America has a long tradition of pluralism and religious freedom. Tucker said, but it has an equally long tradition of prejudice and intolerance: "As great as this nation is and as daring as its great democratic experiment has been, America is a place where bigotry and intolerance have always thrived .... Racism and anti-Semitism are as American as Jim Crow and George Wallace and Father Coughlin." And no one group, Tucker said, has a monopoly on being bigoted - or on suffering because of the bigotry of others.
Tucker believes that the present moment is particularly bleak from the standpoint of racial and ethnic harmony. Even opinions about O.J. Simpson's guilt or innocence tend to break along racial lines. These divisions among groups in their opinions, concerns and goals lead many people to question the value of pluralism: "We have deep insecurities about this great experiment and the acceptance of peoples from many different countries with many different beliefs and attitudes. We have begun to wonder whether diversity is not a disadvantage."
Tucker talked about how she had been born at a time of extraordinary hopefulness, soon after Brown vs. Board of Education had struck down segregated schooling. As a young person, she believed this represented the path of the future: "I was confident that I would grow up in an America where racism was constantly receding and opportunity constantly expanding for all people, regardless of race or color or religion or gender or sexual orientation ... .I believed that in my lifetime people would be judged by the 'content of their character' rather than the 'color of their skin', as Dr. King had dared to dream."
But after the great advances of the 1950s and 1960s, the "racial fault lines began to reopen." Tucker cities the current situation on many college campuses as an example of how far we have turned away from King's dream:
Perhaps the most telling sign of the unfortunate change in the racial climate of our nation is on college campuses, which had been such beacons of the promise of a fully integrated society. These days the stories one hears from college campuses are mostly stories of tension and hostility, stories of the disrespect or contempt one ethnic group holds for another.
Perhaps most bewildering are the expressions of stark bigotry from some African-Americans. Given the racism, the contempt, the hatred, and the inhumanity to which black people have been subjected, it would seem that we would be most careful not to turn that same bigotry and hatred on other racial or ethnic groups. And yet, on college campuses, well-brought-up black kids, who ought to know better, are chanting to the anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist rantings of a Khalid Muhammad.
Tucker suggest a number of reasons for the growth of hatred and bigotry -- white backlash, economic and social upheaval -- and she laments that the clergy, who she says, ought to be helping us to free ourselves from this ugly frame of mind, are sometimes cheerleaders for it:
Louis Farrakhan, after all, considers himself a religious leader, but he encourages anti-Semitism, homophobia, and sexism. Minister Farrakhan might not believe he has anything in common with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, but, in fact, he has much in common with them. Robertson and Falwell also teach bigotry and intolerance. They also seek to divide us.
Tucker's solution is both very simple and very difficult. Instead of "bickering over who has been most mistreated, black or Jew of Native American or gay," Americans must united and denounce the evil of bigotry wherever it appears: "David Duke must be denounced. Louis Farrakhan must be denounced. Jesse Helms must be denounced. Jerry Falwell must be denounced." But Tucker knows that, to some extent, these are "easy choices." And she calls on people to denounce the "everyday casual prejudice which keeps us separated from each other.. .. [A]ll of us have the opportunity to stop a co-worker who says, 'Those Mexicans have too many babies.' All of us have a chance to gently upbraid a friend who says, 'Those blacks are so loud' .... [or] stop a conversation where someone says, 'Those Jews are so pushy.' This is where prejudice begins ... [and] this is our challenge."