Forum Speakers Describe Experiences With Racism

From the Santa Clarita victim of a cross-burning to the director of an Encino Jewish temple that was painted with swastikas, speakers at a forum Wednesday morning described what they said were personal experiences with racism.

The “Racism in Our Own Back Yard” discussion, sponsored by the Human Relations Committee of the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, was to “disprove the misconception” that racism is a thing of the past, said Juanita De Sosa, committee chairwoman.

It happens in neighborhoods “where you assume you can be safe,” said Derrick Quals, a black Santa Clarita resident who discovered a burning cross in front of his house in January. He said the incident may have stemmed from a dispute with the Hidden Valley Homeowners Assn. over a fence he wants to build on his property.

In February, vandals spray-painted swastikas and “Skins Are Back” on Temple Ner Maarav in Encino, said Lawrence Jacobson, the temple’s vice president for social action. He held up a copy of one of the White Aryan Resistance stickers that had been put into neighborhood mailboxes. The stickers read “White men built this nation and white men are this nation.”

A Latino, Mario Verde, 48, said his family has been threatened with guns and knives by white neighbors in his cul-de-sac in Glendale. They have told his wife, Maria, who is not fluent in English, “Stupid Mexican, you can’t speak English, why don’t you leave the neighborhood?” he said.

But the family won’t move, Verde said. “By defending our civil rights, we will stop encouraging our neighbors to do anything else.”

Racism exists not only in the streets, but in the courthouse, panelists said.

The brother of Donald Morse, 39, who was convicted of murder earlier this month, described the case as “a black man charged with the murder of two white police officers.” Ike Morse, 41, said the jury was all white. He alleged that the police investigation was incomplete and that the judge was biased toward the prosecution in rulings on evidence.

The officers were killed while trying to defuse a bomb in Donald Morse’s North Hollywood garage. Donald Morse told police he had never seen the bombs before.

Ike Morse said his brother was “somebody convenient to use, because people tend to associate crime with black people.”

A few members of the Human Relations Committee who had attended the San Fernando Superior Court trial contended that Judge John H. Major was inattentive when the defense made its arguments. Most of the 26 people at the forum, members of the Interfaith Council, signed petitions asking for a new trial and for leniency in Morse’s sentencing May 3.

Major, contacted afterward, said race was not an issue in the case but has been raised by people who disagree with the guilty verdict.

He said that after the verdict, he received an anonymous letter charging he is prejudiced against blacks. But he said that he is a “staunch supporter” of the United Negro College Fund and other black organizations and added that he is “very comfortable” with his handling of the Morse case.

Bernard J. Rosen, Morse’s attorney, said since the pool of potential jurors was largely white, he had asked for a new pool, which Major denied. The race issue otherwise was not raised at the trial, he said. Rosen would not comment on Ike Morse’s allegations.

Jacobson called for an all-out denunciation by the media, police, religious groups and the community of incidents such as those described by panelists. “We should never adopt the attitude that it’s just a couple of kids, or it happened down the block. . . . We have to let them know that they’re out of the mainstream,” he said.

One positive move is that the Los Angeles Police Department has set up a program to more closely report and monitor hate crimes, said Jose De Sosa, president of the California State Conference of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the San Fernando Valley chapter of the NAACP.

The committee will continue to educate the public about racism, members said.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Juanita De Sosa said.

“Like any weed, if it’s not eradicated early, it takes over the whole property,” Jacobson said.