RACIAL TENSIONS : Putting Out the Fire : Simi Valley may not be able to silence white supremacist Richard Barrett, but it can send a message with its actions.

There is a fire on the other side of the hill and it is headed for one of your neighborhoods Saturday.

But this is no ordinary fire. If you try to put it out, it may grow. If you wait for it to go out on its own, the winds could whip it out of control. And the longer you watch, the greater your sense of impotence and rage: To act is to feed its strength; to remain motionless is to give it free passage.

The fire is a man named Richard Barrett.

Barrett, a Mississippi lawyer and white supremacist who alternately likens his mission to those of Paul Revere and the disciples of Christ, has already burned a path in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. With a handful of followers, he and his message of racial intolerance have been given the protection of the National Guard, police, sheriffs and even rangers.

And now, for the second time, he is attempting to emblazon his message in Simi Valley, a city that has been trying mightily to put behind it the national spotlight that shone on it during the Los Angeles riots.

The spotlight will be on it again if Barrett has his way.

“(Abraham) Lincoln would be marching with us in Simi Valley when I say (there should be) one Union,” Barrett said in a recent telephone interview. “There will be no black power in Los Angeles, no brown power in San Diego, no pink power in San Francisco.

“The discussion isn’t over until the pro-majority point of view has been added to the debate. That’s the reason for Simi Valley.”

That may be what Barrett says is his reason for returning to Simi Valley on Saturday, when he and supporters of his Nationalist Movement will try again to hold a “parade” in support of the Rodney G. King beating trial verdicts, delivered at the city’s East County Courthouse.

Barrett’s first parade attempt on June 6 ended when a violent counterdemonstration broke out and police whisked Barrett and six followers away for their own safety.

It doesn’t strike me as the real reason at all. Barrett’s method--found to be legal--is to leave chaos in his wake by picking the most sensitive issues in people’s hearts and then stomping on them.

He did it in Atlanta in 1990, when he and a few followers marched near Martin Luther King Jr.’s tomb to protest the holiday in memory of the slain civil rights leader. More than 2,000 National Guardsmen were called out to protect the white supremacists from the angry crowd that became violent.

He did it in 1987 in Mississippi, where the firing of a black school employee had triggered racial unrest. Barrett and a small number of followers were there to support the firing, which drew 300 to 500 angry counterdemonstrators.

Like someone who pin-pricks the finger of a hemophiliac and then scoffs at the size of the wound, Barrett absolves himself of any responsibility for what happens later. He knows the law. He works the system. And he knows that, legally, he cannot be held accountable for what occurs after he shows up.

“There is no blood on my hands from violence in the streets,” he said.

The question now is how to keep violence out of Simi Valley and not feed the fire. Residents could, of course, render him into the ranks of a conductor without an orchestra and simply not show up. They could let the messages of hatred and racism drift up to the clouds, with only the media there to record his statements.

But that’s unlikely to happen. Numerous groups from Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County--including local chapters of the National Organization for Women, ACT-UP, L.A. Coalition Against Police Abuse, L.A. Radical Women, and the recently formed group from Simi Valley called Mothers Against Supremacy--have vowed they won’t be silenced.

“Unless we visibly and vocally oppose him, this movement could grow,” said Maryann Curtis, a member of L.A. Radical Women. “He’s a symbol.”

For the sake of Simi Valley--a city struggling to rekindle a sense of community pride--I hope they realize that, in a way, how Barrett’s message of hatred is dealt with will also be a symbol for others who may be watching.

For the first time, a city could stand up against him with dignity--hands joined and backs turned--and say, “We are the majority here, not you.”

It could be the most powerful firefighting tool of all.

* THE PREMISE

Attitudes is a column about a variety of current trends and issues.