COMMENTARY ON HATE CRIMES : Huntington Beach Should Lead Local Effort to Fight Racism : A regional effort involving churches, schools and law officers can build a framework for tolerance.

The recent focus on skinhead activity in the Huntington Beach area placed a spotlight on global issues, right here in our own back yard.

While the Serbs and Croats are tearing apart the lives of countless thousands, while the former Soviet empire disintegrates into ethnic enclaves, Third World African countries carry on age-old warfare and neo-Nazi groups grow in Germany, some of us may have been thinking, “not here in Orange County.”

But then, last year’s riots were dangerously close to home. What happened in Los Angeles, noted Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University, “was like a hanging. It focused our minds.”

And the mind made an easy transfer to the gang problems in our county, and most recently to the arrest of a few skinheads in Orange County.

Several members of a skinhead gang were arrested for allegedly conspiring to commit several violent crimes, including bombings and a plot to murder Rodney King. In recent months in Huntington Beach, we have seen swastikas painted on high school campuses, the raising of a Nazi flag on a school flagpole and underground white supremacist newspapers spreading hate--all evidently the work of a skinhead group.

While the numbers involved are small, the underlying issues loom large.

Ignoring it is not an option. We must respond responsibly and swiftly to the concerns coming from all segments of our community, from citizens who strongly embrace the concept of our nation’s motto: e pluribus unum --one composed of many.

We must deal with causes, place the situation itself in proper balance, examine the impact these groups have on other youth, reflect on ourselves and our own attitudes, and finally, design short-term responses and long-term prevention.

We cannot allow a handful of hatemongers to define Huntington Beach, or any other county city, for us by a mentality that promotes bigotry and divisiveness. Huntington Beach is not a hotbed of hate; however, we must provide a hostile breeding ground for racial malice.

Because the skinhead group is small, some suggest doing nothing, hoping a lack of media attention will frustrate them. But doing nothing is not a strategy, it is an excuse.

What causes young people to develop skinhead philosophies? Some learn them at home. Some solve their alienation and identification problems by tying themselves to gangs of one kind or another. Some enjoy the thrill and the media attention generated by outrageous social testimony.

Demographics here have changed dramatically over the last 15 years. We no longer look, speak or think alike as a city or a county, and cultural ignorance allows misinformation and bias to fill the void created by lack of personal experience.

In tough economic times like these, the elements of joblessness and competition factor in. Perceived social and economic injustices need a scapegoat--and race is an easy one, certainly more comfortable than personal responsibility. Most importantly, young people involved in hate-motivated behavior have not learned or applied the critical thinking skills they need to make appropriate choices.

The skinhead thinking appears quite simple: “I hate you because you are not like me.”

And hate touches. But so does hope. Divisiveness touches, but so does commonality.

Hate may be easier to articulate, but hope and tolerance explained so they have a personal dimension can be equally effective in stopping the skinhead movement before it grows.

In the aftermath of hate crime, people must come together. This is an opportunity for Huntington Beach to lead a regional effort that:

* Educates and informs.

* Re-establishes the personal ties in our changing neighborhoods, so that ignorance of our neighbor becomes concern for our friends.

* Combines churches, schools, law enforcement, county and state resources to build a framework for tolerance and a process for uniting the disparate groups of our area.

Hate crime experts tell me that we must find a unifying theme that embraces our democratic heritage and points us to the future so that we can define the type of society we want.

I believe we have it already: e pluribus unum --one composed of many.

All we need to do is have the many start acting as one. One police department or one city cannot battle hate all alone.