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Citizens Step in Where Race Board Is Slow to Tread -- With Dialogue

A doctor from Dallas wrote to suggest building a national slavery museum modeled after the Holocaust Museum. Another correspondent warned that "european descended americans" cannot be cured of their "pathological disease" of racism. A grandson of slaves said an apology would be acceptable if it came with reparations -- to the tune of $24 trillion.

And then there was this defiant message that arrived through electronic mail: "Tell me, Mr. President," the writer challenged, "what am I sorry for??? What have I done to anyone of any color? Don't assume we all feel as guilty as you must."

If there is to be a national dialogue on race, which President Clinton has sought to start, the first whispers can be found in the White House mailbag. In the three months since he launched a year-long campaign of racial reconciliation, nearly 700 Americans from across the country have sat down to let the president know what they think of the idea and to share their assessment of where the country stands. The messages are at once hopeful and hateful, provocative and pained.

"Some of them are quite poignant," said Judith A. Winston, the executive director of the office created to coordinate Clinton's initiative. "These are thoughtful letters. These are not a lot of crazies. These are people really wanting to say, 'This is important.' "

The letter-writers and e-mailers have rushed to speak out even as the president's new race advisory board has gotten off to a slow start. Since Clinton kicked off his project with a much-touted speech in San Diego in June, the board has met formally just once and spent much of that time organizing itself. With a $4.8 million budget, Winston has hired a staff of 21 and plans to add several more workers in offices in the New Executive Office Building across from the White House.

The board will convene its second session today with hopes of jump-starting the initiative through a new work plan calling for monthly activities, including town hall meetings around the country, the first featuring the president probably in December. Clinton and Vice President Gore plan to drop by today's meeting in the morning and announce a plan to toughen civil rights enforcement in housing. In the afternoon, studies will be presented on racial attitudes and demographics, and psychologists will discuss how to talk about race.

From their letters, it is clear that many Americans need no lessons in how to talk about race. In sometimes achingly personal terms, they write about how race has affected their work, their upbringing, their children.

An Arab American from West Bloomfield, Mich., wrote of being passed over for promotions at his automaker workplace, noting that "we came to this country to escape injustice." An Asian American wrote to say that the hearings into campaign finance improprieties focused on foreign money "really hurt me deeply." The head of a tribe in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, complained that no Native Americans serve on Clinton's board.

"I have found over the years in working for a Fortune 500 [company] as a minority, that you have to plant a seed with a high level white manager," one person said by e-mail. "White management is more willing to listen to their own than to listen to an outsider, especially a minority."

A white painter in Halifax, Nova Scotia, wrote to say that he had been "raised by bigots" and only recently learned the error of their ways. "By not confronting my parents about their views, I willingly became a piece of clay they moulded into one of their own," he wrote. "At the age of 33 I looked around me and realized the people I most admired -- both alive and dead -- were people with colored skin or different cultural backgrounds."

Others are simply interested in getting involved. They send op-ed articles, essays and videotapes. They suggest that the president hold town meetings in their home towns of Boulder, Colo., or York, Pa. One Los Angeles man wrote a 25-page, single-spaced letter complete with statistics and historical references. A college professor took it upon himself to compose the speech he wants Clinton to deliver when the initiative is over.

But while officials say that most of the letters have been positive, there is a fair degree of skepticism and even outright hostility.

One African American dismissed the idea of an apology for slavery as "an empty gesture" without the sort of financial compensation offered Japanese Americans interred during World War II. Calculating the value of labor provided by blacks from 1619 to 1863, plus interest and pain and suffering, he came up with $24 trillion.

Several white writers saw the Clinton effort as a pretext for government spending or race-based preference programs. "Remember, white males voted for you too," wrote one. "Bill Clinton good thing this is youre last term youd be humiliated in the next election," wrote another, signed, "Unhappy White person."

In this electronic age, much of the correspondence has come through the White House home page, which has a section entitled "What You Can Do." One recent visitor noted that the site included the phrase, "the President needs you . . . . "

"Well, Mr. President," the writer replied, "we need you too. We need you to encourage us to love, not hate. We need you to be an example. We don't want pretty pictures and cute stories -- they aren't worth the high price. We want truth and honesty. We live in a real world where people need real solutions."

To write, send letters to the President's Initiative on Race, New Executive Office Building, 725 17th St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20503, or visit the White House home page at www.whitehouse.gov.