• ACOHENS_P1
• csmli-1
• stem-1

• ACOHENS_P2
• csmli-2
• stem-2

• ACOHENS_G1
• csmli-3
• stem-3

Washington 'power couple' takes on race

William and Janet Cohen want to use their experience as a mixed-race couple to start an open discussion on race in America.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 24, 2008 edition

Page 1 of 2

Washington - Married in the US Capitol, William S. Cohen and Janet Langhart Cohen have all the trappings of a Washington Insider Power Couple.

A former Republican senator from Maine, he served as secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and is chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group. A former model and television journalist, she is CEO of Langhart Communications.

But he is white and she is black, and what led them to convene a two-day conference on race and reconciliation in America, opening Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, is a common experience as outsiders.

"I wanted to have this conversation [on racial reconciliation] practically my whole life," says Janet Cohen, citing an incident when she and her mother were denied service at a restaurant in her hometown of Indianapolis. She recalls her mother telling her, "Janet, you're a little colored girl and people are not going to like you because you're colored." The slights and barriers due to race became a constant in her life – not insurmountable, but ever present, she says.

Raised in Bangor, Maine, by a Jewish father and an Irish Protestant mother, William Cohen learned early on that his father's name exposed him to anti-Semitic epithets. But to others, he wasn't Jewish enough. When a local rabbi denied the boy a bar mitzvah because his mother would not convert to Judaism, Cohen tore the mezuza off a chain around his neck and flung it into the Penobscot River.

"I would soon learn that it was easier to break a chain from my neck than it would be to break away from the bigotry of others," he later wrote in "Love in Black and White: A memoir of race, religion and romance," coauthored with Janet.

The Cohens convened this conference to help promote an honest, civil discussion on racial reconciliation at a time that many Americans see the nation moving beyond race, especially with the prospect of a black candidate winning the Democratic presidential nomination and even the White House.

"We're heading towards a post-racial moment. There's no question that there's progress on a number of fronts, one of which is public opinion," says pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International and one of about 100 participants at the conference.

When people say they are going to vote for a minority candidate, such as Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois, they actually do, he says. Also, more Americans are responding "yes" to such questions as: Do you live within a block of someone who is African-American or have you attended a dinner party with someone who is African-American?

The Cohens note that the fact that they could be married is a sign of progress that the country has made on racial reconciliation. But they add that it took a Supreme Court decision as recent as 1967 to make that possible. "Just seven years before we met it would have been illegal for us to have been married in many parts of this country," says William Cohen.

Moreover, high-profile African American success stories may also fuel a false sense that the need for racial reconciliation is ebbing. The Cohens note comments they hear such as: "Why are the blacks angry? Why is there such a sense of rage? I'm not responsible. I've lived a good life. I'm a moral person. As for slavery: That's 300 years ago. We've had 30 years of affirmative action – everything is equal now. You've got a black man running for president, you've got Condi Rice, you've got Colin Powell, you've got Oprah, so what's your problem?"

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page