BLACKS OF ORANGE COUNTY

Sean Saunders is a black teen-ager growing up in Orange County. His dad is a dermatologist, his bedroom is festooned with posters of the heavy metal rock group Iron Maiden and he owns both a Toyota truck and a $3,000 motorbike that he often races in Palm Springs.

A standout football player at Foothill High School, where he is only one of 12 black students, Saunders, 17, dates and befriends only whites.

“I’ve lived here since I was 6 years old so I am not accustomed to much else,” he said. “I don’t feel weird when I am around whites because I feel truly accepted by them--at parties or wherever. It’s around other blacks that I don’t feel like I belong. I don’t speak the language.”

A few miles away, in a tiny apartment within earshot of the Costa Mesa Freeway, Ali Shephard, 18, listens to the music of the controversial rap group Public Enemy and talks about Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and social issues concerning blacks.

Shephard, whose father died four years ago, works nearly 40 hours a week as a stock boy at the nearby Drug Emporium to help his mother pay the bills and to save for college. He prefers to date black women and surrounds himself with a close-knit circle of black friends.

“Orange County is OK and all,” Shephard said. “There are certainly a lot worse places to be, but I do miss being around more of my people. It’s like two different worlds out here--theirs and ours--and they make sure you don’t forget it.”

Saunders and Shephard are the two extremes of what is a complicated and often painful struggle within Orange County’s small, scattered black community--the desire to assimilate into what some consider a less-than-friendly white society while maintaining a sense of African-American identity.

While other minorities are flocking to Orange County in search of economic opportunity, the number of blacks remains stagnant. Out of 2.3 million residents, blacks have made up less than 2% of the county’s population for decades. And observers say it is unlikely those numbers will increase in the near future.

“Orange County has never been a place viewed as very hospitable to black folk,” said Thomas Parham, director of career planning and placement at UC Irvine.

“Historically, if you looked at the way things were out here, you’ll see the John Birch Society and the ultra-conservative John Waynes were the dominant forces,” he said, “which makes it somewhat difficult for blacks to feel that this a place with its arms extended, welcoming them in.”

The reasons for the scarcity of blacks here are complicated and intertwined.

Historically, the major migration of blacks from other parts of the country to Southern California had already ended by the time Orange County developed into a flourishing commercial center.

Blacks began their slow but steady migration to the West Coast shortly after World War I. More than 1 million blacks left the south and moved north to Chicago and New York, and west to Los Angeles and Oakland for the better jobs that had been created by the wartime activity.

The largest migration was between 1965 and 1970, when nearly 100,000 blacks moved to Los Angeles. After that, the migration slowed considerably.

“Orange County didn’t get major industries until the mid to late ‘60s,” said William Gayk, county analyst. “Many people move out to Orange County because of their jobs, and since there probably weren’t many jobs at the time when blacks were moving, they didn’t have a reason to move to Orange County.”

And now, the high cost of housing in Orange County--where houses routinely sell for $200,000 and more--is far beyond the reach of many black families, whose average household income nationally is half that of whites.

According to the latest national figures by the U.S. Census Bureau, the average black family’s income is only 57% of that for whites, while the unemployment for blacks is double that for whites.

“I’d have to say it’s economics more than anything else,” said a black Orange County real estate agent, who declined to be named. “I’ve been selling homes for 10 years now, and I can say that I’ve only sold homes to 10 black families during that period. One a year. We as a people just don’t have the financial base for this type of affluent lifestyle.”

But many mobile, affluent blacks who could afford to move here say the county simply has a reputation that keeps them away.

Take Luther Hill, a vice president of a Los Angeles bank who lives in the exclusive black community of Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles.

“I could afford to live in Orange County if I wanted to, as I feel many other blacks living in L.A. and other parts of Southern California could,” Hill said.

“My friends and I have even discussed it. The area doesn’t appeal to me for various reasons, including the way I know many blacks have been treated there. Why would I want to subject myself to that with all the other things I must deal with on a day-to-day basis?”

To most outsiders, Orange County has always been viewed as staunchly conservative, uniformly white and uncompromisingly rigid in its political attitudes.

In the 1920s, for example, four-fifths of the Anaheim City Council, most of the city’s police force and the publisher of the city’s largest newspaper were open about their membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

But many blacks say it was an incident two years ago that fueled fears of racism. On Sept. 4, 1988, Sundaga Bryant, a black man strolling on a Balboa shore late at night with a portable radio, was shot in his arms and torso by Newport police, who mistook the radio for a gun.

“That is the kind of anxiety you feel in place like this, particularly as a black man,” Parham said. “And worse in a situation like this is that the officer was not punished, and no one from the white community spoke out and said, ‘Hey, this is wrong.’ They see a black with something in his hand and, of course, it’s a gun.”

Bryant’s lawsuit against the city of Newport Beach seeking more than $1 million in damages is still pending.

Though the incident was an extreme example, many blacks cite a more subtle racism they face daily.

Out of the more than 15 black men interviewed for this article, 14 said they had been stopped by local police more than once for no apparent reason and were questioned about everything from their car registration to their whereabouts during a local crime.

“There have been times when I was just walking around my block in Tustin, and the police would just stop me and ask if I had anything to do with some robbery that had just been committed,” said 21-year-old Bruce Gilbert.

“As a black man in America, I am accustomed to the fact that I am viewed as the most probable possible criminal,” he said. “But it’s sad to say that here the attitude is 10 times more intense.”

Robert Cox, an offensive tackle for the Los Angeles Rams who lives in Anaheim, noted that on more than one occasion he has been stopped by police to check the registration of his black Bonneville.

“I am from Northern California, so all of this is really new to me,” Cox said. “ I mean the whole attitude that is here in Orange County is totally different from any other place I’ve lived. When I go into places, I get funny looks and you know automatically what they’re thinking: ‘What’s he doing here, he doesn’t belong.’ ”

Though Orange County area police deny any concentrated effort to detain blacks without reason, Milton Grimes, a Santa Ana defense attorney who is black, acknowledges that it’s a common occurrence for black men to be detained by police in mostly white suburban areas.

“It’s an unfortunate reality, but true,” Grimes said. “Black men are targeted day after day for this type of what I call harassment. I tell young black men all the time--’if it happens, file a complaint. Let them know you won’t stand for it.’ ”

But despite these problems, more than 25,000 blacks have decided to call Orange County home.

“I’ve been here most of my life, so I really like and enjoy what Orange County has to offer,” said Vicki Jones, a sales clerk at South Coast Plaza who lives in Irvine. “My family is removed from that inner-city crime, the gangs and all the other bad elements that you find in L.A.”

Socially, the black community in Orange County exists primarily where it always has since the days of slavery--in the Baptist church.

“The church has always been the mainstay of the black community,” said the Rev. John McReynolds, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana, which has one of the largest congregations in the county. “Everything from the music we all listen to, to the dancing we all do and love has its roots in the black church. It’s vital to the community.”

In addition to the 27 black churches in Orange County, various black social clubs, such as the LINKS and Delta Sigma Theta, hold monthly meetings and black history events that also bring together the otherwise virtually invisible community.

“When blacks want to see other blacks in Orange County, there are various outlets, including social events,” said McReynolds. “It does take effort though because 25,000 people may sound like a large number, but when in comparison to more than 2 million people, it’s a faint drop in the bucket.”

But while black adults in Orange County have a variety of ways to socialize, experts say black children can have a tough adjustment.

“Growing up in Orange County can have a very negative effect on black children, particularly since they are so isolated from the traditional black community and role models,” said Dr. Phyl Robinson, an Anaheim-based psychologist.

“These children have an incredibly hard time defining who they are amidst blond hair and blue eyes. Self-esteem and a sense of worth for blacks is more easily found in a more ethnically diverse community.”

For Sean Saunders, it has meant immersing his identity within the white mainstream, from the music he likes to the clothes he wears. He says most of his fellow black students at Foothill High are accepted because they excel in some area, particularly sports.

“We (blacks) are all good at something, so that always helps,” said Saunders, who is co-captain of the football team.

But for Ali Shephard, playing “hoop ball” with the “brothers” is where he finds the most comfort.

Despite his busy work schedule, Shephard manages to keep a B-plus average in school and plans to attend Grambling College, a predominantly black school in the South, after he graduates from Tustin High School.

It was at Tustin High where white and black students exchanged potent racial slurs after a talent show last March, and Ali was there.

“To me, that lets me know that’s the way they feel 24 hours a day and seven days of the week,” Ali said. “You don’t call someone a ‘nigger’ out of the clear-blue sky. It has to be something they’ve wanted to say all along.”

To combat some of the anger, negative feelings and questions young blacks may have about themselves and their community, various local black social groups hold regular programs aimed at educating the black child on his culture and boosting self-esteem.

“It may be difficult, but there are ways of instilling in a child love for himself and his people in a community such as this,” said Parham, who regularly speaks to groups of young people about African heritage.

“I think some parents realize what isolation from their culture can do to a child and are making that extra effort to expose them to cultural events pertaining to black history.”

But Parham also notes that while many middle-class Orange County blacks are introducing their children to black history, others are deciding against it for fear of alienating their children from the white majority.

“Feeling good about yourself,” he pointed out, “does not mean feeling bad about others.”