Tee and Sympathy : Blacks, Koreans Get a Short Course in Defusing Interracial Tensions

Whacking dimpled, white balls around smooth, emerald greens, African-Americans and Korean-Americans from Greater Los Angeles began Monday to try working out better interracial relations over a quiet game of golf.

Players in the first African/Korean American Goodwill Golf Classic at Via Verde Country Club raised nearly $30,000 for a college scholarship fund for students of both ethnic groups.

But the game had a more philosophical goal. It gave the golfers--160 merchants, academics and civil servants--a low-stress locale for talking about tension.

“It’s a beginning, a very good beginning,” said Andy Chong, assistant golf pro for the Hansen Dam golf course in Pacoima, just before hooking a long shot clear of a duck-filled water hazard.

Golf is a common ground on which the two cultures can meet and begin to understand each other, Chong said.

“If someone makes a good shot and they give each other high-fives, then (African-Americans) can see that and say: ‘Oh, Koreans give each other high-fives also. It’s a little thing, but it’s a good start,” he said.

Relations between the two communities have eroded somewhat since the spring riots. For instance, the Black-Korean Alliance’s plans to issue a merchant-customer code of good conduct were scattered by the violence.

But in the riots’ wake, community leaders have tried to patch the cracks in the foundation with a number of efforts: tours of Korea by two groups of African-Americans, an ecumenical “festival of reconciliation” planned next week by the Council of Korean Churches of Southern California, and the golf tournament.

“You spend five hours on a golf course with someone, you’ve got to talk to them,” said UCLA President James Rosser, co-chairman of the tournament. “We hope people who meet each other here may be able to do things together socially and culturally in the future, and it may even give rise to some joint-business ventures.”

Dal H. Lee, general manager of the Via Verde club and the tournament’s other co-chairman, said: “I think this is not simply playing a golf tournament. We’re trying to promote racial harmony and mutual understanding between African-Americans and Korean-Americans.”

Lee, Rosser and a few other golf buddies had been tossing around the idea of an interracial golf tournament ever since 15-year-old Latasha Harlins was shot to death last year by Korean-born grocer Soon Ja Du. The idea became a plan after Los Angeles exploded in riots.

Out on the links, serious talk of racial relations mingled with equally serious talk of golf.

“We have a perfect team,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Doris LaCour, pointing to teammates Sung Kim, a Los Angeles insurance salesman, and Jay Ballance, a Warner Bros. attorney. “I drive, he chips, and he putts--or at least that’s how we started out.”

The tournament’s organizers said they hope to make the fund-raiser an annual event and establish an endowment for annual scholarships to be given to students at area schools.

Many agreed, however, that the real improvement in racial relations between the African-American and Korean-American communities must happen outside the hermetic confines of a country club.

“It’s too bad that the people that need to be here are the people who are walking the streets,” said Arthur Collins, a golf professional from the Hansen Dam golf course.