Awakening to Despair Needed, Democrats Say : Politics: Clinton tells entertainment industry figures and activists to get involved in rebuilding the city. Brown says the party has abandoned the poor and minorities.

An influential group of politicians including Democratic presidential hopefuls Bill Clinton and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. told entertainment industry figures and activists Saturday that a national awakening is needed to the social and spiritual despair threatening U.S. cities.

Addressing a daylong summit that drew congressional leaders and mayors of cities nationwide, Clinton said rebuilding the damage caused by Los Angeles’ riots--like rebuilding America--will require a new dedication to community values.

“No federal program will replace your willingness or unwillingness to work,” Clinton said, urging his audience to reach across economic lines and “go out and talk to poor people” to learn from them what their communities need. “You’d be amazed what you learn.”

President Bush, Clinton said, has offered “a simple, headline-grabbing solution” to the riots: “Punish the rioters.” Although that must be done, Clinton said, “it is not enough.”

“Most of the people who live in the riot areas didn’t riot,” Clinton said, “but most of those people do not have a fair life.”

Later, Brown told the group that job-starved cities such as Los Angeles and New York are in a crisis because the Democratic Party no longer seeks to serve as an advocate for poor, working class and minority Americans.

Responding to a question about how individuals could unite behind the divergent opinions on domestic policies, the former California governor said such a task used to belong to the Democratic Party. The party, he added, no longer seeks out the views of disadvantaged Americans, favoring rich individuals and international corporations.

“You have to reconstitute the party,” Brown said. “What is required is a turning of a whole political philosophy to committing this country--public and private sectors--to building up communities.”

Clinton and Brown delivered their remarks at Sony Studios in Culver City to a forum sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Show Coalition, a nonprofit political education organization comprised mainly of entertainment-industry activists.

Participants in the daylong meeting also heard criticism directed at Peter V. Ueberroth, a conference speaker who heads Rebuild L.A., and a spirited panel discussion on racism in America and the need for political empowerment for women and minorities.

In advocating government efforts to invest in communities, Brown cited a congressional vote to spend $2 billion to save 18,000 jobs associated with a military submarine manufacturing plant in Groton, Mass. But he said Congress was unwilling to spend for job creation programs in South-Central Los Angeles and other inner-city neighborhoods.

“There are 18,000 people in South-Central Los Angeles and in cities across this country who are no less deserving of jobs . . . and they won’t get them because they don’t have political power,” Brown said.

He added that the vote to save the military plant proves that even in tight economic times Congress responds to its political interests by spending whatever is required.

“The only way cities will be saved is when the political will is developed to shape our economy around an investment strategy that will reward and prefer the full employment of the people of this country at a living family wage,” Brown said. “That is a moral idea, not a market idea.”

Brown opened his remarks by reading a letter he wrote to Democratic congressional leaders, urging them to spend $35 billion targeted for the cities. The plan was proposed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Offering his own suggestions to help rebuild the riot damage, Clinton urged residents to support the city’s new police chief and the sort of community-based policing that Willie L. Williams has concentrated on while heading the Philadelphia Police Department.

Clinton called for national efforts to give residents of poor neighborhoods access to capital they need to start their own businesses, citing as an example a community development bank in Chicago that has brought new jobs to poor neighborhoods by concentrating on loans to entrepreneurial-minded residents.

“You have got to bring enterprise and progress to those areas if you want to turn them around,” Clinton said.

Clinton also had advice for the business central to most of his listeners--entertainment.

“I think it was ridiculous to try to blame the Los Angeles riots on Murphy Brown,” Clinton said, referring to remarks last week by Vice President Dan Quayle.

“But I do think, you cannot get out of the fact that this country and this culture are affected by the daily assault on our sensitivity of the media that seems to glorify greed and selfishness and violence.

Clinton’s remarks followed a brief overview by Ueberroth on the efforts to enlist government, businesses and private citizens in bringing employment, housing and hope to the riot-scarred sections of Los Angeles.

“Let’s be honest, what has the private sector done for, about, with or at, the inner cities in America for the last 30 to 40 years? With few exceptions, very little,” Ueberroth said. “And I’m as guilty as anybody else.”

Without the commitment of business and private foundations, Ueberroth said, the long-neglected inner cores of Los Angeles and America’s other big cities will continue to be places of despair and decay. His message to the private sector, Ueberroth said, is: “You have a responsibility to start to care about the centers of cities that you have avoided like poison” for decades.

But Ueberroth’s comments and leadership of Rebuild L.A. drew criticism from some in the audience, including Octavia Miles, a West Los Angeles marketing research consultant who challenged Ueberroth to immediately involve minorities in the city’s rebuilding effort.

Pointedly questioning Ueberroth before a luncheon crowd of several hundred, Miles’ challenge led the Rebuild L.A. chairman to pledge that the group would make unprecedented strides for involvement of African-Americans. “Whether it’s at the board level . . . top management . . . or staff level,” Ueberroth said, “the African-American community will be included better than at any time. I am giving you a pledge.”

But Ueberroth’s pledge did not satisfy Miles, who said after his speech that he and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley must do more to empower minorities in the rebuilding of their communities.

That sense of disenfranchisement was a central theme at the forum, which included lengthy discussions on racism from panels that included leaders of Congress, mayors and activists from cities as far away as Binghamton, N.Y.

“Race has been the most divisive issue in our nation’s history,” Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, said during one panel where speaker after speaker warned that the nation’s unemployment will continue to fuel the flames of racism.

Decrying the Reagan-Bush administrations for an erosion of employment, empowerment and hope, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said that legacy has been most devastating in minority communities where joblessness and neglect are epidemic.

“These are not blacks that are suffering. These are not Hispanics who are suffering. They are American citizens who have been left behind--all of whom are essential to the capacity of this nation to develop and compete and heal,” Kerry said.

Overcoming the racism fed by despair, many panelists said, will take more direct involvement by minorities and women, not more public policies shaped by white male politicians, however noble their intentions.

“The challenge is much greater than having a good heart,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), whose remarks drew praise from a diverse group of speakers.

“Don’t attend another meeting where everyone looks like you,” she said. “That’s the best thing you can do to get rid of racism.”