Telling Tales of Life in War Zone

It was billed as “Violence and Peacemaking in Our Times”--a panel discussion with audience participation. The program, put together by Socially Responsible Singles of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, delivered on its promise--and then some.

Consider the scenario: Panelist Bob Nienhuis, white, middle-aged, talking about war and how young men are turned into warriors. Panelist Sheila Sloman, white, middle-aged, telling a story about domestic violence in a nice middle-class suburban marriage.

Add Tony Bogard, young, black, ex-gang member, and Tyrone Baker, young, black ex-gang member. They haven’t come here to talk about theories or to hear prepared scripts. Their mission is to tell these people in the Valley some of the realities of life in South Central L.A.

Bogard, the 29-year-old former Crip who heads “Hands Across Watts,” a group that helped forge the truce between black gangs, listened as long as he could to Nienhuis’ theories about the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War--and then he begged to interrupt.

Look, he said, “We have been in war . . . and we have been casualties of war . . . I’m here to talk about peace . . . “

Nienhuis, who is on the Valley Interfaith Council’s Peace and Justice Committee, served in Vietnam and, he explained, he had been trying to make a point about the process that breeds violence.

“You’ve been in your war,” retorted Bogard. “We’ve been in the war right here in L.A. Twenty, 25 years of killing each other . . . Let’s deal with the system letting us down.”

Bogard had the audience. Now he talked about Rodney G. King--”Incidents like that go on 24 hours a day in Watts.” The message: “We ain’t nothin’. We ain’t nothin’.”

It’s “cool,” he said, “to sit up here and talk about what’s going on down there. You ain’t down there.”

Then Baker, 25, an ex-Blood, spoke. About promises made, and broken, since April 29, the day the King verdict came down. He spoke of the poverty and degradation in Watts, of joblessness, illiteracy, hopelessness.

It was Sloman’s turn to speak and she elected to stick with her prepared text. The couple in her story about domestic violence lived in a gated house, drank Scotch and took romantic walks in the park. Bogard and Baker looked at her as if they had stumbled into the wrong meeting.

Later, during the Q&A; session, Bogard and Baker said they had been somewhat uneasy coming here to the heart of the San Fernando Valley. And they suggested to the mostly white audience that if they simply choose to retreat, to close their eyes and lock their doors, one day there will be no place left to hide.

Bogard and Baker had brought along a few friends, also former gang members.

One, who said he was an ex-drug dealer from Watts, looked at the audience and said:

“It’s cool to have all these real warm feelings.” But, he said, he’d be willing to bet that as soon as he and his friends walked out the door, some in the audience would be whispering to each other, “Did you hear what them niggers was talkin’ about?”