RACE RELATIONS : Children’s Sensitivity Course Aims at Preventing Prejudice

Two years ago, this easygoing, proud-of-being-tolerant city suffered a blight on its reputation when a gang of white youths killed a black man with a baseball bat. Now, Portland is experimenting with ways of teaching its children not to hate.

The effort--which the City Council will be asked next week to expand--involves pupils from four economically and ethnically mixed middle schools. The youngsters are given a taste of how it feels to be discriminated against. Then they are told why it is wrong.

The program reflects a growing concern--both here in Portland and in other cities around the country--that race-related violence is rising at an alarming rate in the United States, particularly among young people. The development is especially troubling because race relations experts have long seen sensitizing the young as offering the best hope for reducing racism and prejudice.

“We don’t want Portland to spawn another generation of kids who grow into adults not knowing how to get along,” said Alice Simpson, head of Youth Today Inc., a private group that advises the Portland school system.

“No one is born to be racist or sexist,” said Kevin Slater, a trainer from the Anti-Defamation League who is helping to run the program. “They are taught that by parents,” he said. “We here just want to make sure everyone is given a fair chance.”

The idea itself isn’t new. Caryl Stern, another ADL worker, said that her organization has been running sensitivity training programs on campuses and in corporations for years. “What’s different here,” she said, “is working directly with kids so young.”

Stern said she hopes that some of the youngsters in the program will go back to their schools and help to sensitize other children. “This could serve as a national model,” she said.

The trainers have no illusions about how easy their work will be. “I don’t want you to love each other,” Slater told a group of 45 eighth-graders. “I just want you to live together.”

The message is a simple one: diversity is one of American society’s biggest assets. Prejudice is learned from other people, and it can be un learned as well.

To accomplish this, the instructors seek to challenge racial stereotypes and teach youngsters to try to understand each others’ cultures more fully. “Getting along means knowing a little something about each other,” she says.

Indeed, as Stern points out, ignorance of each others’ cultural values can lead to outbursts of hate.

She told of an incident in her old neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., when a black woman who wanted to ease rising racial tensions took a freshly baked pie to her neighbors across the way, who were Orthodox Jews.

“At the door the woman extended her hand, not knowing that Orthodox Jews on the Sabbath don’t shake hands,” Stern said. “Once inside, she picked up a kitchen knife to cut the pie, not knowing the couple were kosher and used different knives for different foods.

“The meeting ended in an argument,” Stern said. “The next day two children, one from each family, ended up seriously injuring each other. Knowing about each other’s cultures could have prevented something like that.”

In three days of lectures, much time was spent demonstrating how little people know about the ethnic groups that make up the mosaic of America.

Some of the examples were delightful. Slater pointed out that spaghetti was invented in China, not Italy, and brought to Italy by Marco Polo. Egg rolls were invented in San Francisco, not China. And Beethoven’s mother was a Moor.

The results have been modest, but often gratifying. During the course, Jimmy Thompson, 12, who is black, struck up a friendship with Ethan Seheible, who is white.

“We learned for the first time what the effects of racism are and how they hurt,” Seheible said.