At 6:15 I lined up outside the New York Public Library on 42nd St and 5th Ave, and after a 45 minute wait, and a very minimal security check (the girl behind me got in with a gym ID card), I was let into the Celeste Bartos Forum to see Bill Clinton and Dr. John Hope Franklin discuss current race relations in our country.

In 1997 Clinton launched The Presidents Initiative on Race, which basically breaks down to a national effort to deal openly and honestly with our racial differences. The head of his advisory board was Franklin, a History professor and distinguished author. Franklin has just written a book titled Mirror to America, and tonight’s discussion is to help promote it.

A dixieland band was playing as tuxedod waiters handed out complimentary champagne. Under a lighted archway a small platform stage was set up with two chairs waiting for the evening’s guests. People of all ages, from 7 to 70 were scrambling to find seats, wandering into the VIP and Press sections which were cordoned off by velvet ropes. As is my luck, I ended up with a chair in the last row on the side, next to the (marble) wall. Although this was a talk about race relations, the audience was predominantly white, and seemed to be upper class, based on the conversations I overheard. I felt like I was at a fund raising political rally more than an academic lecture.

After another 45 minutes, the band broke out into the old Louis Armstrong song, Black and Blue, “My only sin is in my skin,” to set the tone for the evening.

Clinton (who hardly spoke all night) started his interview with Franklin by asking if The Color Line is still a problem in the 21st Century. Franklin responded that of course it is, that we have still never confronted the problem. Clinton then asked Franklin what the root of our racial prejudices is, and Franklin responded that the problem is that we, as Americans, have never really been able to separate our positive, righteous history from the negative racial problems, and so never really acknowledged that there was a problem. That is why his book is called Mirror to America, because we need to hold a mirror up to ourselves.

Now, I have to point out that the above two questions actually took about an hour to be answered. Franklin is obviously a very intelligent, insightful man. However, he is probably not known for his brevity. At this point, I did start to drift off a little bit. I really didn’t want to, but when it comes down to it, I just wasn’t very interested. If Franklin had been speaking to a different audience, maybe it would’ve been better, but the audience was complacent, and everyone agreed with him. Yes, the race issue needs to be addressed, but in this liberal, fairly well educated crowd, he seemed to be preaching to the masses.

My attention was caught when Clinton asked Franklin about the people of color that Bush has appointed, (Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice) and Franklin, outraged, responded that “We’ve gone beyond that, it’s not possible to get brownie points for appointments, [he] has to do something else, address minimum wage, housing, loan discrimination. . .a few in the presidential cabinet, it doesn’t change the system, you have to do some fundamental changes.”

He also addressed that the system has to have exceptions, or it will collapse. That’s why some black people had slaves before the civil war, and now there are a few black people on Wall Street. That’s the exception that keeps the system working. He said that we need a leveling process. He addressed the difference in our schools, that predominately white schools can be subsidized by wealthy parents while the quality of some non-Caucasian schools in our country are equivalent to schools in third world countries.

I’m sure reading this, you are saying to yourself, ‘yes’, ‘that’s true’, ‘I agree’ at least I hope you are. I hope that Franklin is wrong and we are not as blind to all this as he thinks we are. For me, I wanted to hear the next step. Ok, I got all that, what do we do NOW? But it never reached that point, and thus lost my attention.

Clinton called Franklin a national treasure, which I do not doubt he may be, and the audience erupted into a standing ovation. But on the way out, I heard a guy say to his friend “What a waste of time”. Did he mean that he just spent two and a half hours watching two people, that could have had an interesting lively discussion, instead resorting to the sort of facts and philosophies that could be learned in any Ethnic Studies 101? Did he mean that if any two people could put there heads together and come up with the next step, it would be these two men, but they avoided any mention of the future? That instead of feeling inspired and enlightened, he kept checking watch to see if it was almost over. Because if that’s what he meant, then I agree with him.