The View at the Crenshaw Cafe: ‘It’s Sad, but It Had to Happen’ : Community: Patrons grimace and shake their heads at the incomprehensible. ‘Justice wasn’t done there,’ says one about the verdicts.

At one table they shared the painful news--accounts of lethal dagger thrusts to a community’s creative heart.

“The Aquarian Bookshop is gone,” one woman said as though describing the death of a deeply loved relative.

“No,” came the shocked response.

“And Jazz Etc. It’s a burned-out skeleton.”

Grimaces. Pain. Heads shaking at the incomprehensible.

A crowd larger than usual for a Sunday gathered at the Crenshaw Cafe in southwest Los Angeles to assess the fire this time over grits and biscuits, hot links and scrambled eggs, honey punch and hot coffee across the street from the charred remains of shops owned by African-Americans and Korean-Americans.

On any given day at the Crenshaw Cafe, the conversation is stronger than the coffee, and any topic can be up for grabs--movies, politics, crime, religion.

But this Sunday there was only one conversation and virtually everyone in the restaurant had strong views.

At one of the outside tables, radio producer James Graves and his friend Diana Wimbush looked across the street at the twisted skeleton of what was once a black-owned print shop.

“It’s sad, but it had to happen,” Graves said. “We turned the other cheek with Latasha Harlins. Justice wasn’t done there. We waited for the justice system to work in the King case.”

Graves said he was saddened that the businesses had burned down, “but what other way did we have? People kept saying: ‘Go through the justice system.’ We did.”

He compared the violence to the drug epidemic afflicting the city. “As long as the violence stayed in black areas, it was cool,” he said. “But as soon as it hit Westwood, downtown, Hollywood, (President) Bush declared a national emergency.

“Same with drugs. As long as they stayed in black areas, it was cool. But when they moved to the suburbs. . . .”

The walls of the popular cafe at 4343 Crenshaw Blvd. are covered with the oversized autographs of regular customers and celebrities from Lou Rawls to the Temptations, from rapper Tone Loc to singer Barry White.

With four sidewalk tables and another eight or so inside, the cafe fills up any Sunday toward midday, but customers stood three and four deep outside on Sunday, debating the state of Los Angeles and the nation while waiting for a table.

Outrage outran the waiters from table to table as customers complained that they had seen no news reports of the death of the Aquarian on Western Avenue and King Boulevard--the oldest continuously operating black-owned bookstore in the nation.

And Jazz Etc., the extensively remodeled top-of-the-line club in the Santa Barbara Plaza, had been open less than three years. Now it is gone.

“Black people must remember that some must suffer and die so that others can be free,” said Maggie Hathaway, founder of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, about the loss of those businesses. She shared a table with actor Nick Stewart, who runs the Ebony Showcase Theater on Washington Boulevard.

“What we’ve seen is just a pimple on what’s happening,” said Stewart, 82, who once played Lightnin’ on the old “Amos ‘n’ Andy” television show. “I’ve been in show business since 1925. The motion picture industry has always distorted the black image. You know who beat Rodney King? It was the negative images of black people in motion pictures.”

Cafe owner Jamil Shabazz pulled a chair up to the table and argued that it is “nothing new for black men to get their asses whipped by the police. King is just one in a million. It just happened that his beating was videotaped.”

He cited Muslim scripture saying Allah will only change a man’s condition if that man “changes his heart. A change of heart is happening. Crips and Bloods are coming together. That’s a change of heart. Something good is going to come out of this.”

As he spoke, a disc jockey being broadcast over the restaurant’s stereo system began playing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Going To Come.”

“This is divine,” Shabazz said laughing, referring to the coincidence.

But a profound anger lies behind the change he sees coming. “Why do we pay taxes?” he demanded. “We pay for a government that has failed us. It failed us with Latasha Harlins. It failed us with Rodney King.”

Inez Shahid, eating at an adjacent table, leaned in to join the conversation. “We’re waiting too late to teach our children about black people,” she said, as diners at other tables nodded their approval. “We can’t wait until they’re in high school and wearing dashikis to teach them their history. We have to teach them before they enter kindergarten.”

At one of the outside tables, Lisa Williams, a Cerritos College student, said she was concerned about solutions.

“Each individual has to sacrifice,” she said, pointing out that if South Los Angeles is to be rebuilt, African-Americans can do it. “We had beautiful civilizations in the past. We can do it again.”

Looters were not responsible for all of the damage, she argued. “Some of these buildings were torched by their owners for insurance,” she insisted, echoing a theme being repeated more frequently with each passing day.

As the conversation swirled inside and outside the cafe, John Singleton, who wrote and directed the film “Boyz N the Hood,” walked up with a television news crew in tow.

“There’s a lot of positive energy around here,” he said.

But he was soon set upon by two young women who accused him of perpetrating “negative images” of black people in his film. When one mentioned Singleton’s movie and the gang movie “Colors,” he angrily interrupted her.

“Don’t equate ‘Colors’ and ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ ” he snapped. “If you’ve got a problem with the movie, make your own movie.”

Joseph Ross, a Spanish teacher, and his wife, Farideh, were the only whites in Sunday’s crowd, but their anger was just as pronounced as that of any of the other diners.

“I think it’s sad that everybody points the finger at people in the neighborhood,” said Ross, who lives in Santa Monica. “They should be pointing at Bush and corrupt politicians.

“One of these days, if things keep going in this direction, it won’t be just this neighborhood. It will be people from everywhere. We’re angry too. We’re all fed up. It’s sad to say, but maybe people will listen now.”

By this time, Singleton and his party had taken a table inside directly across from where NAACP pioneer Hathaway was seated. She pointed out that her organization had pressured Hollywood for decades to provide more opportunities for blacks.

Looking across at Singleton, she noted: “We built the bridges so that he and others like him could cross.”