, raising the question about the enormity of the war. Is the way to gain some state of mental health in our society for us--the gate-keepers--to be more bold in raising issues for discussion? Chaplain Schneider repeated his question: Can we even begin to discuss racism in the United States unless we relate it to our involvement in Southeast Asia? Unless we deal with it in the whole context, whatever we say about racism will be off base. He asked again for response to that question. At most conferences of this kind, said Dr. Comer, liberals, who want the same thing and who agree that the basic problem is an economic one, talk among themselves about what they hope to accomplish while the "power brokers" go on making the same kinds of decisions they have always made. It seems that the conservatives and power brokers are better politicians than the liberals because the liberals do not figure out what must be done to bring about change in the system. The President of the United States, who has no mandate for conservatism, is stocking the Supreme Court with conservative justices and has put conservatives in all the regulatory agencies. There is a rise of conservatism throughout the country based on what he is doing. In a complex bureaucratic society, what is institutionalized is what brings about change or makes it possible. Dr. Corner's basic point is ~hat one does not change racism by talking about blacks and whites getting along together; one does it by changing the system around people, changing what they need to do to one another so as to feel good about themselves. W e must develop a humanist coalition that will make it impossible for Vice-President Agnew to go about making the kind of statements he has been making. W e must prevent that kind of thing from happening, not just react to it after it has happened, As a direct reply to Chaplain Schneider's question, Dr. Miller remarked that though it is important to discuss the United States in a world con-


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text, we must keep in mind that the full explanation of what takes place is within the country. There is no assurance that if the war in Southeast Asia were to end, racism in this country would improve. N o r would the drastic reduction of racism in this country give assurance that such adventures as those in Southeast Asia would not crop up again. T h e y are connected. Code words like "the system" give us a false analogical way of thinking about what is taking place. Obviously we are more likely to do horrible things to people w h o are black or brown, but that is not the primary reason w h y we move into a country. It is based upon m u c h larger geopolitical and military considerations than our exploitation of Southeast Asia. T h e total amount of m o n e y coming to this country from low-income countries is very small. Our big investments are in the high-income countries. It is a misreading of the data that leads us to believe that narrow-minded pre-World W a r I imperialism governs the policy of this country. W e could probably do m u c h better if we were not involved in any of our overseas economic adventures and if the military-industrial complex were to contract. M a n y business men are beginning to understand this. It is a time of anguish and turmoil for those w h o are concerned about our society. M a n y of us dream about tearing d o w n the society and replacing it; but we are also aware of what might come about in the attempt to do so. It is not a time for saying that our c o u n t r y is happy and well except for a few malcontents, but we are not in a prerevolutionary stage. W e have a fragile society in a sensitive condition, but there w o u l d be an enormous reaction in this country against strong revolutionary tactics. This is not to say, however, that conventional politics is the only w a y to bring about change in our country, Dr. Miller continued. W e have learned from the civil rights movement that m u c h more has to be done. W e have learned about the use of force and confrontation. Enormous repression is likely to come about, and it will have a deep effect u p o n the people. W e must not look for a magical solution to our problems. W e have to look for the kinds of things that can pull people together to

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effect deep-seated change. W e have to keep moving in many ways: through the electoral process and confrontation, by setting up examples of new kinds of society, new institutions. W e must recognize the depth of our problems and realize that ours is not an easy society to change. One does not accomplish it just through rhetoric. Dr. Comer reminded the group that in thirty years our country has gone from a society in which eighty per cent of the people made less than $3,000 a year, given inflation, to one in which less than twenty per cent of the people make under $3,000 a year. But most of those people whose income has improved are in about the $5,000 to $10,000 category; they are just barely hanging on. W e oversimplify when we talk about the kinds of action that will bring about change when we have had that kind of movement in our society. Not many societies can show anything like it. Agreeing that the political process is not enough, Dr. Comer warned that we must realize that we have not done everything that can be done within the system. If we can do something about making the representatives of the people in local, state, and national governments truly representative of the populace we can bring about great changes without at the same time bringing about great repression. Chaplain Schneider deplored the tendency to connect the words "radical change" with violence. He is deeply opposed to violence. W e lack the imagination to come up with an alternative, a way to bring about radical changes without violence. The liberal has a time table for the future, but he has no "now." All of us who are liberal must find an immediate radical change that is nonviolent. Dr. Miller said that in his contacts with young people, though there are many who, in their anger and frustration, have turned to violence, he found a much larger group who, with anguish much like his own, fall between the Americans for Democratic Action and Students for a Democratic Society. He has had many arguments with young people about action vs. analysis and programs. He urges upon them a new program, one that would go beyond conventional N e w Deal liberalism, that would


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recognize that the welfare state is not redistributive, that would emphasize the importance of participation and decentralization and research and development of new institutional forms, that would recognize the pervasiveness of misuse of inequality in our society, that was concerned about the quality of human relationships on the job and participation in work as well as at home and in other kinds of relationships. At this stage, Dr. Miller continued, it is not likely that this between ADA and SDS group will come up with a full-scale program. It is more likely to continue to work on specific issues such as the war, Agnewism, a minimum income, and so on. Eventually there will have to be a largerscale program dealing with the necessity for changing the economic and political structures so that the people may have an important role in decision making. W e must form a new vision of what we want. Changes in power at the lowest level of politics--the city hall level-are probably more possible to bring about and should be worked at, some speakers observed. It was also noted that while black separatism has grown, integration of the black and white middle classes has grown, too. The proportion of blacks in the total college population has grown from two and a quarter per cent in only a little more than a decade to about five per cent--an enormous increase. Suggestions were made and discussed about setting up programs through which young people could become involved in helping activities, in things that would involve them in volunteer work, thus relieving both their boredom and their frustration. Great numbers of young people, some of whom are in college because they were forced there by the draft or something else, could be put to work by a national volunteer program for which funds might come from the federal government or from the church organizations of the country or some other private source. Pleas were made for trying to influence individuals--people one comes into contact with every day--toward changing their attitudes and thoughts about the social changes needed and so eventually reaching

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large numbers of people, and for trying to work with organizations that have specific programs and goals and that occasionally falter because of frustration and the feeling that the task is too big, and for moving on to other programs that may make progress in new directions. PROGRAMS AND PRIORITIES Moderator: Panelists:

James H. Laue, Ph.D., Lecturer on Sociology, Laboratory of Community Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. The Rev. Timothy S. Healy, S.J., Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, City University of New York; Samuel Z. Klausner, Ed.D., Ph.D., Center for Research on the Acts of Man, University of Pennsylvania; Roger Wilkins, LL.B., Program Director, Social Affairs, Ford Foundation.

In the research on the relation between religion and violence that he had done for the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, Dr. Klausner had looked first at the infuence of religion on social relations, particularly conflictual relations, in society. In this connection there is a tendency to pay greater attention to the socially integrative aspects of religion. W e seem to see only the anxiety-reducing functions within a psychological frame of reference. But religion seems to become involved in socially disruptive and conflictual areas. Religious acts can be violent acts; or one could say that violent acts can be religious acts. Perhaps one does not understand the meaning of a violent act until one sees it within the context of a religious act, because the perpetrator of a violent act, like the religious actor, needs to be encouraged to act despite an anxiety and a doubt. The term within religion for violent acts has been zealotry. Religion, Dr. Klausner suggested, takes ordinary social conflict situations and helps to escalate them to the level of violence, often turning a social conflict into a violent eruption. It raises issues of social conflict to their ultimates, making them into life-and-death matters. W h e n some-


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thing becomes what theologians call matters of ultimate concern, violent acts are legitimate. A second way in which religion has assisted in the development of violence has been through the defining of something called a radical evil. ~In a social conflict situation it has been able to find a devil on which to focus society's attention, which is another way of escalating the situation into violence. Religion also selects a champion to perpetrate the violent acts and supports him by legitimizing the acts. Psychologically, it provides the courage by which the perpetrator of the violent act can overcome the anxiety that is inherent in being violent, thus enabling him to perform the act. Zealotry hardly needs documentation. The role of religion in the processes of social change caught the attention of the great sociologist Max Weber, who based his conceptions of religion within the notion of charismatic leadership and prophesy: the notion that one infuses the social system with a kind of personal energy, which results in religion becoming an instrument for change within society. The eruption of change motivation into violence is merely the extension of the change of this function of religion. W e are faced with an enigma. If the potential within religion that produces violence is the same as the one that points toward achievement, toward social change, development of a social policy to eradicate violence within our religious context would run the risk of bringing us to the Buddhist kind of solution: removing motivation toward action. H o w can we harness this energy within religion so as to produce constructive s o cial change ~ather than exploding violently, destructively, and often aimlessly? Dr. Klausner has called this the problem of the constraint of violence. The first lesson we learn is that if the function of religion is to escalate a normal social conflict situation into violence, our initial attention should be directed not to the violence itself, but to the basic solution of the conflict. W e should work toward the resolution of the conflict. Secondly, there are things that can be done within the religious systems themselves. Perhaps the theologians ought to give thought to the

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legitimacy of violence, to the role of such notions as "just wars" and "justified violence." Perhaps religion ought to draw from its prophetic theme of social justice in dealing with the underlying social conflict situations in the society. Perhaps thought should be given to the displacement of the emotional and the ecstatic within religious systems by greater emphasis on rational law within the religious systems, for only within a system of law, of ordered society, can violence be contained. Perhaps it is time for us to think more deeply about removing the absolutisms of religion that escalate things into ultimates, and to stress the universal social values that transcend the things that separate men--the things that are necessary for the survival of a pluralistic society. Father Healy observed that an interesting and frightening bifurcation is going on in education in N e w York all the way from grammar school to the universities. Under the law and association of community drives, segregation in grammar and high schools in the great centers is effectively becoming the principal tool of black leadership in school affairs in New York City. People can argue endlessly about whether this is a good idea. Studies prove that children of both races do better in integrated schools; otkers prove that neither blacks nor whites do better in integrated schools. Whichever is true, the communities are determined to take control of their schools, and where the community is largely black, the schools will be black, whereas in white communities the schools will be white. If, the/:efore, there is to be any integrated education at all, it will be at the college and university level. What are some of the implications this holds for the city? The City University of New York announced a program of open admissions last fall. This is not the same as open enrollment. The latter means that the university will take all who come, even without any classification. Open admissions mean that any graduate from a New York City high school this year will be admitted to some program in the City University based as far as possible upon his interests, but also based on

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some reading and testing of his skills. The larger concept, open enroll.ment, is a physical impossibility. The University has neither the space nor the teachers for it. What can open admissions do, particularly if one remembers that for the next five to ten years we shall be dealing with black high school students most of whom will have come from nonintegrated black schools? New York is rapidly becoming a service city. It is estimated that something over 400,000 physical jobs will disappear in the next eight years, to be replaced and surpassed by the demands for nurses, teachers, social workers, and the many different kinds of professional and paraprofessional service operations that make the city work. As a manufacturing center, N e w York is finished. That state of affairs need worry nobody, because the demand for professional and paraprofessional people is far greater than the demand for workers in manufacturing or the industrial trades ever was. This means that unless the youngster has some post-secondary-education help he will be ineligible for employment for the rest of the twentieth century. There is hard economic pressure behind this opening of the colleges and universities. There is also a sociological or ethical or even religious purpose behind this situation, Father Healy noted. It will provide somewhere in the educational experience of the young person some communality across racial and linguistic lines. There is a community of purpose, of shared intentions, in any college classroom. There is more strongly a communality of experience, and it does not matter whether the experience is good or bad. The sharing of the ministrations of a good teacher can have the same effect as the sharing of the ministrations of a bad teacher. The communality is important, not the results. The university is already carrying the largest population; we are talking of doubling the number we have. One argument against it is that for the university to try to do what high schools either cannot or will not do will tear the university apart. To say that this is really the high schools' iob, in the face of the total failure of the N e w York City high school

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system, is to say that we are willing to hogtie eight to ten thousand youngsters every year. The argument most frequently urged by educators is that of standards. It makes good political ammunition because it is such an equivocal term. The unanswerable argument is that of the doubling, which means first the doubling of costs. After the student passes eighteen, he is more expensive; he requires more expensive teachers, facilities, etc. Also after eighteen or twenty to help a student stay in college means paying for it, sometimes in cash--money to buy his clothes, books, and frequently to support dependents. This becomes a charge on the university. The trouble really starts, Father Healy continued, below the university level, and open admission does nothing about that. It does nothing about the fact that our high school teaching population no longer represents the population of students. The system is a continuing disaster, with its enormous rates of absenteeism and drop-outs. One thing that open admission can do is to make provision for a greater influx of black and Puerto Rican teachers and counselors who would be able to understand the world many of the children come from. Another thing would be to add a grain of credibility to the whole enterprise. At present, the black community feels that the school system is a hoax. Once the word begins to get through, the turn-off of the counselor will become more difficult. Even the twelve-year-old, so readily discouraged by the counselor today, .will realize that if he can get a diploma he can get into college. Another advantage will be the elimination of the rating structure that the universities have forced on high schools. In N e w York, the principal's standard of rating depends upon the number of holders of the academic diploma who get into college. This means that it is to the benefit of the principal, the faculty, and the entire school structure to have as many of the doubtful cases as possible eliminated from the system before they come to the diploma point. The judgment is made at the student ages of eleven to thirteen, so that the academic program is cut in numbers


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through high school until only the select are left, which greatly increases the percentages of successes. The boast of having placed 87 per cent of the academic diploma students in college in any year means something like 40 students out of a high school of over 4,000. The City University of N e w York trains 50 per cent of the teachers in the N e w York City school system. It is therefore responsible for what goes on in the classroom. As the major source of certification procedures, it controls those procedures. It has been setting up a series of ghetto schools in which a teacher can work before finding an acceptable place in Riverdale. Teachers for Manhattan, Kansas, are trained on exactly the same model as are those for Manhattan, N e w York. Curricular changes are needed to end this practice. Through open admissions, it should be possible to bring greater numbers of black and Puerto Rican teachers into the training program. Out of the awful needs of the city, the university may be able to attack the concept of a school as we have known it, the comfortable realities with which we grew up and that make no sense at all to the young people of college and pre-college ages today. W e are, then, just entering the dilemma. For example, ghetto English in N e w York is a curious phenomenon. It is extremely advanced, in vocabulary especially. There is another whole speech pattern in the inner city. It has been so for a hundred years. This year for the first time we shall have a written grammar for the instruction of teachers who walk into a first-year high school classroom and cannot understand that the youngsters are having difficulty relating the standard English they are asked to write to the useful language they speak at home. It is a problem of bilingualism. It is said that any society that does not change its symbols every fifty years is doomed, observed Father Healy. In the inner city we are faced with a whole new American imagination that is different from our own vision. W e throttle it so that it cannot grow, because we do not appreciate it. W e must provide a place in American education in which this vision of our society can flourish and contribute to society. If there is another way of looking at ourselves and we refuse to take it, we shall be forever the poorer.

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There is a crisis of belief in our society so severe that rational attempts to deal with racism beyond the present will be extraordinarily difficult and perhaps quite unrealistic, said Roger Wilkins. People who participated in any of the civil rights struggles during the early and middle sixties know what cleansing, exhilarating, almost ecstatic experiences those events were. The march on Washington in 1963 was an occasion when belief in the country, hope for man, belief that we could become one whole throbbing society was almost tangible. But by 1966 we began to run out of new approaches in the civil rights movement. It no longer did any good to march or to implore the President to take a moral stand. W e began to see how large and pervasive racism was in our society. W e had no tools to deal with it. Blacks in the cities rapidly lost hope, began to burn their neighborhoods, to scream their anguish in frightening words. At the same time, the war in Vietnam escalated and began to sap our men, our treasury, our moral strength. It took up the President's time and energy, confused the views of the people, and frightened us because ~we had learned that we could not win. The kindest thing one can say about this war is that its moral bases are murky. It is more accurate to say that it is an obscene, racist war. W h e n we learn about things like Mylai we begin to doubt the whole moral fibre of our country. At the same tip,~e, domestic complexities, coupled with all this failure of belief, led some people to believe that the leaders of the country were incapable of dealing with our problems, problems of mass transportation at rush hours, delivery of the mail, management of the economy, provision of decent housing for citizens, race relations, or education. Some of the feelings of hopelessness have led to violence. With oth~ ers, however, the dissatisfaction, the crisis of belief appear to be a moving away from clear and simple ideas that produced the Main Street on which Henry Aldridge lived in the 1930's. These people think that what we need is more authority. W e need college presidents to crack down on the students. W e need taps on our telephones and bugs in our bedrooms.

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So we have come to 1970 with an air acrid with bitterness that is born of hopelessness. Some people, in their despair about the future of the country and our politics, are iust sitting at home wringing their hands. Before anything can be done about racism, we must end this war. There must be a moral climate in the country in which we can gather enough of our dreams about our country and ourselves so that once again we can believe in the possibility of having a decent society, can believe that there can be a process in which hard work, hope, and faith ~ill somehow bring solutions to some of the problems that now seem insoluble. As for blacks, Mr. Wilkins said, whether the war ends or not, whether we have political leaders who continue to divide us or a different kind of leadership, one way or another they will keep on giving to this country some of its best and strongest spirits. The young blacks on the campus today are tougher, more tenacious in their hold on the American dream than was the generation of blacks who were in college twenty-five years ago. What they do, whether their angry and romantic conversations turn into riots or not, whether they continue to work peacefully within t h e system really depends on what society provides in the way of political leadership and the political direction that society will take. The colilaborative responsibility of the citizens of this republic now is to believe in our political processes, to act as political beings, to stand up and say that we were born free and will not stand for erosion of our freedom. The price of silence throughout history has been the loss of freedom. It is our country and our choice. The notion that psychic realities in the oppressor group, and possibly in the oppressed also, are the most important things to look at has been the mainstay of theology of the intergroup relations people for many years, said Dr. Laue. It has provided the rationale for approaches to overcome racism through education, communication, attitude change, the search for insight, soul-saving. Only now are we beginning to shake out the assumption that the approach to racism has to do with preiudice,

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with the psychic realities inside rather than the institutional behaviors and discrimination that hurt people. Social scientists have shown that prejudice is always highest in the uneducated, powerless groups who are exploited by the same structure, not in the powerful discriminators themselves. That is what people ought to be talking about. Looking at that aspect of history one can easily see why the national reaction to the Kerner Commission's report continued to focus on personal, individual, conscious racism. That interpretation allows people of good will to put the blame on "the ignorant bigots," leaving out of complicity those who "know better." The Kerner report was talking about institutional racism that subordinates a person or a group on the basis of color. That kind of racism does not have to be consciously motivated. One of the most important priorities, Dr. Laue believed, is to get our definitions straight, to talk about the way our institutions are structured, how they consciously or unconsciously discriminate and subordinate people who are not members of the white dominant group. Another priority is to try to introduce and develop a series of behavioral dilemmas that force decision makers into hard choices between greater and lesser social, political, and economic costs for the kinds of decisions they make in their institutional behavior every day. There are two different kinds of strategies working at two different points, equally important, Dr. Laue continued. One focuses on building institutional power and strength in minority groups and the other works for major institutional reform.' We must talk less about individual racism and psychic phenomena and more about the development of social power. What happened during the 1960's was the development of new styles of negotiable power: confrontation with potential disruption to force the powers to take minority groups into account. It is no coincidence that the growing nationalism of the Mexican-American and Indian communities have made unified thrusts lately. Both groups have said, "We understood what Stokely was talking about." It was not becoming assimilated into an upper white middle class; it was ethnic int e g r i t y - w i t h power.

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In our personal as well as professional lives, we should not let stand the old saw that separatism means the same thing as segregation. Segregation implies that one group is involuntarily subordinated by another, which is different from saying that the minority groups would like, in some aspects of their lives, to get off without skilled and well-meaning whites looking over their shoulders and telling them how to do things. They would like to develop power as a group so that they could participate with integrity in society. Among the groups represented in this meeting, Dr. Laue observed, there are professional people in the fields of mental health, religion, and social sciences. The social scientists for years have talked about intergroup relations people and change agents as facilitators, enablers, catalysts. It seems possible that today the work of the facilitator may do more harm than good in the direction of progress because it serves as a buffer, deflecting the real agony of the client group from the system that produces it. The social scientists and other facilitators no longer want to serve in that middle role. A great many urban consulting firms have grown up in the last several years. With little or no knowledge of the history of racism or of urban problems, they attempt to become facilitators, helping people to settle disputes instead of bringing about confrontation and social change. They promote the sort of thing that may have no relation at all to the power realities that control people's lives. To do this bolsters the established organization of power. For example, when a confrontation is arranged between blacks and whites, with equal numbers on both sides meeting together for weeks and reaching some degree of understanding--the policeman is seen to be just a complicated human being like most of us and the blacks turn out to be people after all--as the members of the group move outside of the meeting they find that the conditions are still the same. They are still controlled entirely outside the dialogue situation. It is important for the professionals not to get caught in the position of being facilitators whose goal is process rather than social change. One of the things that make the mental health approach less helpful in urban crises than it would appear to be is that

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its emphasis is on adjustment rather than change. It is important to move beyond the one-to-one therapy model into community mental health. The community mental health professionals have worked with administrators and establishment people in the organizations. But these people are only one of five or six kinds of groups that are in conflict in community disputes. Among the administrators of a service agency there are the professional staff, the clinical staff, the paraprofessionals, the service group, the consumer group, and unless the mental health specialist works at all these levels he is actually promoting colleague advocacy instead of the client advocacy he claims to serve. As for the churches, their great economic skills and resources, their technical skills and organizational base are desperately needed for developing black and brown communities. With its traditional focus on the patient concept, the mental health movement is becoming a tool of social control, because the training its professionals have received has put them into institutional situations. It is important to stand up against the kind of transactional analysis that Louis Feuer and Bruno Bettelheim have been applying to campus problems--a technique that has considerable popular support today. If we are going to talk about O'acting out" among adolescent rebels, we must play fair and see that the same kind of analysis is applied to all the groups involved in the conflict situation. It might be well to use Erikson's analysis of the stages of man and suggest that if students are in stage 5--that of identity vs. role confusion'--maybe the faculty is in stage 6--intimacy 'vs. isolation--and the administration is in stage 7--the problem of generativity vs. self-absorption. Perhaps the trustees are in stage 8--integrity vs. despair. The analysis, Dr. Laue repeated, should be applied at all levels. Agreeing that there is danger of wallowing in concern about individual change, Dr. Kenneth W. Mann of the Academy staff asked what was to be done about the obstructions to institutional change. What is the nature of some of the obstructions? Is it mainly a resistance that occurs in individuals? If so, how do we get out of the dilemma? Does it come back to doing some-

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thing about individual resistance to institutional change, or is it less a matter of so-called conversion and more a matter of changing people's perceptions? Are we not really being brought back to -working with individuals? Is it not a matter of both/and rather than either/or? Dr. Laue replied that he believed that institutional change is possible, but that when it is made it may turn out that there is just a different set of sinful people making the kind of institutional decisions that the other group had been making. He agreed that it is a both/and kind of decision. "I would be less concerned," he said, "with trying to help the police chief of any large city gain insight than in finding out who is on the appropriations committee of the City Council that determines the kind of budget the police chief has, because that is the major pay-off for the reward system he operates in." Dr. Olivia Pearl Stokes of the National Council of Churches spoke of what is happening today in the three major religious groups in this country. Like all of our institutions, the Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant communities reflect the nature of our culture. The institutions that embody the concepts of the Judaeo-Christian heritage are just as guilty in relation to racist behavior as any of the others. T h e y are now beginning to examine their racism. It appears that we are in a crisis of behavior. Some young black people are saying, "Love your neighbor as yourself--give us what white America has." A few of the young blacks are saying, "We want completely out of this system." Other youth, both black and white, are saying that new structures must be created to embody the basic concepts they were taught so that they can believe in these values. Most social scientists are unaware of the kinds of change in attitudes that are taking place in the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant communities. For example, in the Roman Catholic community we are witnessing an enormously interesting and dynamic change: a new attitude toward authority, the right of the priest to express his individualism within the system. There is also a new look at the structures of that community and its teachings, an attempt to bring them up to relevancy. In the Protestant community, both black and white, two different kinds of things are going on. For years, the black Protestants have been the seat of the struggle for freedom. Today any movement that wants to enlist a group of

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people quickly goes to the black Protestant church. The church has been responsive rather than initiative, but it is learning to be an initiator. Also the black Protestant community is looking anew at the theology it inherited from the Anglo-Saxon community and deciding to correct it. The white Protestant church has long reflected the white society. It is now feeling its guilt and becoming self-critical. One group is saying that this is the way the church should go, but the majority of the members are apathetic just as the country's voters are. The churches are beginning to see that structures determine the nature of human behavior. Our young people have learned well what the churches have taught them; they are now asking church members to behave as they were taught to. There was discussion of the possible alternatives for bringing about change --either through attempts to destroy the system or through working as all responsible citizens should to effect the reforms we believe in through the mechanisms provided within the system. Mr. Wilkins refused to give up hope of working through the system. Despair, he said, would lead to bloodshed and a community that none of us would recognize or like. "We will have options in 1972, and we are going to use them." In replying to a question about how pervasive in street programs is the tendency to regard the black college student as a patient in need of treatment by a mental health specialist, Father Healy said he could not answer for street programs, but in the American university there is now a whole body of specialists who relieve the faculty of responsibility for students as live human beings. One of the dangers is .that this protective structure has professionalized itself in a psychological environment in psychological terms. There is a movement among universities to bring some generalists into their counseling personnel. Arthur A. Anderson, M.D., a psychiatrist working in the community mental health field with the purpose of helping institutions to collaborate more effectively in the attempt to force social change, asked Dr. Laue how one gets at the power structure. At times, he has observed, the facilitator, because he works within an institution that has its own structure, actually obstructs what he is trying to accomplish.


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Facilitators, replied Dr. Laue, are always low in the order of power. One must be able to shift from one role to another, working sometimes as facilitator, as advocate, sometimes as organizer, as educator, sometimes as politician. Who is behind the movement to bring about a bargaining situation, whether it is a university president and board of trustees or a labor-management attempt to settle a dispute? It is rarely the subordinate group that is asking for facilitators. The real need is to force institutional structures to change by developing sufficient power in conditions that the institutions have not had to respond to before in making decisions. There are many conditions that a university administrator has to respond to: the trustees, various kinds of boards, alumni, faculty, and so on. Students are now saying there is at least one strategy that should be responded to. Until we help them attain that power, just telling them the facts of the situation will not help. They must be organized to utilize these facts. NEXT STEPS

Charles C. Bergman, Executive Vice-President of the Academy, presiding at the plenary session that closed the conference, spoke of the two main concerns that had underlain the planning of the two sponsoring bodies: to search beyond definitions and therapeutic breast-beating for a genuine basis for optimism for the future and to convert the skills, ideas, and experiences that would be shared here into action. Dr. Olivia Pearl Stokes of the National Council of Churches said her chief interest was in examining the present status of the movement against racism in relation to the direction it should take in the future. She had hoped to hear about some of the "cracks in the wall" that can now be observed. The black elements in the church are operating effectively at the same point at which they are operating in the society. T h e y are raising the issues. T h e y are calling attention to the injustices in the society. T h e y are turning to the social scientists and other leaders for help. But the real designing of change in America is not coming from that group; nor is the conservative part of the country, represented by the President and

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his Administration, going to effect any change unless the articulate group of blacks continue to cry out for change and all those who are working for change become political. Our education, which up to now has been for selfdevelopment measured in money, material success, must be turned toward social responsibility. The pioneering work being done by the U. S. Armed Forces in the field of religion and mental health, said the Hon. L. Howard Bennett, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights in the Department of Defense, is one of the most interesting things happening in this area today. An educational program in race relations is being put into the training programs of the entire Armed Forces. Courses are being structured; seminars, workshops, lectures are being provided, bibliographies and other teaching materials are being prepared to make certain that the diversity characteristic of the American Armed Forces develops into a cohesive unit that will obliterate considerations of race. The vast defense establishment is not entirely concerned with destruction; it contributes scientifically to the total society in benign and specific ways. It is trying to infuse education in race relations into the entire structure of its civilian personnel and even to make it a part of the educational programs of all contractors who do business with the Department. Judge Bennett has responsibility for civilian as well as military educational programs in this area. YVe shall not be able to deal with the virus of racism on an unstructured, voluntary basis, Judge Bennett observed. W e must attack it through education in all our schools from the kindergarten through the colleges and universities. The Armed Forces are making a great contribution by insisting that men learn to live and work together and that they learn to recognize the humanity residing in every person. Dr. Kenneth B. Clark said that as the Myrdal "dilemma" referred to in the theme of this conference has now reached the point of imperatives for action, it is clear that concerned persons in America have talked themselves out about the problem of racism. This last session of the conference should, therefore, be given over to trying to see whether we dare to go beyond talk. There is a limited time within which this nation will have to do certain spe-


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cific things with regard to the problems discussed here. For symbolic and psychological reasons, Dr. Clark suggested the bicentennial anniversary of the founding of the U. S. is a good target year for showing that we are doing what we must do. Groups such as the one assembled here and the organizations the members represent should attempt to make the American people understand that there is not much time left in which to remove the shame of what Sir Arthur Lewis pointed out: that other Western nations with much more limited resources than those of the U. S. have abolished their "lumpenproletariat." No matter how much we may expand the military approach to national pride, it is clear that nations today cannot derive pride from military exploits as they did in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It may be that we have found ourselves, by virtue of technology and even nuclear development, pushed into William James's moral alternative to war. Nations must now look for humanity, for human goals, as the basis for their pride in their civilizations. Some group, then, Dr. Clark continued, and he knew of none better for the purpose than the Academy, will have to apply clear, realistic, objective methods to getting this nation to work ridding itself of slums, eliminating poverty, removing all forms of institutionalized racism within the next few years. As has been spelled out so clearly by the speakers and panelists in this conference, specific projects with observable goals must be planned for the reorganization of education in America. It must be understood that the function of education is to increase human sensitivity and responsibility, thus reinforcing the foundations of civilization. Housing is the specific first point to attack in aiming at the target of eliminating poverty, slums, and institutional forms of racism. A nation with the tremendous resources of the U. S. should not have thirty millions of its citizens living in housing not fit for human habitation. Another target, set forth brilliantly by Sir Arthur Lewis, is the provision of jobs. We cannot have a just society unless the economy provides equitable distribution of jobs. Sir Arthur eschews the typical American sentimental approach to the problem of iobs--open employment without regard to what we are really talking about but takes into account the whole economic scene

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when he says that jobs at all levels must be available on a proportionate basis, which will deal with race and class together. Action programs are also needed for social welfare and health problems, Dr. Clark added. These programs must go beyond the charades of community action and maximum feasible participation; they must be realistically planned in relation to economic and political self-interest. Dr. Clark took hope, at least temporarily, from the realization expressed during the conference that we can accomplish these things because we have the intellectual, material, physical resources for doing so. Sir Arthur Lewis agrees that attaining these objectives will strengthen, not tax, the economy. The one thing we lack is the commitment. W e must deal with that necessity by making it clear to the public--working class, blue-collar, white-collar, and middle-class whites--that these programs are in their interest, that the programs will not deprive them, but wiU stabilize what they believe to be the minuses and pluses of their lives. Commitment based on such understanding will lead to realistic rather than sentimental approaches to the problem that has been the subject of this conference. As members of the conference group return to their daily tasks, said a participant, they should ask themselves again what specific goals they want to work toward. The aim should not be settlement of disputes, control of conflict, or personal adjustment. These three things should not be the object of ultimate commitment. Producing specific kinds of change may actually lead to some personal maladjustment, to some conflicts, to some unsettling things. Everyone must decide what the substantive goals are, as he sees them. In considering his relation to the institution with which he is affiliated, the participant added, one should ask himself what capital, skills, influence, and organizational base he has in the institution. The sum total of assets available in the institutions represented by the group here is enormous. For example, the churches could invest money accumulated in ministers' pension funds in loans to community corporations. Lawyers in the congregations could help arrange these transactions. As for influence, powerful white groups will be needed to help when minority communities begin to gain control of their own affairs and cut in on vested interests, when a local police


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department becomes displeased because it is not filling its arrest quota by reason of the rehabilitation of recidivists by the social organization, when the supermarket chains complain that they are losing business to the chain that the black community has started, or when a neighborhood school becomes successful. The influence of white people in the establishment is needed to protect such ventures. A plea for the use of religion as a motivating force in the struggle against racism came from Miss Barbara MacKenzie, a retired teacher. By meeting black or foreign-born people through the church, on the basis of something far more important than everyday contacts, white Americans can learn that skin color and foreign accents are not important. A psychologist from India, Dr. Akhter Ahsen, who has been practicing in the U. S. for several years, spoke of his impression, in dealing with young people, with clergymen, and others in American society, that we are an unChristian people, full of rage, contempt, and meanness, moved only by the baser instincts. Lars Ulvenstam, Ph.D., Senior Television Producer of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, on leave to write a book about Harlem, questioned the efficacy of the Christian faith as a motivating force for social improvement. He has not observed any deep Christian faith among the people he has been observing. He considered love for other people a better dynamic. A Presbyterian parish minister, Richard Ploth, had been deeply impressed with Dr. Clark's statement that white people must become aware that they are affected as much as black people are by racism and discrimination, that social change is a matter of enlightened self-interest on the part of the white people. Life is not entirely predictable, said Mr. Ploth. There are unknowns and variables. The Christian church, with all its faults, has always maintained that the variable areas can be defined as the grace of God. A vision of something significant, such as the dream of Martin Luther King, is needed now. The Kingdom of God, which has failed to some extent, did accomplish something in the past. W e need to think seriously about an image with which we can approach people.

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The only real reformer or progressive, Mr. Hoth believed, is a traditionalist. W e have forgotten the roots from which we have sprung. Many of us in the church have turned our backs on the motivating and galvanizing force of the tradition we represent. W e are afraid to proclaim it in depth. Benjamin Green, of Waverly, N. Y., just returned from a four-year absence from the country, said that he had seen nothing that so well expressed the seriousness of the situation, nothing so moving, as the passion--even the controlled fury--with which Dr. Kenneth Clark and Ramsey Clark had spoken at this conference. "Fifty years ago an Irish poet said of men: 'The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity.' I am deeply thankful that today it is the best who seem to be full of this passionate intensity." Frank Fremont-Smith, M.D., a member and for several years Chairman of the Academy's Board of Trustees, offered a suggestion for practical action to carry the fruits of the conference beyond talk. Many people here and in other countries, he noted, have made efforts to overcome racism and prejudice; some of them have been successful while others have failed. There is no readily available record of the features of the attempts that have worked, and why, or of those that failed, and why. He recommended the establishment of a clearinghouse for examples of the successful efforts and of the failures, with information showing why some succeeded and others did not. The project might start with consideration of the economic problem so well outlined by Sir Arthur Lewis. It could include case histories of individuals, families, institutions, nations that were successful or unsuccessful in their attempts to combat racism. If these records were accumulated and made available wherever they were needed, then when a community wanted to do something with respect to integrating its schools and wanted to know about some examples of successful efforts to do this and why they had worked and maybe some examples of unsuccessful efforts, the resources of the clearinghouse could be invaluable. The project could be helpful to people and institutions throughout the world. President MacColl of the Academy summarized his feelings during the two


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days of the conference as having ranged from despair and frustration to the highest kind of hope. He assured the group of th} Academy's firm purpose of carrying forward the work begun here with the,impetus and guidance of the speakers and participants. Though the task is vast, the Academy will assign high priority to immediate objectives in the area and try to hold onto the hope that has come through the frustrations that have been expressed. Many of us, said Mr. Bergman, believing that we were not racists, have not been willing to accept the fact that, by ignoring or condoning racism in others, particularly in institutional life in America, we are actively involved in racism. To be aware that one has residual racism in oneself is a painful thing to confront. Everyone should have the courage to recognize that there is an all-inclusive responsibility--primarily a white responsibility--not just to invent attitudinal change, but to change institutional structures. What can we do next? W e have heard throughout this meeting of the need for blacks to have a voice in the political process, to have the power of economic self-determination, to have just treatment under the law, to have decent health care; but what we really need to do is to recognize that all of us must have a commitment to change institutions in the white society. Many people ask, "What can I do to combat racism, providing I do not have to change the life around me?" If we do not overcome this reluctance to accept change, if we are not willing to w o r k actively through social-action groups in the community, how can we possibly reorder our society? All our institutions were made by men and can be changed by men. Whites and blacks together, we have no alternative but to bring about these changes.

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THE Lumen Vitae AWARD IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION To foster encounters between research workers in the psychology of religion and the publication of works of scientific merit, the Lumen Vitae International Commission for the Psychology of Religion announces that it will bestow its second quinquennial prize in 1970 for the most noteworthy scientific study in this domain during the past five-year period submitted to a jury specially appointed for this purpose. The award consists of 1) 10,000 Belgian francs ($200) for the author of the study selected; 2) free publication of the winning study, in whole or in part, not exceeding 250 pages of French text (a fuller printing, recommended by the jury, can be given special conditions, to be settled between the author and Lumen Vitae Press) ; and 3) 50 free copies of the winning study sent to its author. Work submitted for the Lumen Vitae Quinquennial Award must fulfill the following conditions: a) It must be an original work (not previously in print) in the sector of positive religious psychology (scientific observations, clinical descriptions, statistical elaborations). Studies in psycho-pedagogy, socio-psychology, or cultural anthropology (in the domain of religion) are included, but not works in which the method or greater part is essentially philosophical, theological, historical, or sociological. Studies that have served to obtain academic grades can be submitted, but not works that have already received some other prize or honorary distinction (or have already been submitted to obtain that prize or distinction). b) It must be in French (translations procured at the author's expense are accepted), and five copies of the study submitted must reach the Secretariat of the Commission by September 1, 1970, at the latest (from then on at intervals of five years). Andrd Godin, S.J. Professor of the Psychology of Religion International Centre Lumen Vitae 186, rue Washington, Brussels 5, Belgium

Racism and human dignity.

Racism, narcissism, and integrity.

Religion and racism.

Racism inflation.

Race and Prejudice.

Racism in coccidioidomycosis?

Predicting Ideological Prejudice.

Systemic racism and U.S. health care.

Academic freedom. Sex, racism and videotape.

Scientific Pride or Prejudice.

Colour prejudice among pathologists.

The receptor concept: prejudice, prediction, and paradox.

Pride and prejudice in peer review.

"Racism still exists": a public health intervention using racism "countermarketing" outdoor advertising in a Black neighborhood.

Frustration and prejudice in South Africa.

The motivation to express prejudice.

The limits of racial prejudice.

Schools, Peers, and Prejudice in Adolescence.

Racial prejudice, belief similarity, and human aggression.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Depression: The Integrated Perspective.

Reducing Prejudice Through Brain Stimulation.

Racism: On the phenomenology of embodied desocialization.

Racism in Medicine: Shifting the Power.

Racism and Health I: Pathways and Scientific Evidence.