Keeping in Step With Racial Harmony : Education: Schools go to extra lengths to ensure that spectrum of music at dances is in pace with ethnic makeup.

To San Diego city educators, an article about separate white student and black student proms at a Catholic high school in Chicago last month read like a flashback to the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Not that San Diego ever experienced ethnic-exclusive school dances because of disagreements over what music to play. But when integration programs first took hold on city campuses, tensions between racial groups at numerous schools were often symbolized by disputes over appropriate songs to play at lunchtime and at dances.

For the past half-dozen years, however, such music-related problems have been minimal at city secondary schools, each of whose majority ethnic students--whether Latino, black, white, Asian or Filipino--are no more than two-thirds of any given school population. Before integration programs began, some schools had student bodies nearly 100% composed of a single racial group.

Almost every city high school now uses professional disc jockeys, rather than bands, to play music during dances because of their extensive music collections, ranging from contemporary rock and black and Latino dance rhythms to rap, reggae and funk. No single band can hope to match varied repertoires covering such a variety of ethnic tastes.

In addition, students through their various school organizations spell out to disc jockeys that they must play music to appeal across the ethnic spectrum if the deejays stand any chance of ever being invited back again.

“It’s as if Chicago is 10 years or more behind us,” said Hoover High Principal Doris Alvarez, who as a district counselor at Muirlands Junior High in the late 1970s remembers integration department report after report detailing disputes between students over “whose music” would be played.

“We as the ASB (Associated Student Body organization) make it clear to the disc jockey that he has to play a mix, that it’s a prerequisite because our school isn’t homogeneous anymore,” Yooney Kim, an ASB member at University City High School, said.

“Our school is real mixed ethnically and everyone likes a different type of music,” Donovan Whitehurst, a Kearny High senior, said. “So we tell our deejays that we have to have a mixture at the dances, like soul, rap, pop dance . . . even a few oldies for the teachers and chaperones” who oversee the dances.

Kearny has hired disc jockeys in the past who played predominantly one kind of music and “neglected those who wanted to hear other songs,” Whitehurst said. “We didn’t bring them back.”

Even the disc jockeys realize they have to be aware that more and more high schools, especially those in urban areas of San Diego, are multiethnic. The issue is less important at county high schools whose student populations are still overwhelmingly white.

“I’ve got at least 2,000 selections available for any given dance, across the gamut of white music, black music, Latino music, fast versus slow music, you name it,” said Keith Danon, whose Music As You Like It firm handles numerous proms and dances, including last week’s Mira Mesa High School senior prom at the San Diego Convention Center.

“You don’t want to end up with a dance where the kids would decide not to go because they don’t feel enough enough blues or soul or new wave music will be played.”

Lamont Sauls of University High said that a good deejay “gets a feel for the school and will play those songs that people dance to . . . you don’t want something where everyone scatters off the floor.”

At Brother Rice High School in Chicago last month, with a student body 88% white and 12% black, the prom committee said that play list for the dance would be based on the most-mentioned songs submitted by students. Black students complained that their preferences would be effectively shut out because of their small numbers, and decided to hold their own prom despite official disapproval from school administrators.

“You’ve got to believe that the problem in Chicago went beyond just the prom music,” said student Taneesha Lewis at Morse High School in Paradise Hills. She described her school as “like a gumbo, a big melting pot” with its mixture of Filipino, Latino, black and white students. “And after all, a prom is a real night to remember,” she said.

But to make sure that problems are kept at a minimum, schools like Morse write into their contracts with disc jockeys the requirement that at least 25% of songs listed by students on requests forms be played or else a portion of the fee will be withheld.

Morse is among many schools that holds lunchtime auditions for new disc jockeys hoping to be hired at one of the school’s six annual dances.

“By having them come at lunch, you really get every (student’s) attention,” Morse student Blanca Quintero said.

Students tend to classify their music by what radio station they listen to. Among the high school favorites: KKLQ (Q106), which plays a heavy dance MTV/contemporary black and Latino selection; XTRA-FM (91X), with so-called techno-pop and new wave music such as Depeche Mode and various English bands; XHTZ-FM (Z90), similar to Q106 but with a little more rap and ethnic funk music, and XHRM-FM (92.5), with a more urban, black music format.

“We’ll even ask deejays what radio stations they tailor their music around,” said Whitehurst of Kearny.

But students say also that their own tastes in music more than occasionally cross what would be called ethnic boundaries, and that music can provide an entree into better cross-cultural ties.

“You can break the barriers,” Michael Oviedo of Kearny said. “I like 91X but I can also listen to Z90 or Q106 too. A lot depends on whom you hang out with,” Oviedo said, adding that some of his Latino friends listen to rap and soul while Indochinese pals might prefer rock or even Asian-language pop tunes.

Tom Sanchez at University High said that mixing with students of other racial groups at school on a consistent basis “makes it easier to accept other peoples’ music” more easily.

“I may not want to listen to reggae at home (music often identified with black culture) but I don’t have any problem hearing it at a dance,” Sanchez said. “I may even dance to it myself.”

Sauls of University City, who attends the school from southeast San Diego under district integration programs, said: “People have to get around different people, have to learn to adapt to each other.

“Sure, there’s prejudice here and there, but we try hard not to stereotype each other . . . if people give each other a chance, it turns out that you just might like ‘my’ music, or ‘your’ music.”

Another University High student, Bernadette Bulacan, said, “Student groups like the ASB have to take the initiative, to recognize difference talents, different cultures, to work to integrate people in all of our activities.”

Hoover Principal Alvarez said that the more relaxed atmosphere among students regarding music is indicative of a general improvement she finds in inter-racial relationships compared to a decade ago.

“You wouldn’t believe the tremendous number of mixed couples we had at our own prom,” Alvarez said. “It was great.”