GOOD, BAD NEWS IN TODAY'S RACE RELATIONS BIGOTRY STILL ALIVE AND WELL, BUT NOW IT'S FAR LESS ACCEPTABLE THAN IN '96.

Byline: James E. Hilvert

``NEW race relations survey finds good news and bad news.'' So reads the coverage of ``Taking America's Pulse II,'' the race relations survey recently released by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). The survey reports heartening progress - but clearly, disturbing discrepancies remain in the perceptions of America's current state of race relations.

Is ``good news and bad news'' something of which Americans should be proud? Yes, certainly, we should be satisfied that some progress has been made in racial attitudes in the U.S. in the past four years (since ``America's pulse'' was first taken in our 1996 survey).

The new national survey shows clear progress in some areas of intergroup relations, despite what some conclude from the apparent surge in racial violence and attacks on gay men. Hate crimes do not necessarily increase in proportion to worsening racial attitudes, of course, but there is a relationship.

Clearly, discriminatory behavior is linked directly to attitudes. If nothing else, the years since the 1960s civil rights movement show that prejudice becomes more isolated as it becomes more and more a minority opinion - which ignites some crazies like Buford Furrow even more, but pushes many more away from an increasingly unpopular minority opinion.

In large numbers, the survey found, people of all races continue to recognize the existence of discrimination targeted against certain groups. And it's more than racial minorities. In fact, as many as 83 percent of respondents see ``a great deal or some discrimination'' against gays and lesbians - the same percentage as discrimination at that level against African-American people.

A slightly lower percentage of respondents - 76 percent - perceive a great deal or some discrimination against immigrants in general, as well as against Latin-Americans and Latino immigrants. Lower percentages feel that discrimination continues against people with disabilities, American Indians, women, Asians, Jews and Muslims.

Similarly, white respondents to the NCCJ survey were less likely in 2000 than they had been when the first survey was taken to believe that African-Americans and Latinos ``have the same opportunities'' in society as whites do.

This is a pivotal question we must consider.

Is this good? It's not good, of course, that the discrimination persists. But, certainly, it's better that people feel that way than if they don't see discrimination against groups other than their own. Most change in the 1960s South came primarily from the nonviolent and bold direct-action tactics and the raw courage of people fighting the status quo, but critical federal government support was rooted in the rapid growth of opinion throughout the nation that the evil of the Bull Conners and George Wallaces had to end.

Federal Bureau of Investigation prosecutions against those who were long ago let off by all-white juries would not be taking place without wide-scale public support. The recent arrests and coming retrials for the 1963 murders of the four little girls in a Birmingham church bear witness to this.

Clearly, good news is that more interracial and interethniccontact is reported than in 1966. Nonblacks reported contact with African-Americans as increasing to 82 percent - a striking increase of 15 percent in four years. Reported contact by non-Latinos with Latinos is up from 51 percent to 66 percent, although the figures for contact with Asians has only increased by 3 percent.

A key result of the survey was that people perceive lower levels of intergroup tensions in their daily lives than they do for the country as a whole. At work, 89 percent see ``no problem or not much of a problem'' and 86 percent perceive no problem ``in the neighborhood'' - whereas, in the country as a whole, only 17 percent see ``no problem or not much of a problem.''

Many respondents felt ``far or very far'' from certain other groups, especially gays and lesbians, and atheists. On the other hand, in a somewhat surprising finding, the survey noted that 59 percent of respondents - as opposed to 38 percent in '96 - feel ``close or very close'' to African-Americans. Similar increases were reported in attitudes toward Latinos and Asians.

Although another finding of the new survey was that 36 percent of respondents agreed that ``it's OK to have a country where the races are basically separate from one another,'' they stipulated that it would be OK ``only as long as they have equal opportunity.'' Good news? Perhaps we should be more disturbed by this acceptance of separation than assuaged by bromides of American equal opportunity.

So what's the really bad news? Certainly, one bad sign was that ``Taking America's Pulse II'' found that many people from racial and ethnic groups questioned reported that they, personally, had experienced at least one episode of discrimination in the previous month. As many as 42 percent of African-American respondents said this - in the year 2000.

Individuals' intergroup perspectives and experiences are based on more than race and ethnicity. Intergroup relations today are far more complex and must be understood in terms of race, ethnicity, faith, age, gender, sexual orientation and economic class - among other things. The positive aspects of the findings are heartening, but the disturbing conclusions one can draw from them scream out for more effort at reducing the still substantial separateness of our lives.

As much as national and regional identity, this is who we are. We are on the road, but not yet anywhere near our destination.

To move along faster, whatever our destination, we must focus more private and public resources on well-planned efforts to develop more bridges in workplaces, schools and neighborhoods that will continue to develop attitudes and relationships that reduce bigotry and the frequency of discriminatory behavior, and perhaps even reduce violence against minority groups - whatever minorities they be.