UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS - SIX MONTHS LATER : Separate Lives / DEALING WITH RACE IN L.A. : CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?

Can we all get along?

Since a shaken Rodney G. King first posed that question in the midst of the riots, his plea for peace has been transformed into a watchword for change. In recent months, it has been emblazoned on T-shirts, bannered on magazine covers and repeated like a campaign slogan by politicians around the nation.

In Los Angeles, as in no other city, King’s words continue to resonate.

Hundreds of black and Latino high school students come to blows over the type of music played at a homecoming dance, while their elders compete bitterly against each other for jobs. At burned-out liquor stores, Korean-American entrepreneurs wonder if to rebuild is to ask for trouble. In a downtown corporate suite, a Latina associate coins a new term to describe how the riots have made her Anglo colleagues pull tightly together: “white-bonding.”

Can we all get along?

The question is misleadingly simple, like a phrase from a child’s primer. But it leads straight to confusion. What does getting along mean? Peaceful coexistence? Keeping a safe distance? Does the melting pot exist? Has it ever existed?

Gone are the days of the early civil rights movement, when getting along seemed possible if only segregation were outlawed. Today, many of the legal barriers to equality have been broken down. But other, more fundamental obstacles remain--among them, deeply held prejudices and newly formed stereotypes--that cannot be overcome with the stroke of a lawmaker’s pen.

During the past decade, race relations have become a vastly more complicated matter. Discrimination in the workplace, unequal education, neglect of the inner city--all are part of the race debate in Los Angeles today.

Moreover, the number of players has multiplied. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central America, the Pacific Rim and Eastern Europe have come to the city, bringing with them a multitude of customs and biases that have led to misunderstandings and friction.

Faced with these complexities, some residents have begun to rethink past race relations strategies. Instead of reaching out, many blacks and Latinos are turning inward, looking out for their own. To bridge enduring racial rifts, some say solutions of years past may no longer apply.

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According to a Times Poll conducted last month, nearly a third of Los Angeles residents believe ethnic minorities can make more progress by strengthening their own communities than by trying to build coalitions with other ethnic groups.

Rose West is one example. The black Altadena resident, a former bank vice president who now stays at home with her two young sons, says the riots made her think seriously about whether integration works. She began to doubt whether her boys will be best served by schools where theirs are among few non-white faces. Torn, she decided that as soon as they are old enough, she will enroll them in an Afro-centric Saturday school that teaches children about black history and culture.

“Look at how the Korean community has pulled itself together,” she says. “They put their money in their own banks; they segregate their businesses. We can learn from that.

“We have to create our own communities and our own support. Then we can say, ‘I don’t care if you like me. But you will-- you will-- respect me. Because I have my own power base, my own schools, my own banks and my own professionals.’ ”

One need only look at the fierce competition for seats on the Rebuild L.A. board to see that West is not alone. Determined that their interests be represented and heard, blacks, Latinos, Asians, women and disabled people all demanded a place at the table. Inclusion was the first order of business. Unity came second.

Is it possible to promote the interests of certain groups without causing irreparable fissures between them? Is separatism a necessary first step?

Many people believe that if Latinos, blacks and Asians hope to get their needs met, they must first define their own agendas--a process that itself is complicated by longstanding cultural and economic differences within ethnic groups. But some worry that when these groups finally break out of their huddles, they may find themselves hopelessly at odds.

“The different coalitions that are emerging (must) find the common ground to move together in reshaping our city,” said Jorge R. Mancillas, an assistant professor of anatomy and cell biology at the UCLA School of Medicine and a regional representative of the Mexican-American Political Assn. “The danger is that. . . people will not understand that our lives are intertwined and will try to satisfy their needs at the expense of others.”

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As if getting along wasn’t complicated enough already, the riots, with their harrowing images of racial hatred, only seemed to heighten everyone’s awareness of their color. As Carlos A. Chavez, director of community relations at Occidental College, put it: “Everyone is feeling under attack.”

For some this has meant bolder discussions about race, but for others it has exacerbated the tendency to stereotype--a phenomenon that West says she encountered at her neighborhood grocery store the day after the riots broke out.

“People were looking at me like I was going to throw a Molotov cocktail,” she said angrily, remembering the fearful stares her black skin seemed to prompt from other customers. “They never even looked in my face to see that I’m the same woman who’s been in there hundreds of times. They never saw me as an individual. I was just one big black blur.”

Some Anglos have felt that since the riots they, too, are being lumped together and judged solely by the color of their skin. People are realizing--some for the first time--that to many, a fair complexion symbolizes privilege and racism. And that makes some Anglos edgy.

“I would like to see less bad-mouthing of whites and white institutions,” said an Anglo businessman who lives in Hidden Hills, a gated community of mansions on the border of Woodland Hills. “I stipulate that America has been largely white-controlled and racist. So what else is new? . . . If the blacks are viewing the world as whitey’s fault, they’re never going to get anywhere.”

But the tensions between blacks and Anglos are just part of the equation. In a city as ethnically diverse as Los Angeles, there are no shortages of hurtful mischaracterizations.

- A Korean woman who runs a business in the Latino community is asked to “explain” Latinos to her Korean acquaintances. “Hispanics are not responsible” employees, her acquaintances say. When asked to complete a task, “they just say. . . ‘manana’ (tomorrow). But they don’t do anything.”

- An Anglo contractor, on the other hand, says he prefers to hire Latino immigrants over blacks because he perceives them to be “hard workers.”

- A caller to a radio-talk show says that, fearing crime, he avoids black and Latino teen-agers who wear their hair short and their pants low-slung. He can’t tell whether they are gang members or not, so he doesn’t take chances.

- A Latina high school girl thinks Anglo girls her age are conceited. While working at a fast-food restaurant, she said they “all treat you like you are their servant, like you are nothing.”

- A black financial aid counselor asks a similar question of Korean immigrants “who see those ‘Superfly’ movies and think that all brothers are out there in platform shoes selling drugs. They don’t give you respect.” But he admits that he, too, has trouble respecting differences.

“I was told that it is a Korean tradition that they are not to look you in the eye or touch you and that is a means of giving you respect. It’s kind of hard to argue with that,” he said. “But you’re not taught that in this country. It bugs the hell out of me when it happens.”

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Distrust, defensiveness, anger, envy--in Los Angeles, these emotions are close to the surface. And scholars and community leaders say it’s going to take more than talk--more than cultural festivals, church socials and symposiums on race--to set things right.

“Nebulous rhetorical terms like, ‘Let’s love one another’--(that) is not what we need right now,” said Jose De Paz, executive director of the California Immigrant Workers Assn. “We need to go beyond calls for unity, beyond calls for ‘Let’s work together.’ We cannot work together until we are on an equal footing . . . and (can) get our needs met.”

Father David O’Connell, the pastor of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in South Los Angeles, agreed.

“When people don’t own their own homes, when they have no jobs for their children, when nothing makes the community more human, then the seeds of anguish and frustration are sown that lead to violence,” he said. “It’s comfortable to say, ‘If the African-Americans and Koreans learn to get along, it would solve our problems.’ I don’t think it will.”

No one suggests that home ownership and jobs alone would entirely eliminate racial friction. People of color who have “made it”--who pay mortgages, have college diplomas and have attained many trappings of the American Dream--say that they go through life braced for the next slight.

A Latina computer consultant says it has happened more than once: Anglo people, hearing her accent, have asked her if she cleans houses. A black psychologist leaves his work identification badge on during his drive home from work--just in case he’s pulled over by police, he wants the officer to see he’s a professional, not a criminal. A black engineer, weary of wondering whether his race is the reason he gets bad tables at restaurants, now scopes out the seating beforehand and requests a specific table.

“We’ve got 30 years of education between us, my wife and I,” he said. “We both went to Ivy League schools. We, I guess, are classified as those who have ‘made it.’ . . . But being black in America, there are very, very few decisions we make on a daily basis that do not have (to do with) aspects of race.”

Ultimately, scholars and community leaders say, the only real hope for lasting racial tolerance is to ensure meaningful--not token--economic opportunities for everyone who seeks them, regardless of color. As the theory goes, only when all levels of the work force are fully diversified will certain ethnic groups cease to be labeled less capable.

“We tend to reject people we consider at a lower station of life than ourselves--’They haven’t tried hard enough or worked hard enough,’ ” said Cheryl Armon, a professor of human and moral development at Antioch University in Los Angeles. “As long as the economic conditions are such that people of color are in lowly positions in society, they’re (going to) be thought of as lowly people.”

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Improving race relations is “no longer just a matter of bringing members of a black church to a white church for a Sunday picnic,” said Manning Marable, a professor of history at the University of Colorado and a researcher at its Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race in America.

“Unequal power, unequal ownership and unequal privilege--that is the root of the conflict we see in the streets,” he said.

Marable and Armon say we must also squarely face our longstanding ignorance about why racism--which most people profess to abhor--continues to exist.

Before significant change can occur, said Marable, Anglos must become more “aware of how they individually benefit from a system of power and authority that privileges them, regardless of their education, income or where they live. The first step is recognition.”

But another important step is for people of all races to take responsibility for themselves.

That’s what Althea Alexander, an assistant dean at the University of Southern California’s School of Medicine, told a black man who approached her on the street soon after the riots and tried to sell her stolen goods for “half-price.”

Alexander, who is also black, asked the man why he had looted.

“He said, ‘Look at all the money I can make,’ ” she recalls. “I said, ‘What kind of contribution are you making?’ He said, ‘What has society given me? ‘ And I said, ‘Brother, you’ve got to give in order to receive.’ ”

When the man protested that white society owed him a better chance, she shut him down. “I am so sick of hearing about whitey,” she said. “Don’t tell me about whitey. We have got to begin to build our own community.”

Several neighborhood groups are intent on doing that. The key to success is for ordinary citizens--not politicians--to take the lead, said Louis R. Negrete, the co-chairman of UNO, United Neighborhoods Organization in East Los Angeles.

Negrete, a professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Los Angeles, believes that by mobilizing around quality of life issues--education, housing, employment and health--people of all colors, classes and backgrounds can overcome stereotypes. Moreover, he says, they can succeed where politicians have failed.

For example, UNO has joined with the Southern California Organizing Committee in South Los Angeles and Compton, the East Valleys Organization (EVO) in the San Gabriel Valley and Valley Organized in Community Efforts (VOICE) in the San Fernando Valley to call for improved curricula in the Los Angeles Unified School District--an effort named Kids First.

The four groups have also worked together on the Hope in Youth campaign, aimed at reducing gang membership.

“Working together--that’s how you get to know each other,” Negrete said. “What the riots did was demonstrate the critical need for this kind of approach.”

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In her keynote address before the Democratic Convention, former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan said that in order to answer “Rodney King’s haunting question . . . with a resounding ‘yes’. . . we must profoundly change from the deleterious environment of the ‘80s, characterized by greed, selfishness, mega-mergers and debt overhang to one characterized by devotion to the public interest and tolerance. And, yes, love.”

But love alone won’t do it, said Angela Oh, president-elect of the Los Angeles Korean-American Bar Assn. Until people of all ethnicities play significant roles in their own betterment, she said, little will change. A more inclusive society not only would be fairer, Oh and others predict, it would be more productive, invigorated by new approaches and perspectives.

“It is time to think of broadening,” Oh said. “It’s going to require taking a few risks . . . to look for and include people who don’t think just like you and don’t look just like you and don’t act just like you.”

Added Alex Norman, a professor emeritus of social welfare at UCLA:

“American society has said, ‘We don’t have a race problem. We don’t have a class problem. It’s just individuals who are the problem.’ To get along, it’s going to take a repudiation of that. This is the 11th hour.”