Understanding the Riots Part 4 : Seeing Ourselves : WASHINGTON : Many never saw L.A. as a vision of the future in the first place.

When a visitor from Southern California asked his hostess at an upscale dinner party some months back what she thought of Los Angeles, she tossed him a condescending smile and replied, “My dear, I don’t think about it at all.”

Not surprising. While other East Coast cities seem to consider Los Angeles with either fascination or bemusement, Washingtonians tend to view it merely as an outpost--a place where politicians can hobnob with movie stars and sniff out big money, but where not a great deal else of significance goes on.

Newspaper headlines still occasionally refer to Los Angeles as “the coast” or identify a candidate campaigning in Southern California as being “out West.” It is as though he had ventured into a frontier of incalculable distance beyond Interstate 495, which encircles Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

“Basically Washington looks on L.A. as a bunch of flakes,” said National Geographic photographer Robert Caputo, who moved from Los Angeles to Washington a decade ago. “They seem to think all that’s there is Hollywood and Watts. Hollywood they associate with movies--an industry they think is only semi-serious--and Watts with urban trouble.”

Adds Georgann Kane, a local documentary film producer: “I’ve hardly ever taken a trip West that a friend hasn’t said, ‘Oh, that’s too bad. Do you have to go to L.A.?’ What do they think is wrong with L.A.? Well, it’s very un-East Coast.”

So although Washington (whose population is 68% black) was shocked by the Rodney G. King beating case verdicts and the subsequent riots, Los Angeles as a city probably is not perceived much differently today than it was a month ago because many residents here never saw it as a vision of the future in the first place.

“What happened in Los Angeles says something about the country, but nothing particular about L.A.,” Mildred Moseley said. “It could have happened in Miami, in Chicago, anyplace. I have a son-in-law who lives in Simi Valley, so I know they didn’t have to pick an all-white jury unless they wanted to.”

Moseley was standing in front of the Justice Department, where every day since the King verdicts were announced, a small group of middle-class blacks, joined by a handful of whites, has held a noontime vigil to protest racial injustice. Holding hands, with heads bowed, they sang and their words drifted up Pennsylvania Avenue like an echo from the civil rights protests of the ‘60s:

“We ain’t going to let nobody turn us around. Keep on walking, keep on talking, keep on walking up the freedom trail. We ain’t going to let Daryl Gates turn us around. Keep on walking. . . .”

If Washington has little traditional affinity for Los Angeles, perhaps it is because the two cities are so different in spirit. While Los Angeles prides itself on its diversity and its ability to pursue change, risk and innovation, Washington--at heart a segregated Southern company town--survives on the status quo. New ideas are a threat on Capitol Hill, where the tone for the district is set. This is a suited town where women wear dark dresses and jogging sneakers to work and people care who your father was and whether you have a job that carries influence.

“I get a smile that borders on a snicker when I tell someone I’m going to L.A. on vacation,” said Judith Kipper, a Middle East expert with the Brookings Institution who spends August with friends in Beverly Hills. “They say, ‘You like it there?’ and I say, ‘I love it.’ People in L.A. are genuinely friendly and you can talk about private matters without feeling it’s going to be held against you.

“In Washington, as Harry Truman said, if you want a friend, you should get a dog.”

Still, the Rev. Wallace Charles Smith, a Baptist minister at the daily Justice Department protest, expresses a sadness shared by many as he talks about Los Angeles these days.

“It’s particularly troubling,” he said, “when you find an incredible flaw in a city like L.A., and the rights of hundreds of thousands of decent, honest men and women are suspended because of the color of their skin. That such terrible racism still exists is a very painful thing.”