The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama [118]
Such a shift in emphasis is not easy: Old habits die hard, and there is always a fear on the part of many minorities that unless racial discrimination, past and present, stays on the front burner, white America will be let off the hook and hard-fought gains may be reversed. I understand these fears—nowhere is it ordained that history moves in a straight line, and during difficult economic times it is possible that the imperatives of racial equality get shunted aside.
Still, when I look at what past generations of minorities have had to overcome, I am optimistic about the ability of this next generation to continue their advance into the economic mainstream. For most of our recent history, the rungs on the opportunity ladder may have been more slippery for blacks; the admittance of Latinos into firehouses and corporate suites may have been grudging. But despite all that, the combination of economic growth, government investment in broad-based programs to encourage upward mobility, and a modest commitment to enforce the simple principle of nondiscrimination was sufficient to pull the large majority of blacks and Latinos into the socioeconomic mainstream within a generation.
We need to remind ourselves of this achievement. What’s remarkable is not the number of minorities who have failed to climb into the middle class but the number who succeeded against the odds; not the anger and bitterness that parents of color have transmitted to their children but the degree to which such emotions have ebbed. That knowledge gives us something to build on. It tells us that more progress can be made.
IF UNIVERSAL STRATEGIES that target the challenges facing all Americans can go a long way toward closing the gap between blacks, Latinos, and whites, there are two aspects of race relations in America that require special attention—issues that fan the flames of racial conflict and undermine the progress that’s been made. With respect to the African American community, the issue is the deteriorating condition of the inner-city poor. With respect to Latinos, it is the problem of undocumented workers and the political firestorm surrounding immigration.
One of my favorite restaurants in Chicago is a place called MacArthur’s. It’s away from the Loop, on the west end of the West Side on Madison Street, a simple, brightly lit space with booths of blond wood that seat maybe a hundred people. On any day of the week, about that many people can be found lining up—families, teenagers, groups of matronly women and elderly men—all waiting their turn, cafeteria-style, for plates filled with fried chicken, catfish, hoppin’ John, collard greens, meatloaf, cornbread, and other soul-food standards. As these folks will tell you, it’s well worth the wait.
The restaurant’s owner, Mac Alexander, is a big, barrel-chested man in his early sixties, with thinning gray hair, a mustache, and a slight squint behind his glasses that gives him a pensive, professorial air. He’s an army vet, born in Lexington, Mississippi, who lost his left leg in Vietnam; after his convalescence, he and his wife moved to Chicago, where he took business courses while working in a warehouse. In 1972, he opened Mac’s Records, and helped found the Westside Business Improvement Association, pledging to fix up what he calls his “little corner of the world.”
By any measure he has succeeded. His record store grew; he opened up the restaurant and hired local residents to work there; he started buying and rehabbing run-down buildings and renting them out. It’s because of the efforts of men and women like Mac that the view along Madison Street is not as grim as the West Side’s reputation might suggest. There are clothing stores and pharmacies and what seems