On Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, a panel discussed the recent LBJ summit that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the state of the civil rights movement today. Although they discussed their reactions to the summit, the conversation centered mostly around education and white privilege's affect on civil rights. A gay rights activist was there to add his voice as the new addition to the civil rights movement, but it wasn't as loud as the others.
The panelists included liberal commentator Tavis Smiley, liberal professor Michael Eric Dyson, writer for The Atlantic Nikole Hannah-Jones, and a lone voice for the gay rights inclusion into the civil rights debate and founder of "Freedom to Marry," Evan Wolfson.
After discussing reactions surrounding the summit, host Bob Schieffer turned to Wolfson, who would end up not getting as much air time as the fellow black panelists:
Schieffer: So now it's gay rights. Is this the next chapter of the civil rights struggle that's been going on for so long?
Wolfson: I wouldn't call it the next chapter, I think it's part of the same struggle. I think what the struggle, as President Obama said, that the civil rights movement did so much to lay the foundation for and President Johnson's work, and Dr. King's work, and all the millions of unsung heroes, was to create an America that's a more perfect union for everybody. And gay people are part of that everybody…
More on gay rights later, maybe.
Former President George W. Bush spoke at the summit and said, "I fear the soft bigotry of low expectations is returning, and for the sake of America's children, that is something we cannot allow." Dyson paid George Bush a compliment:
The so-called redneck president from Texas did more for black people -- I would argue -- than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
As the topic turned to education, the conversation continued:
Schieffer: George Bush was talking about closing the achievement gap. Nikole, what does that mean to you?
Hanna-Jones: I just find it interesting that we have so much discussion about closing the gap without discussing that one thing that has been proven through history to close the gap -- which is integrating black and high-poverty students in the middle-class white schools. And the reason that works is, we know separate has never been equal in the history of this country. It's no more equal today than it was 50, 60 years ago. The resources follow white and middle-class students. And when you separate black and Latino and poor students from those resources, you get an achievement gap. It's not rocket science, I guess.
Dyson agreed:
If you've got a 90 to 100 million dollar school out in the suburbs and you've got zoological experiments and high-speed internet access, you're going to have one outcome. If you've got schools where there's barely any running water, you're going to have another outcome.
Dyson then turned to acknowledge the gay voice on the panel to let him know he is allowed into the civil rights movement even though he is white. To Wolfson, he said:
"I was glad to hear you talk about the fact that we're in it together. I have challenged African American people to deal with the homophobia that prevents an understanding and empathy with other groups and I'm glad to hear you talk about it as well…we've got to devote those resources, especially the kind of legitimacy that white, male, gay folk have to issues of civil rights as well. It's a both and, not an either or.
Schieffer kept the racial lines taught as he asked Smiley if President Obama has done enough for African Americans. Smiley responded:
I think the short answer is, Bob, that I can get to Washington from Los Angeles a lot faster than I can get from Washington back to Los Angeles because coming to D.C., I've got a tailwind pushing me -- coming back from D.C. to L.A. I've got a headwind obstructing me. President Obama clearly has had a headwind for most of his presidency and yet, his racial agenda has been almost nonexistent. He has not, respectfully, done as much as he could have done, even with the obstruction.
African Americans, even in the Obama era, lag behind in every single leading economic indicator category. So I think the lesson of LBJ is that you've got to be willing to take a risk. You've got to be willing to make this issue a priority.
And since I'm talking about presidents -- at the risk of being politically incorrect -- I was happy to hear former President George W. Bush say what he said. But that can not -- that statement about the soft bigotry of low expectations, vis a vis, the education gap -- can not be disconnected form his policies. And that's, again, the message of LBJ 50 years later, Bob, that we have to have corrective policies that help level the playing field.
Schieffer reminded the panel of the bipartisan support for Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program. Yet Smiley could only slam the Bush administration for abusing white privilege:
The bottom line is, education has got to be a major priority. But you can't side always, as the Bush administration did -- if not always, certainly too many times -- you can't side, Bob, with the rich and the lucky. You can't side with the powerful, overly privileged and somehow think that magically the field is going to get leveled.
Hanah-Jones furthered the education discussion saying that unless resources are used to help schools "break up the poverty" and to desegregate schools between poor and middle-class communities, nothing will help close the achievement gap.
Wolfson, feeling a little left out of the civil rights discussion he was invited to, awkwardly segued to same-sex marriage. But not for long, Dyson quickly careened the conversation back to race relations and white privilege:
LBJ had a booming economy, number one, so that the great society was funded by an optimism in the economy that simply is not present now. And number two, he had the privilege as a white male to go to some of these senators and then really -- not only the privilege as a white male but also his experience as a legislature to go in there and say, look, I'm going to collar you and you better do the right thing.
The obstructionism that Mr. Smiley referred to, in regard President Obama, has been so complete that it has discouraged even the inclination to do the right thing. The sharp criticism is necessary and right, but we got to talk about the broader atmosphere as well.
Schieffer: It could not have been worse than the Southern Democrats who tried to block…
Dyson: No doubt about it. But what I'm suggesting you -- but when they did the poll about the inclination of the American public to support it, that was much higher than expected, number one. But number two, I'm not saying the resistance wasn't there, but I'm saying that Barack Obama faces, in this case, some resistance that LBJ didn't. LBJ knew explicitly that white supremacy was the predicate for the resistance. We can't even mention that now -- that some of the resistance that Barack Obama is facing now is racially based. And the racial basis of the resistance for those who call it out, are seen as somehow playing the race card. That's not to deny at all, or nullify, what Tavis Smiley said, in terms of challenging this president to step up to the plate and articulate a vision that is both holistic and comprehensive that is transformative to African American people in the same way that LBJ did, but it would be also ignoring the historical and political context to deny the resistance that Barack Obama faces in a way that we can't even publicly articulate and examine as a matter of consensus.
Wolfson ended the segment by saying, "Of course it's not all on the president, we have to do the work too."