NEWS ANALYSIS : Gangs Demand Their Place at Table of Opportunity : Truce: Young blacks seek to carve an economic niche as uneasy peace holds. But some see solidarity as a threat.

A generation of gangsters--consigned to the sociopathic fringe before the Los Angeles riots--has emerged from the ashes with a visceral new voice demanding a place in the mainstream.

Written off as nihilistic and irredeemable, young black gang members have suddenly become prime-time celebrities, articulating the frustration and rage of the disenfranchised with a starkness forged by years of surviving on the streets.

They have drawn attention because of a promising peace accord hammered out before the riots by most Crips and Bloods factions. The gangs say the truce is the first step in a push for economic opportunity and political clout, but there is also an implicit threat that these new allies may be even better equipped to wreak havoc if the city again goes up in flames.

It is by all measures the most extraordinary juncture in more than two decades of violence among black gangs, whose exploits have held many Los Angeles neighborhoods hostage to some of America’s worst urban warfare. Now that these alienated youths have stepped back from the brink, will they find forgiveness? What role, if any, should they play in the rebuilding of a city they helped burn down? Who will take a chance on them? Who can afford not to?

“No one’s ever seen anything like this before,” said Jim Galipeau, a deputy probation officer who has worked with gang members since the Watts riots. “It’s a brand new game.”

In gang circles, this crossroads is greeted as a unique opportunity to rescue thousands of youths from a culture of bloodshed and despair. Others fear it could signal the birth of an emboldened super-gang poised to fulfill the city’s worst nightmares. Some are skeptical that the truce--which involves no Latino gangs--will even hold.

No matter what path is taken, there is little doubt that Los Angeles’ black gangs have taken a giant stride toward empowerment. In a city so fragmented that it is not always clear who speaks for whom anymore, they have risen from the riots with a newfound unity--bound by a shared experience, a shared hope, a shared anger.

“What I think you see happening is gangs filling the vacuum that’s been left by the failure of normal politics,” said Michael Dear, a USC professor of geography who specializes in urban issues. “The risks are extremely high of proceeding with the Crips and Bloods. But the risks are extremely high of ignoring them, too.”

Over the past several weeks, gang members have made television appearances on “Nightline,” “Donahue” and “Today.” They have embraced former rivals at beer parties in Watts and talked of brotherhood as guests at a Brentwood synagogue. They have drafted a peace treaty based on an Egyptian-Israeli armistice, joined forces with a Utah firm to market a waterless car wash spray and met with everyone from Korean-American grocers to a Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief to Disney merchandising executives.

“Now that everything is burnt up, we got an opportunity to voice some opinions,” said Raynell Smith, 27, a former gang member from Compton. “Before, nobody cared about what we thought or had to say.”

In many ways, they are like a headless mass of energy--thousands of young men eager for their piece of the pie, but lacking a clearly identified leader or agenda. Some are unabashedly basking in the spotlight, others jockeying for a share of government dollars. Most concede they are not sure where any of this is headed, just that their living conditions must change soon or they will be sucked into another spiral of destruction.

“After the party comes the education,” said one gang member dressed in a Los Angeles Kings sweat shirt at a recent gathering of Crips and Bloods at the Jordan Downs housing project. “If it just stays a party, it’s gonna fall apart.”

At the top of most gang members’ list is a job--an honest wage for an honest day’s labor. It is a myth, they say, that they make so much money selling drugs that they wouldn’t gladly snatch up a decent, working-class position with health benefits and the dependability of a paycheck.

A few are urging a return to federal make-work projects that were popular during the Depression and, later, the War on Poverty. Others say the answer is seed money for investment in businesses of their own. Fred Williams, a former gang member from South Los Angeles, says the government must simply deliver the goods--just as it supplies emergency aid to foreign countries grappling with natural disasters or economic crises.

“It’s not really a question of what they want, it’s what society has promised them,” said Williams, known as Mr. Fred, who heads a program called Common Ground, designed to keep at-risk youths in school. “Now that they’ve done their part, we must be true to them.”

While many community leaders are eager to embrace any effort that brings peace to the streets, there is also widespread apprehension about the extent to which gangs have truly changed their ways.

Police officers, though they concede the truce is working, tend to view the gang alliance as a threat to law enforcement. Some city officials and business people worry about empowering a group whose claim to legitimacy is backed up by a well-stocked arsenal.

“I think we need some assurances . . . that their attitude is changing, that they really have a desire to be good citizens,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, whose district includes Watts. “I can’t negotiate with people who are putting the community’s lives and police officers’ lives in jeopardy.”

Misgivings also run deep among some African-Americans, who resent the suggestion gangs are legitimate leaders of the black community. While they are pleased that the killing has subsided, they are disappointed that so few gangsters have acknowledged the terror they have inflicted on their own neighborhoods.

“You haven’t gone back and apologized for all those babies, mamas, the fear that people have,” actor Roger Mosley was quoted as telling an ex-gang member in a recent Bill Boyarsky column. “You hug the Koreans, you’ve hugged the police. Man, you’ve got to go back to your own people.”

Nothing seemed to capture that uneasiness better than last month’s plan by the Korean-American Grocers Assn. to hire gang members to protect their stores. Widespread media coverage, including a front-page color photo in The Times, showed the president of the association shaking hands with a member of the Bloods--his face concealed by a red bandanna, dark sunglasses and a baseball cap.

In the Korean-American community, there was outrage that the grocers had apparently been subjected to extortion by the gangsters. In the African-American community, there was anger over the implication that the gangsters were representing all blacks. Even in gang circles, there was concern that the message being conveyed might hurt their chances for mainstream approval.

“That’s not the way we do business anymore,” said Williams. “Real gang members do not wear bandannas.”

Since then, the job offers being made to gang members have been far from overwhelming.

A Utah-based firm--whose corporate literature boasts, “We Create Millionaires”--recently held a news conference outside a South-Central Los Angeles church to offer jobs to as many as 50,000 gang members. The secret: A multilevel marketing plan in which they become independent distributors of “Dri-Wash ‘n Guard,” a waterless car wash spray that retails for $34.95 a quart.

In another potential opportunity, the Christian Business Assn. is considering a plan to hire gang members to go door-to-door selling memberships for the organization.

“We’re going to have to thoroughly screen the guys who want to be involved . . . and consider, I guess, the type of crimes they’ve committed,” said Clarence Manning, a black businessman from View Park, who is executive director of the 200-member group. “But it’s a risk I think we have to take. These guys are reaching out and there’s no one to bridge the gap.”

Whether that gap gets bridged depends, to a great degree, on answers to fundamental questions about the nature of gangs, the young men who join and their capacity for redemption.

It is a murky realm, in which the line between friend and foe is easily blurred. Ex-gang members often dress like active gang members. Criminal records and tattoos do not go away. Who among these Crips and Bloods has really made a positive change in his life, and who is still swayed by the lure of the streets?

“That’s one of the real question marks,” said James P. Smith, director of the community center at the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts. “You have some gangbangers who are open-minded, reaching for opportunities that have been denied to them too long. But you’re also dealing with some people who got problems, who got habits, who got long records, who don’t mind killing and who got nothing to lose.”

Law enforcement and prosecutors generally take the hard-nosed view, classifying most gangs as “street terrorist” organizations whose members join for the primary purpose of committing criminal acts. When police in riot gear broke up a recent gang party at Jordan Downs, officers said there was no time to separate troublemakers from those whose intentions were purely peaceful.

“We don’t have the ability to go through and say, ‘You’re throwing chunks of cement, you’re under arrest, but you’re OK, you’re just sitting there,’ ” said Los Angeles Police Capt. John Trundle, who heads the patrol section of the Southeast Division. “The party has to end for everybody.”

Those who work closely with gang members, however, base their programs on just the opposite. Success is determined not by judging the actions of a group, but the ability of individuals within that group to take responsibility for their own actions.

“My position is that whenever you save one life or keep one kid from killing another kid, that’s a hell of a job,” said Jim Brown, the former pro football star who runs the Amer-I-Can program, a self-esteem course for gang members and convicts. “To say otherwise is very cynical and very dangerous. Then there’s no damn hope.”

There are still plenty of reasons why this transformation may not succeed. While those calling for peace are generally older, battle-weary gang veterans with children to feed, it remains to be seen whether the younger gang members will follow their lead. Animosity between some rival neighborhoods still runs deep.

But never before has there been such cause for hope, gang members say. The truce, they contend, is not a publicity stunt or a criminal scheme; it is an agreement they forged by themselves, for themselves, because they have grown weary of a life destined to end in a gun battle or behind bars. Now that that they have come in from the cold, they want to be fed.

“The Establishment has written us off,” said Charles (Chopper) Harris, 25, a former gang member from Watts. “Now they have to simply rewrite the books.”