Black’s Racism Charges Startle Senate Hearing : Discrimination: Ex-secretary of Army says whites consider his people inferior, will not share power.

In unusually blunt language, former Army Secretary Clifford L. Alexander Jr. on Tuesday excoriated a Senate panel that is studying the plight of black men, calling the Senate “the most prestigious segregated body in America.”

In testimony that stunned the packed hearing room, Alexander, the first black civilian to head a branch of the U.S. armed services, criticized the senators and the nation for a collective failure to move the United States away from its racist history.

“During my lifetime, no black person will join your exclusive Senate club, run a Fortune 500 company, be president of NBC, CBS, CNN or ABC,” Alexander told members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which is investigating an array of problems in urban communities.

“You are determined to reserve those powerful positions for your own kind,” Alexander declared. “Yes, we nibble at the edges while you enjoy hearty meals.”

Alexander, who now runs his own management consulting firm, was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1967 to 1969 and, in the Jimmy Carter Administration, headed the Army.

Speaking before three white male senators, Alexander delivered a biting commentary on the nation’s racial attitudes.

“You see us as less than you are,” he said. “You think we are not as smart, not as energetic, not as well suited to supervise you as you are to supervise us, that we are looking for something extra--a government program that gives us something we do not deserve.”

His comments are likely to be the opening volley for a series of speeches and position papers to be delivered over the next three days as black elected officials, activists and academics gather in Washington for a national conference to examine the problems of black males.

The conference is sponsored by the 21st Century Commission on African American Males, a recently formed organization; its co-chairmen are Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and Sen. Terry Sanford (D-N.C.). The Senate hearing was scheduled to coincide with the start of the conference.

Concerned about the daunting educational, social and economic problems afflicting black men, some policy analysts and sociologists have focused attention on making young black males more productive as a key to addressing some of the nation’s urban problems.

Commission leaders note that the social problems facing black men--soaring unemployment, disproportionate criminal activity and imprisonment, high illiteracy and low educational attainment and the nation’s highest mortality and shortest life expectancy rates--hurt both impoverished urban black communities and white suburban taxpayers.

The commission hopes to offset prevailing negative stereotypes by pointing out that half of all black men have wives or families and that an overwhelming number of young black men never encounter difficulty with the law.

Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, an associate professor at the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley, told the Senate panel that aiding black males “is no longer a matter of conscience or choice” but “a demographic imperative and public policy priority.”

As today’s white workers age, she said, they will become increasingly dependent on tomorrow’s workers, of whom a disproportionate 20% will be black youths, to generate revenues for Social Security and other entitlement programs.

“If black youth are given real opportunities . . . then they will act responsibly and will contribute their fair share to the larger community,” she said to the panel.

In his remarks, Alexander seemed to spare none of the nation’s powerful institutions as he declared that white America has injured itself with an unwillingness to see anything of value in the lives of black men.

“If you see a black man, you think you had better cross the street before something bad happens to you,” he said. “These are the ways you perceive us, and your perceptions are negative. They are fed by motion pictures, ad agencies, newspapers and television.

“If you want to show (something) clean, brave and reverent, color it white,” he said. “If it is shiftless, crime-ridden and overcrowded, color that black.”

Alexander directly challenged the Senate, accusing at least one its members, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), of employing negative stereotypes to retain his seat and others of doing less than they should to promote racial harmony.

“Jesse Helms’ political advertisements perpetuate these insults today,” he said, referring to the senator’s use of racially charged commercials in his victory over a black opponent last year.

Gazing directly at the three senators seated in the hearing room, Alexander said, “It is somewhat ironic that I am speaking to you about this issue today in the most prestigious segregated body in America--the United States Senate.”

None of the Senate’s 100 incumbents are black. Only one black has served in the Senate in this century, Republican Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts.

Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate committee, said he was neither shocked nor offended by Alexander’s frank lecture, because “I share his concern.”

Riegle said that racial issues are not getting the attention they deserve in the nation. He said he was surprised to discover that the Senate hearing was Congress’ first ever on the subject of black men.