To the editors:
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On the other hand, these ordinances allow police harassment of African American youth. In doing so, black leaders reasonably fear that the values and the prejudices of the white community, frightened as it is of young black men, are being codified into law. With the history of de jure segregation and racial oppression in this country, institutionalizing police power to disperse blacks on the street corner should give one pause. Community can easily repress minorities in the name of “greater” community values.
However, the article misses its stride when it attempts to capture where communitarians are as a movement. Based as they are out of universities and public policy schools, e.g. the eminent sociologist Amitai Etzioni, communitarians have spent their time attempting to convert the politicians and bureaucrats that shape public policy. They have most assuredly had their hearing at the southern white boys club of the Democratic Leadership Council. From here the communitarian contagion has spread right into presidential politics. Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech before the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in New York City demonstrates just how far they have gotten in this effort.
Blacks’ lack of trust comes from the fact that the community values of those who work and pay the taxes has been flight to homogenous enclaves in the suburbs to escape the day-to-day monetary and social costs of their less well-off urban neighbors. If white suburbia’s community’s values and interests are enshrined by the Democratic Party, why should black city residents come round? This is one question that Bill Clinton and his New Covenant have to answer. Moreover, the Democratic nominee will have to do it in a way that simultaneously bolsters his appeal in the suburbs. This is a difficult, though not impossible task. It requires a more specific discussion about who are the members of the community and what our collective community values are. Still, all in all, communitarian thinking and policies have garnered greater influence than Harold Henderson’s article suggests, indeed, they may find themselves in the White House by early next year.
