Whites Face a New Fear: Being Judged by Color : Unrest: People are forced to examine feelings about race relations. Some sympathize, others vent bigotry.

The owner of a West Hollywood public relations firm, troubled that his white skin could make him a target in the wake of the riots, thinks twice about driving his new Mercedes.

The wife of a white Century City architect asks her husband to ride with a black colleague when business takes him to Watts.

A white Canoga Park real estate appraiser changes his routine--instead of going alone to jobs in South Los Angeles, as he used to, he now travels with another appraiser.

Historically, a white face has often been a built-in advantage--a shield against the cruelest blows of prejudice. But since the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case sparked violence, many whites are encountering fears that have long been familiar to people whose skin is black or brown.

In a twist on urban stereotypes, white people across post-riot Los Angeles are suddenly afraid of being judged by the color of their skin. And as the shaken city struggles to right itself, that worry has ensnared many whites in a web of vexing emotions, from guilt to resentment, from embarrassment to intolerance. Others have been emboldened, using the riots as an excuse to unleash pent-up prejudices.

Consider the white couple who stopped their car at a Santa Monica intersection recently, spotted a black man in a Porsche next to them and hurriedly locked their doors. Their faces looked embarrassed but not apologetic, as if to say, “Hey, we’d be crazy not to.”

By contrast, other whites have reacted to the riots by trying to identify and confront their hidden biases--to catch themselves before racial stereotypes dictate their behavior. But even as they do so, choosing to smile when they might have looked away, some have found their uneasiness difficult to stifle.

“I think twice about where I’m going to drive. I think twice about should I take the old car or the new car. If I’m in the new car, is that rubbing success in somebody’s face?” asked Phil Lobel, the West Hollywood publicist. “It’s a combination of class and race--I’m standing out as a white person in a two-class, have and have-not situation.”

So far, these concerns have not kept Lobel from driving his new Mercedes 300E. But as he pulls it out of the driveway, he is conscious that his beat-up Chrysler Le Baron convertible would cut a lower profile.

“I think twice,” he said, “about whether my insurance is current.”

Wayne Scott, the Canoga Park real estate appraiser, is also worried--about his physical safety.

“I can’t help it--it’s a gut level reaction. I feel anxiety driving through black areas. . . . I feel like I could be attacked and victimized like Reginald Denny,” he said, naming the white truck driver who was beaten at Florence and Normandie avenues on the first night of rioting.

“It’s not an ‘us’ and ‘them’ between me and black Americans. It’s us and them between me and black racists,” continued Scott, 47, who said he is also concerned about some Latinos who “hate and disrespect the English-speaking population. . . . I think because I have a white skin, I would suffer poorly at their hands.”

Alex Norman, a professor emeritus of social welfare at UCLA and a race relations consultant, says Scott is not alone. In dozens of “debriefings” he has conducted at colleges and companies since the riots, Norman has found that Angelenos of all races are feeling frightened, anxious and depressed. But one fear sets whites apart, he said.

“Lots of whites fear bodily injury,” said Norman, who said guilt and shame are among other emotions many white people seem to share. “They fear they will be attacked.”

But instead of noticing details that might help defuse racial prejudice--such as the ethnic diversity of the looters--Norman says some people are merely using the riots to bolster their pre-existing biases. The intensity of their race-related worries may be new, he said, but the underlying stereotypes are age-old.

“I think there were people who were bigoted from the outset who now feel they have more of a right to express it. I see it. I experience it,” said Norman, who is black. Lately, when he enters some stores in predominantly white Santa Monica neighborhoods where he has shopped for years, Norman says he feels a chill.

“I notice people looking at me, casting more of a questioning glance: ‘Do you belong here?’ ” he said. “It’s ridiculous. But there were a lot of people who were just looking for an excuse. And they found it in the uprising.”

In the same way that many blacks felt the King beating symbolized how whites denigrate blacks, many whites see the Denny beating as emblematic of a larger anti-white rage. Videotaped images of Denny, played again and again on television in recent weeks, have fueled apprehensions among whites about being “lumped together” and targeted for blame.

One white man said he was angered by the sight of the King beating. “But at the same time, it never occurred to me that I might be stopped by a cop and beaten senseless--because I’m white,” said Mark Hannah, 34, a post-production supervisor for movie previews who lives in Hancock Park. The attack on Denny struck closer to home.

“Immediately it was like: ‘Oh, that could happen to me,’ ” Hannah said. “All of a sudden (there was) a possibility that you could be a victim.”

More than a month after Denny was beaten, Bob Bangham, a white architect who lives in Venice, said that feeling endures.

“You realize,” he said, “you’re a symbol of the problem.”

Images of Denny’s black male attackers, meanwhile, have exacerbated bitter stereotypes about people of color--despite the fact that Denny’s rescuers were also black.

“My reaction is they just hate the whites,” said a 68-year-old white grandmother who lives near Park La Brea. Since the riots, she says she feels “paranoid” at the mere sight of a black man in her neighborhood. “I’m not one of those who says that all blacks are no good. My husband had a black secretary for 19 years. But I think the riots were an expression of hatred. The good ones have to suffer because of the bad ones.”

The grandmother’s message--that the reputations of “good” people must suffer because “bad” people of the same race have behaved poorly--has been echoed by many whites since the riots. In recent weeks, Norman said, several black people he knows have been approached by whites and told, “Look at what your people have done.”

Similarly, during a recent panel discussion at UCLA about the root causes of the riot, a white middle-aged man stood and addressed Mel Oliver, an associate professor of sociology who is the associate director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Urban Poverty.

“What are you going to do with your male (family members)?” the man asked Oliver, who is black.

But when the tables are turned and individual whites are asked to answer for the wrongs of their entire race, many are outraged. Just because some white people are racists, more than one white person has found himself arguing lately, that does not mean they all are.

“Let’s face it--it probably catches a lot of white people off guard to even think they’re being painted with the same brush,” said John Mack, president of the Urban League of Los Angeles. Mack, who is black, knows from experience how that can hurt.

“I can certainly identify with it. Whites are being subjected to the same kind of stereotyping and generalizing that every black person alive has to go through continuously,” Mack said. “I hope that they can relate to the African-American youths on the streets of South-Central who are automatically assumed to be gang members, just by the color of their skins.”

Liz Cohen, a white escrow officer who lives in West Los Angeles, said the riots have definitely made her more self-critical. Last week, as she drove into Hancock Park, her gaze fixed on a black man who was walking down the street.

“I thought to myself: ‘I wonder if he thinks I’m looking at him only because he’s black,’ ” said Cohen, 50. Before the riots, she said, “the race and class issue was something that I knew about and had sympathy about. And yet it seemed that it was this area in my brain or my soul that was fairly walled off, accessible but not intruding.”

Not anymore. Now, “I’m much more aware of people I look at and my reactions and how I’m dealing with people and how relatively narrow are the kinds of people that I generally come in contact with,” she said. “There’s more awareness and that’s caused more distress for me.”

Arthur Wrigglesworth has felt some of the same self-consciousness. Three weeks after the riots, the white Culver City architect went to Watts to participate in a Career Day at Graham Elementary School. The children made him feel welcome, but as he displayed models of a $500,000 Pacific Palisades home and a $200,000 kitchen, he felt a pang.

“I was saying to myself in mid-sentence: ‘What am I doing showing them this stuff?’ ” he said, recalling being alarmed by the contrast between the models of “rich people’s homes” and the school’s modest neighborhood. “These kids, if they were 15 instead of 9 or 10 years old, would have been very offended.”

But in addition to second-guessing himself, Wrigglesworth said he is trying to get beyond awkwardness in order to make a difference. Through his church, he is making his expertise available to South Los Angeles businesses who need help rebuilding.

Richard Hoefer, a white graphic artist who lives in Westwood, has begun reaching out as well, making connections with black professionals via a computer bulletin board and offering his skills to help make change.

Hoefer, 35, said the unrest has made him think more seriously about his personal responsibility. “I used to look around to see who out there was doing the kinds of things that needed to be done,” he said, remembering that he often searched in vain. Now, he said, “I feel like, if not me, who? Too much of dealing with the racism issue has been pointing the finger. . . . I’ve been activated.” If race relations are to improve, said Mack of the Urban League, goodwill must be channeled into continued action.

“It’s easy for people to rationalize themselves into doing nothing--which is the best way to guarantee we will not overcome the racial gap and the gap between rich and poor,” Mack said. “It’s not going to be enough for people to have temporary pangs of conscience. We have to have a long-term commitment.”

Erika Sukstorf, who teaches the fourth grade at 93rd Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles, says she is hopeful that the city will meet that challenge.

Sukstorf, who is white, works with blacks and Latinos and calls many of her colleagues friends. The first few weeks after the riots, she recalls, suddenly she and her colleagues seemed overtly aware of their skin color and what it represented to others. It was a strain, but she believes her friendships are stronger for having been tested.

Walking into the mail room at her school just days after the riots, Sukstorf was disarmed by the greeting she received from a black colleague. “She looked at me, said my name and gave me a big hug--sympathizing with what I must be going through,” recalled Sukstorf, who was so moved that she “fell apart for a minute. I was unprepared to have that reaction.”

Experiences like that have helped Sukstorf see the present as “a very optimistic time,” she said. “The doors are open, the lid has been taken off. Now, when I see a black person on the corner, I have this sense of: ‘It’s your time. Go for it!’ ”