Bill Clinton: “Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. Let's talk about two or three things. Let me say, first of all, a lot of people with…”

“Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. Let's talk about two or three things. Let me say, first of all, a lot of people with disabilities have problems that aren't easy to solve, as you know. But they also have enormous potential to contribute to this country. I can make the same argument for people with disabilities I made for all of you: that it is in our interest to see that everyone develops to the maximum of his or her capacity and serves to the maximum of his or her capacity. Let me just mention two or three things: Number one, last year before I became President, the Congress passed and President Bush signed a bill called the Americans with Disabilities Act. It has not been fully implemented. One of the commitments I made in this campaign is to try to bring that law to life for Americans with disabilities. It provides all kinds of extra effort to make America accessible and to invest in the potential of people with disabilities. The second thing is, I hope that a lot of these service programs will involve special services to people with disabilities working toward independence, not dependence. There are a lot of Government programs now which if you know someone with disabilities, you know it's basically--it favors funding that is designed almost to keep disabled people dependent instead of independent. And more and more disabled people want to and are able to, given technological supports, to live on their own, to work on their own, to live in at least assisted-living environments. And this is a very big deal for me and for my administration. My Domestic Policy Adviser has a child, whom I've known since he was a little boy, who had cerebral palsy and is now living out on his own in an assisted-living environment. And he will soon get his high school diploma. So I believe in that. The third thing I would say is we're going to do a lot of work through the Department of Education to try to make sure that children get appropriate placements and at least have the chance that they need to get a public education. I don't know if you've noticed this but, not this Saturday, the Saturday before last, I did a little town meeting like this with children. And there was a 9-year-old child with cerebral palsy who was very eloquent on the show. And she said she had a twin sister who was also in a wheelchair, but her twin sister couldn't speak except with the use of a computer, which is not uncommon. And she said because she could speak, she was in a regular classroom; because her sister had to use the computer to speak, she was in a special ed classroom. And she felt that they had the same mental capacity. So she said, ``Can you help get my sister in my classroom?'' And I asked--it was an interesting thing to question--I asked her, I said, ``Would you, if your sister couldn't do the work, would you then favor her getting special assistance?'' And she said, ``Yes.'' And I said, ``What you really want is for your sister just to have a chance to do what you do?'' And she said, ``That's what I want. I just want her to have a chance.'' It was very moving. But a lot of schools and school districts are just now learning what they can do. And we're always learning more and more about proper placements of these children. So anyway, those are some of the things that I will work on for persons with disabilities. I appreciate the other comment you made, because I am trying to demonstrate to the American people that we are all one country. We have to live together not only with tolerance for one another but with absolute appreciation for one another's differences. We shouldn't just put up with one another; we should actually enjoy the fact that this is a country of people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. When you look at what's going on today in the former Yugoslavia with the ethnic hatred--the Serbs and the Croatians and the Bosnian Muslims shooting and killing each other and starving each other, with differences, cultural and historic differences that are deep and long- lasting but, at least to the naked eye, not near as different as the cultural differences represented just in this room--for all of the problems we have in this country, we are moving forward on that. And I really believe that a great test of whether we will go into the next century and maintain our position as the greatest and strongest nation in the world may well be whether we can learn to live together across racial and ethnic lines, and not just put up with one another but absolutely enjoy the fact and make the most of it. One of our counties, Los Angeles County in California, has 150 different racial and ethnic groups within one county. I once spoke at a university there that had students from 122 different countries. You know what that meant. This can be an enormous strength of us in a world that is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. If you look around this room, the fact that some of you can come from such different cultures is a very big positive in a world that's getting smaller. The fact that we have a huge Hispanic population, for example, will be an enormous asset to us as more and more of our trade goes to Mexico, Central America, and South America to try to build up their economy. That's just one example. If you look at the fact that we have a substantial Asian population, it can be an enormous strength to us with the fastest growing economies in the world being in Asia. There are lots of examples. The fact that we have a big African-American population will be an enormous strength to us when 20 years from now we might find out that Africa then has the fastest growing economy in the world, if they can solve some of their political problems. So America is in an incredible position to have another great century as a nation if we can learn to really build on the strength of our diversity. Oh, yes. I want you all to be--you've been invited to ride a bus over to the speech. And I'm going to go with you. Do you want to go? Ready? World Trade Center Bombing”