A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Today’s Agenda

In any middle-class suburban neighborhood, it’s a good bet that at least some of the neighbors in their 30s and early 40s were demonstrating in the streets when they were in high school and college. They marched against war and marched for social justice and knew beyond doubt that theirs was the generation that would bring peace and end racism.

But, writes Valerie Schultz of Tehachapi in Community Essay, she and others like her grew complacent and quit the fight--and now it’s her 5-year-old who’s paying the price. The child went off to kindergarten and one of the things she “learned” from her classmates was racial separation. Who but parents could be teaching this to 5-year-olds, says Schultz--parents who are part of the generation that was so sure it would end racism, then forgot the fight as it grew comfortable.

In the same sorts of suburban neighborhoods, another victim of the times is the sense of isolation from the ills of the city, the cocoon of safety. Marilyn Miller of Torrance, in Gripe, tells us about her fright and anger when she found her grandson surrounded by gang kids, clearly about to be beaten. The twist here is that these gang kids, these “skinheads,” were from Palos Verdes. We have met the terrorists, she says, and they’re our own children.

One focus of blame for everything that’s wrong with kids today is the schools. Everyone complains, but who does anything about it? Well, some companies do. They’re participants in the Adopt-a-School program, which started in Los Angeles 15 years ago. Today, corporations provide everything from lab equipment to tutoring help to field trips and, perhaps most important, new horizons to students at schools across Southern California. Adopt-a-School is the topic of Making a Difference, which today includes a new feature: a “Getting Involved” box, listing phone numbers for the program in several counties.

Not everyone in Southern California grows up multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual. For instance, Karen Felzer of Claremont associated the word immigrant with history, with ancestors, with dusty old photos, when she was in elementary school. In the Youth Opinion, she tells us how things changed when she met Grace, who came to Claremont from Taiwan in the third grade. Immigrant now also meant friend, says Felzer, who explored a whole new world with Grace.

The L.A. City Council has voted to ban all official travel to Colorado and restrict future contracts with Colorado-based companies to protest Amendment 2, the state law prohibiting anti-discrimination ordinances that protect homosexuals. In Orange County, the Laguna Beach City Council urged Colorado officials to repeal the law and called on residents to boycott the state as individuals.

Are boycotts right and proper actions for municipal governments? Do they send the right message? Platform respondents give a range of thoughtful responses.

And in Sermon, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs of Encino delivers a subtle lesson on imparting values.