Testimony : ONE PERSON’S STORY ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA AND LOS ANGELES : ‘We Don’t Go To the Roots of Racial Discrimination’

I’m of Indian descent, a fourth-generation South African, and have never been to India. Still, I qualify as Asian under the South African government (racial classification system).

I came to the United States in 1989 to pursue my graduate studies. I didn’t think that racism in the States was totally obliterated, but I thought the country had advanced a lot more in race relations.

I landed in Indiana and did a second undergraduate degree in religion at Huntington College, which is the home city of Dan Quayle. Huntington was a small hick town, I’d say of 16,000 people. And in the school maybe 10 of us were people of color. I thought, “Wow.” I thought I was getting away from that, and that America is supposed to be the melting pot of different races and nations.

Los Angeles for me epitomizes the melting pot of America, which I hadn’t found in Huntington. It is certainly a good thing. But I see an irony in that people in this country get caught up in this mentality of pursuing one’s dreams and being successful. I think they forget about the qualities that culture and diversity bring.

What America and what Los Angeles lack is the sense that differences are not deficits to be changed and corrected but gifts to be cherished and enjoyed. I think there is a lack of sensitivity to the beauty of culture and diversity.

I work at a church in Alhambra. And Alhambra has been a community where the demographics have changed considerably. There has been a white flight and it has become more Asian. That’s the sort of cultural insensitivity I’m thinking about. When there is any particular community that seems to be invading your domain, then you leave to where you feel more comfortable. I think most communities in the Los Angeles basin should allow their comfort zones to be stretched. I think we have the capacity and the ability to live above the level of mediocrity.

I think we lose some of the beautiful intricacies of life when we live on the level of mediocrity. That is what happened in many churches in Alhambra. In most of the churches in Pasadena and Alhambra that I’ve been to, you find just the old folks between the ages of 60 and 70. Yet right next door to them is a different ethnic group and (the church members) have made no attempt to change their tradition in their church to accommodate the community.

Being here last year in the Los Angeles riots, in a way I felt very much at home because this was something that happens in South Africa all the time. It’s like, “Why do things have to come to such a state before I’m heard?” I do not condone what happened in Los Angeles, in no way, but my mentality on violence has changed a lot. I grew up in a tradition as a Christian and violence was not even an option. But I think (if I were) on the line being fired at and if I had a gun in my pocket, my first reaction would be to take the gun to retaliate. So with that mentality, I think that’s what happened in the riots.

It’s a systemic issue in this country where things are always swept underneath. We do little bits and pieces to keep certain communities and certain people happy, but we don’t go down to the roots of the issue of racial discrimination.

I think this is also probably the most ethnocentric country. Even more than South Africa. Most Americans feel that they’ve been jeopardized by sharing their country with other population groups who immigrate into this country. There are incredible examples of apartheid in Los Angeles. It’s all subtle, though, and the difference is that South Africa has been governed by a law that legislated apartheid. And here, that’s changed, yes, this country has made some great changes from the 1960s. But there are undercurrents everywhere. The big lesson to be learned I think is unity amid diversity. There are differences. God created us different--still in the image of God but we’re different. And there are things that other cultures and other races do that’s different. But they are not things that we should stay away from. They are not deficits, they are gifts.

I think democracy in the United States has been an example for many countries all over the world to use and implement. So no, I don’t think there is a danger that Los Angeles will become more like South Africa. But I think if the ongoing tensions continue to arise with race relations, and people are just out to push their particular personal agendas, then I think Los Angeles is going to struggle with these issues a lot more.

In Los Angeles I think it’s going to take a couple more generations for people to change their philosophy and their mentality. You come from different countries and you come to Los Angeles, you still come with a mentality that is very ethnocentric.

We have to start seeing people for who they are, in the image of God, and not seeing people first as to what color they are and what economic brackets they may fit.