Newsroom/World View

NEWSROOM for July 7, 2000

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: Seen in classrooms the world over, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CO-HOST: We're in the summer stretch on NEWSROOM. Glad you're here to watch. I'm Rudi Bakhtiar.

TOM HAYNES, CO-HOST: And I'm Tom Haynes. Here's a look at today's rundown.

BAKHTIAR: Deep-seeded religious differences and a controversial march in Northern Ireland capture the focus of today's news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Police here are starting to view this week's events as not just a legitimate protest over Drumcree, but as a threat to overall stability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYNES: In today's "Daily Desk," we examine the arts. And what better place to do that than the San Francisco dump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REDDY LIEB, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AT THE DUMP: Oh this is like heaven. We call this area the "gold mine."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAKHTIAR: In "Worldview," our in-depth look at racism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So what is it about us human beings that so often causes us to believe that another who looks different than us is either inferior or to be feared?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYNES: Then in "Chronicle," there had to be a winner. The "sister act" duels it out on the grass courts of Wimbledon. We'll tell you who won. BAKHTIAR: In today's top story, mounting violence in Northern Ireland ahead of a planned Protestant march. British authorities have banned a Protestant parade from passing through a Catholic neighborhood in Belfast. There's a similar ban on a march planned for this Sunday at Drumcree. That sparked demonstrations and rioting. Church leaders and politicians on both sides of the sectarian divide are calling for an end to the violence.

The Protestant Orange Order plans to march July 12. The annual event commemorates the 1690 defeat of the Catholic King James II by the Protestant King William of Orange. Violence surrounding an event to mark the 300-year victory reveals the deep religious divide that plagues Northern Ireland.

Unlike the Republic of Ireland in the south, Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom. The north and the south once made up a single country ruled by the British. Most of the residents were Catholics who, in the early 1900s, launched a bid to make all of Ireland independent.

In 1919, the Irish Republican Army, or IRA, was formed and began a guerrilla war for independence. A year later, Britain divided the island into north and south and the south won independence soon after. However, Northern Ireland has since been struggling with ongoing tension between Catholics who want an independent country and Protestants who want to remain part of the United Kingdom. The dispute has led to decades of sectarian violence and the deaths of thousands.

On one side, the Ulster Unionists who are pro-British and mainly Protestant. On the other side, Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Last November, the two sides signed the Good Friday Peace Accord and together formed a new government. But the British disbanded the power-sharing government when the IRA refused to disarm. Now, mounting violence over the traditional July march could threaten the tenuous peace in the province.

Nic Robertson has the latest from Belfast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): On the streets of Belfast again, British soldiers. They left two years ago because peace had returned; back now because security chiefs here believe fringe terror groups threaten their men.

RONNIE FLANAGAN, CHIEF CONSTABLE: And undoubtedly their intentions are to use firearms, which they have access to, to use blast bombs, which they have used against my officers in the past number of days, in which they have used in the past to murder my officers.

ROBERTSON: They are fears that have been heightened by high- profile visits to Drumcree, by people like Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, recently released from jail after serving time for directing terrorism. Attacks on police have already happened, unrest this week surpassing that of the previous year. Violence is a stigma the Protestant Orange Order now want to distance themselves from.

ROBERT SAULTERS, GRAND MASTER, ORANGE ORDER: As far as the Orange brethren will go, they will accept that it's a peaceful protest that they want. But as for the outsiders, the paramilitary elements, I can't see me having any influence over them.

ROBERTSON: It is the paramilitaries here who have the power to direct the nightly street violence. Police here are starting to view this week's events as not just a legitimate protest over Drumcree, but as a threat to overall stability.

FLANAGAN: But it's not protest at all, of course, it's just an excuse to attack my officers, and perhaps to also engage in trouble that seeks to promote intercommunal conflict, and that's what we're seeking to avoid above all else.

ROBERTSON (on camera): And of the various views that make up the Orange Order, many now believe that peaceful approach they have taken in the past will not convince authorities to let them march where they want.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY JORDAN, CO-HOST: The southeastern part of the United States, along with a pocket in the middle of the country, are taking the brunt of a harsh summer drought. The lack of rain combined with sustained periods of scorching temperatures have left normally fertile land parched. So far, the U.S. is having its warmest year ever, with the hottest spring in history. And so far this year, global temperatures are the second hottest on record.

For a case in point, we head to Europe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS RIKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Children in Turkey have the right idea: to get wet any way they can. Where there is no water, people bring it in, for other people as well as for some grateful animals.

It's more than just a need to beat the heat. This is survival. Authorities blame the soaring temperatures for a number of deaths throughout Europe. In Athens, people shield their eyes from the glaring sun and gulp down water, but they cannot escape the city's infamous smog. Greece has activated a civil defense plan, putting firefighters and medical workers on alert nationwide, and urging the elderly to seek out air conditioned indoor stadiums and auditoriums.

In Italy, meanwhile, firefighters say the heat coupled with high winds drove several suspicious fires through forest land outside Rome. And there was nothing to do but cut it all down. He says it will take 100 years for the forest to grow back, unless, he says, "another idiot throws a match in it."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYNES: You've no doubt heard that phrase, "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Well, it couldn't be more true than in today's "Editor's Desk." Now, believe it or not, we're taking a tour of a garbage dump today. But before we begin, we want you to consider a few questions: What is art? what's the role of art? and what's the medium of art?

Some things to think about as Don Knapp takes us to the dump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON KNAPP, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Things once valued for utility or style and beauty and now worn, torn or out-of-fashion end up in dumps like this. But for those with imagination, this dump is a rich vein of urban ore.

LIEB: Oh, this is like heaven. We call this area the gold mine.

KNAPP: Reddy Lieb is an artist in residence at the San Francisco dump.

LIEB: It might be something wonderful. It might turn out to be something wonderful. I have to see if it speaks to me.

KNAPP: Lieb and fellow artist Banker White rummage through trash to create works of art.

BANKER WHITE, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE AT THE DUMP: It's an amazing portrait in itself of the society, I think. So I think it's like a constant meditation about that.

KNAPP: Thinking about trash and promoting recycling is the main idea behind the Artist in Residence Program at San Francisco's dump. For artists Lieb and White, this dump is inspiration city.

LIEB: There's something very exciting about things that are being destroyed, you know. There's some kind of -- there's an incredible drama in it, and it is part of our life process.

KNAPP: Using a kiln made of old bed frames, Reddy melts discarded glass. Sometimes she goes to the pit for inspiration.

LIEB: We were up 30 feet in the air watching the bulldozers kind of careen over the garbage in the pits, and it was like the gladiators, you know. It's like there's a certain kind of drama and energy to this place.

KNAPP: White creates musical instruments from dump debris.

WHITE: There's this residue of kind of like the prior life of the material. But in the end, it wound up here because it's just -- it's kind of end of the road. And because of that, it's a little bit humbling.

KNAPP: Behind the NorCal Waste Systems transfer station, a three-acre garden displays some of the art created over the past decade.

(on camera): It's possible the works of art may also find their way, to the dump eventually. That's OK with artist Lieb, who says her work is about the process: life, death, rebirth -- recycling.

Don Knapp, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: In "Worldview," we face the issue of race. We'll look back in history to find out how racism has colored our world, and we'll ask questions about how the problem developed.

Many of the world's most enduring conflicts are linked to race. From the Nazi Holocaust of the 1940s to the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s, the 20th century has compiled a mixed record. Even as we embrace the new millennium and the 21st century, many troubling questions remain unanswered. It's a global issue, one that gets to the heart of humanity.

CNN's Bruce Burkhardt reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YOLANDA MOSES, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: This simple four-letter word that is so complex, perhaps one of the most complex phenomena that we have had to deal with in this millennium.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): So what is it about us human beings that so often causes us to believe that another who looks different than us is either is inferior or to be feared, even eradicated. No part of the globe is immune. Why did the Chinese once believe that the white man was descended from monkeys.

MOSES: The Japanese and Chinese were appalled the Europeans didn't bathe, and they smelled.

BURKHARDT: And why did the European settlers of North America see fit to dehumanize and enslave millions of Africans?

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR., AUTHOR, "WONDERS OF THE AFRICAN WORLD": They needed cheap labor to develop the New World. Well, the easiest way to do that is to find a group of people who are readily identifiable.

BURKHARDT: And why did the Nazis arrive at their "Final Solution," resulting in the slaughter of millions of Jews?

GEORGE FREDRICKSON, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: That's probably the most hideous example of racism in the world's history is the Holocaust and the extermination of 6 million Jews because of their -- what was thought to be their inherently evil nature that they carried in their -- physically from generation to generation.

BURKHARDT (on camera): And why? One-hundred and thirty-seven years after Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves, and 37 years after Martin Luther King stood here on these very steps and delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech," why does the union that Lincoln fought so hard to save still struggle with issues of race? All the more perplexing since, scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as race.

MOSES: What do you mean there's no such thing as race? Then how come this person looks like this and that person looks like that? Well, it's because of their genetic makeup and the fact that all humans, regardless of where they are in the world, have some minute differences. But by and large, they're 99.9 percent exactly the same.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): Yolanda Moses, a cultural anthropologist, says we could have just as easily divided everybody up by blood type. But you can't see a person's blood type.

SHELBY STEELE, AUTHOR, "A DREAM DEFERRED": The idea is that when I see someone who has a different skin color than mine, a different hair texture than mine, there's something in us as human beings that, almost a compulsion, by which we want to take the parts of ourselves that we're uncomfortable with, that we don't even admit to, and project it onto that other race.

BURKHARDT: Shelby Steele has stirred controversy with his writings arguing against Affirmative Action. But what's not controversial is this notion of projection.

DR. VAMIK VOLKAN, DIR., CTR. FOR STUDY OF MIND AND HUMAN INTERACTION: We do know that human beings develop certain kind of prejudices during their childhood.

BURKHARDT: Prejudices, according to psychiatrist Dr. Vamik Volkan, that grow out of something every parent is familiar with, stranger anxiety, which develops in infants at the age of 8 or 9 months.

VOLKAN: The infant suddenly becomes scared of any stranger. And why? A stranger has done nothing to the infant. So we surmise that something about the infant is the cause for it.

BURKHARDT (on camera): And that is the root of prejudice?

VOLKAN: That's the root of prejudice. This is the time that the child gets to know who he or she is and who is the other. And if the other is not familiar, the child has anxiety.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): Dr. Volkan believes there's a strong psychological component to racism. Psychiatrists call it projection, casting off our negative qualities onto someone else. It's part of the so-called "pleasure principle," which holds that humans basically seek pleasure, likewise try to get rid of unpleasure.

(on camera): So why is it then that somebody who looks different than us is associated with not having pleasure? VOLKAN: Well, it is -- it becomes a more suitable reservoir for our unwanted aspects. If you and I are similar, we look alike, then you will not be a good reservoir for my projections. It will boomerang. If we are the same, well, that means also me.

BURKHARDT (on camera): So, does all this mean that we humans are destined to become racists? Of course not. So many other things come into play during our development. It simply means that there is an opening. And while Dr. Volkan can explain prejudice on the individual level, exactly how racism becomes a large group process is much harder to figure out.

MOSES: As long as people have lived in groups, there have always been in groups and out groups, and there has always been a distrust of, quote-unquote, "strangers" or of outsiders, and...

BURKHARDT: But that's not the same thing.

MOSES: No, it isn't the same thing.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): Evident from the very beginnings of human community is ethnocentrism, or identifying with your group or tribe. That is not racism. That didn't develop until later.

FREDRICKSON: You get racism or race when you begin to think about the characteristics that people have as unchangeable and as also the foundation for some kind of unequal relationship, some kind of hierarchy. Anti-Semitism, for example, in the Middle Ages got pretty close to racism, if it didn't get all the way there, because when the Spanish decided that people who converted from Judaism to Christianity, that their blood was tainted by their Jewish ancestry, that therefore they could not be trusted even though they had made a professional of Christianity.

BURKHARDT: But it wasn't until the 17th and 18th century when racism kicked in big time. It could well be called the "golden age of racism," a time when Europeans left their shores to explore and settle new lands.

FREDRICKSON: And it's only, I think, when blacks become associated with slavery, specifically with the beginnings of the slave trade and with the use of blacks as slaves, that a gradual idea develops that the black is naturally a slave. I mean, particularly when slavery begins to be questioned and attacked, how do you defend it? Well one way, you say, these people are naturally slaves.

BURKHARDT: Ironically, this was also the Age of Enlightenment, a time of great art, music and literature, and a time when science was harnessed in the name of racism.

FREDRICKSON: You began to sort of divide the whole human race into a relatively small number of groups. And it was, you know, three to five, but there were always the Africans, the Europeans and the Asians. And under those circumstances, the divisions become thought of in biological or natural terms, and you begin to think about things like the physiological characteristics that indicate superiority or inferiority, capacity or incapacity.

STEELE: Science is often in the service of very, you know, dark human motivations. And this is a good example of it being used to justify the enslavement, the domination of other people.

GATES: The underbelly of the Enlightenment was the whole discourse of racism when philosophers such as Kant, Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Hegel, all wrote very racist things in otherwise sublime treatises.

BURKHARDT: It was a way of thinking about race that found its horrific conclusion in the Holocaust. Biological explanations of racial difference were now acknowledged as false.

MOSES: But there's a folk definition of race that's very operative here.

BURKHARDT (on camera): And just as powerful as...

MOSES: Just as powerful, just as ingrained that we have to get at.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): The mythology of color doesn't fade away easily.

(on camera): I wonder where it came from and where it started that white is associated with purity and goodness, and black and darkness and evil.

GATES: Well, we know where it came from. It came from white people. In China...

(LAUGHTER)

BURKHARDT: Oh, yes.

GATES: Wow, I don't think God did that. A black woman did not like that. She thought that that system was ugly. In China, white is the symbol of death. It's nothing natural about it.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): White and black: In the American experience, they're the colors of racism. But elsewhere, racism can exist without color.

GATES: Between 1992 and today, there's been ethnic violence in no less than 48 nations from Bosnia to Burundi, from Turkestan to Tibet. People are killing each other in the name of ethnic differences or religious differences. What's this about? It's about economic scarcity.

BURKHARDT: Henry Louis Gates Jr. has authored two comprehensive books on African-American history. And for him, it all boils down to economics, the fear that another group is out to get our stuff.

For Shelby Steele, racism is an impulse that, as civilized people, we learn to repress. BURKHARDT (on camera): That's kind of depressing, is that for me to like you, I have to repress something inside me.

STEELE: Well, we do in every human interaction. You know, we're friends with women and we repress things. We're friend with -- we repress our greed. Maybe I like your watch, but I'm not going to reach out and take it off your wrist.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): But for Yolanda Moses, it's all about color.

MOSES: We can't say to people, race doesn't matter, biological race doesn't matter, because it does, because that's what you see. And it's what you see that you have to explain. You have to explain this. But you have to decouple it from the notions that has anything to do with fixed, immutable behaviors that are negative.

BURKHARDT: Color, nature's palette, so worshipped in our gardens and nature. Human nature has yet to catch up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, seen in schools around the world, because learning never stops, and neither does the news.

HAYNES: In the United States, people accused of crimes are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. Usually, jurors are registered voters who are at least 18 years old. That means when young offenders go on trial, the people in the jury box and behind the bench are much older than they are.

But as Maria Hinojosa explains, that's changing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For some first- time youthful offenders in the South Bronx, this is what court looks like. Here's the 16-year-old judge who promptly reads off the ground rules.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Courtesy and respect, no name-calling, put- downs or cursing, and one person speaks at a time.

HINOJOSA: The prosecutor, the defense attorney and the jury all teenagers as well. On trial, a 14-year-old charged with assault for a street fight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We started arguing. First Sean (ph) pushed me back and we started fighting.

HINOJOSA: Sent to this youth court by probation officers from family court, organizers say teens will be truly judged and sentenced by their peers, some of whom have criminal records of their own.

RAMESH JAMES, YOUTH FORCE: Primarily, it's looking at the legal system as a way to defend young people and to understand that we live in a society that criminalizes young people. So they have to play their role. And the young people on our youth court are playing that role right now.

HINOJOSA (on camera): Youth courts aren't new. Some have been operating for over a decade. What is new are their increasing numbers. Nine years ago there were only 50 of these courts. Now, in response to an overflowing juvenile justice system, there are 650 of these courts across the country...

(voice-over): ... and important enough now to warrant a federal Justice Department study on their effectiveness.

JEFFREY BUTTS, URBAN INSTITUTE: If you could answer that question in the sense of, are they popular? do people believe in them? do they adopt them? yes, they work. If you're asking, do they have the effect on the individual offender that they claim to have? we don't really know yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No more questions, OK. You all lost your opportunity and that's it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to prove a point. We have to prove our case.

HINOJOSA: Teen lawyers here point to zero rearrests of defendants as success; that and changing lives.

FRANCISCA MARTINEZ, YOUTH FORCE: I wanted to be seen, like, a hero, like somebody who made a big change in someone's life.

LATOYA ORR, YOUTH FORCE: I get to help somebody that needs to be helped.

HINOJOSA: In the end, the defendant is found guilty and sentenced.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... two hours of legal education and four hours of Youth Court jury.

HINOJOSA: And Youth Court is adjourned for the day.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: From the court of justice to the tennis courts where, in the long history of Wimbledon, there's never been a match quite like this.

HAYNES: I don't think so.

Venus Williams defeated her younger sister Serena 6-2, 7-6 yesterday in the semifinals. It's the first time since 1884 that two sisters have played each other so late in a Grand Slam tournament.

CNN's Tom Mintier wraps up the action in England. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was to be a match the likes of which tennis fans had not seen for more than a hundred years: two sisters on Center Court at Wimbledon. It was the hottest ticket in town this week, 20-year-old Venus Williams facing off against younger sister Serena for the chance to win it all on Saturday.

Most of the spectators we talked to probably had never seen either Venus or Serena play. Many felt the buildup to this match could rekindle interest in women's tennis no matter who won.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I think it's probably good very tennis and youngsters. I mean, they're relatively young, aren't they? So I think, you know, it's good for tennis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of people, like today, want to try and get into see this because it's never happened before.

MINTIER: The older and more powerful Venus wasted little time proving her skills to the younger sister, winning the first set six game to two, a set that lasted little more than a half hour. What appeared to be a runaway soon turned into a nail-biter as younger Serena made a comeback to take the second set to a tie-breaker. But in less than two hours, it was all over, Venus Williams defeating her sister to advance to Saturday's finals on Center Court against Lindsay Davenport.

At the net after the match, the pent-up emotions seemed to spill out into the open. Losing is always difficult, but winning?

VENUS WILLIAMS, WIMBLEDON FINALIST: Someone had to move on. It was either going to be me or Serena. In this instance, it was me. And I really think she showed me how to play today, actually. I was just doing what she was doing.

SERENA WILLIAMS, WIMBLEDON SEMIFINALIST: I expect to play a lot better than I did today. It was my goal to do better in this tournament.

MINTIER: While the Williams sisters seemed low-key about the match, people who watched it from the stands seemed pleased with the outcome.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was really exciting. And Venus was very smooth and competent. Serena got a little excited. It was fun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had a great match out there and their good for the game.

MINTIER (on camera): At Saturday's final, it will be Venus Williams on Center Court with sister Serena watching from the stands, rooting for her sister and wondering about next year.

Tom Mintier, CNN, at Wimbledon in London. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: So did I call it or did I call it?

HAYNES: You called it. I accept defeat.

BAKHTIAR: Yes, and I predict that Venus is going to win against Davenport, too.

HAYNES: The whole thing, huh?

BAKHTIAR: The whole shabang.

HAYNES: She's going to take it.

BAKHTIAR: Too bad I didn't put money on it with Tom, huh?

HAYNES: I know, I would have lost a bundle.

BAKHTIAR: Well, that does it for us. We'll see you on Monday.

HAYNES: Yes we will. Have a good weekend. Take care.

BAKHTIAR: Bye.

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