As the world's nations gather Friday in Durban, South Africa for the first U.N. conference on racism, debates will center on a broad range of issues – some concerning domestic problems in developing nations, others on our own continuing struggles with racism and inequality.

The U.S. government's role in the conference has generated considerable controversy. The Bush administration has not announced whether it will attend. Last month, a White House spokesman said the U.S. would boycott the meeting if its agenda included the issues of reparations for slavery and Zionism as racism. Key questions raised include:

• Should the U.S. abstain from the conference, or does a subject of such international importance demand American participation? Why is it so hard for us to confront the racism in our midst?
  
  
• Is the U.S. truly a model of human rights? Do hate crimes, documented discrimination by police and courts, unequal immigration policies, disproportionate imprisonment of minorities, and broken treaties with Native Americans undermine our claim to moral and political superiority?
  
  
• Should the U.S. and other nations that once imported slaves pay reparations to their descendants? How can, or should, we make amends?
  
  
• What do the racist policies of other countries – caste distinctions, forced migration, ethnic cleansing, reverse discrimination – have to do with us? What can we learn from their experiences about how to eradicate the sources of our own prejudice?

Should the U.S. be held accountable to the same standards as the rest of the world on human rights abuses?