Camp Common Cause : It doesn’t offer tennis or bonfires. Here, kids of all backgrounds contemplate the deep roots of prejudice--and face their own bigotry.

First they fall in fragments, wounding scattershot: African Americans are violent. White s are racist.

Still more rain down, steadily: Asian Pacific Islanders are cliquish. Middle Easterners are loud. Latinos are lazy.

An ugly cacophony, these are not excerpts from subpoenaed tapes. Not epithets etched on a Deep-South schoolroom desktop circa 1959.

They are products of Southern California 1995 imagination. And here they no longer will take the form of the “hidden racism” the West has long been famed for; instead they will find a more prominent resting place.

Curving, like the belt of road leading up to this mountain camp, strips of white butcher paper become a trail of adventure of their own.

Young women and men sprawl across the length of these sheets, scribbling furiously. Bent to their tasks, they make tidy lists in cheerful colors. Finished--they lie atop a carpet of hate.

These lists are the creation of 81 L.A.-area students, selected by counselors or teachers, culled from waiting lists, urged by best friends, and now pressed to the task of an intricate form of exorcism.

For these high-school juniors and seniors, this week away among the evergreens at Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp offers no swimming or tennis, no scary stories and s’mores around a bonfire.

Here, thousands of feet above Interstate 10, more than 100 miles from the urban center from which they were carried, these youths are charged with contemplating the deep roots of prejudice and their own hidden pockets of bigotry.

“I think there is truth behind all stereotypes,” says Heang Ly, addressing a small group of her peers of both genders and varying ethnicities and races. “I feel like it is wrong for me to say things I’m saying--that we all say. But I don’t know if it will all go away.”

She voices what many of her peers have silently considered for the last few days--the real-world possibility of squelching discord and hate. Erasing it not only from their lips and thoughts, but from life around them.

Since the early 1950s, the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now known by its streamlined tag the National Conference) has been taking busloads of high schoolers to camp to discuss what makes them different and alike--beyond the catch-phrase rhetoric of multiculturalism.

A generation ago the program was Anytown USA, the brainchild/love child of the late Stewart Cole, then-director of youth and education programs for the L.A. region of NCCJ. Cole believed that by exposing students to a wide range of races, cultures and religions, L.A.’s tensions might have a chance at subsiding. From weekend workshops for local campus leaders to a weeklong retreat in Idyllwild, Cole and staff hoped to provide a model, to dispense communication guidelines and skills to help the city transcend its preoccupation with difference, the obsession that bred separatism.

Yet the city continues to simmer and rage. Race lines stubbornly refuse to fall. One target is traded for another. Riots come and go. Campuses explode. Neighborhoods still stand divided.

As hate crimes persist, militias march and racially volatile political issues such as affirmative action and Prop. 187 cleave us apart, one wonders:

What would Cole think of this city’s sad legacy? And why do they even think they have a chance?

The National Conference’s staff doesn’t appear threatened or discouraged by walls jutting up in communication’s path--the challenge instead works to further ignite inspiration, to better define and underscore purpose and goals.

“It sounds trite,” says staffer Lecia Brooks, “but it’s just a matter of what’s right. I was taught early on it’s going to be a fight for the rest of my life. So I’m in it for the long haul. I’m certainly not going to just roll over. And I don’t trust anyone looking out for me but myself.”

In the face of Newt Gingrich’s “contract with America,” Pete Wilson’s fervent anti-illegal-immigration and anti-affirmative action campaigns, and with the acrid essence of the Mark Fuhrman tapes still lingering in the air, is shepherding teen-agers off to human relations camp for a week an ounce of prevention? Is it a noble endeavor, or simply a fading anachronism, antique in design?

Some put more faith in action than in talk, in organizing around specific issues, not merely taking an inventory of feelings.

It is not a matter of right way or wrong way, says Solomon Rivera, an organizer with Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, but of what will galvanize forces to pull those of disparate backgrounds together through a common cause.

“We’re still in a difficult period in L.A. There’s a lot of tenuous stuff to deal with when you are talking about organizing across race lines. What we try to do with youth is draw them out . . . find out what really interests them in their communities,” Rivera explains.

The process then becomes an antidote for apathy. “They need to learn that they have the power . . . to put their voice into the debate. . . . They can build some tall victories against all these regressive policies.”

With an acute sense of powerlessness, today it is much harder, concedes Lori Nelson, director of the youth and education program. Her predecessors “tell me that there was more hope then [in the ‘50s and ‘60s]--the civil rights movement was happening, people were connecting over race lines. It was just a more hopeful time.”

Sitting center of the same morass, the National Conference defines pro-action in a different way. In this intemperate climate, rife with PC checkpoints and increasingly conservative thought, staffers ask these campers what in polite company would otherwise be unaskable--unspeakable--articulate their prejudices.

Much of the camp’s structure has shadings of ‘70s encounter group, the spotlight on feelings, the emphasis on truth-telling and the dynamics of group-sharing.

The process’ strength is that it refuses to turn away from the unpleasant revelation. And all the while, it wrestles them away from the notion that any of this is easy as a pop-song hook.

From race and class to gender and sexuality issues, explosions come from all directions. And it is the more slippery-to-define infractions that staff and campers find most challenging, refreshing--and serve to better drive home their point--that intolerance lurks even in the most enlightened, well-meaning soul.

During a segment called Racial Rotations--in which each group confronts the others’ stereotypes--the Latinos ask their white counterparts to “own” this stereotype: “Latino men disrespect women.”

Brooke Walker, 17, of Cleveland High School, stands and stares into the eyes of Miguel Diaz, 16, who goes to Mark Keppel High School.

“Where do you get that crap?” Diaz’s voice a hard edge, his face a mask of pride. He stops. Waits a beat. Steps back. Takes a breath. “As if I disrespect everybody I talk to.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Walker qualifies, standing her ground, calmly articulating her experience of being the object of catcalls and whistles--the basis for her stereotype. “It happens everyday.”

Diaz pauses, checks his fury, leans forward and he speaks in measured tones. “I know how some Latino men can be . . . but we can also be real sweet. We look real tough, real hard, but we’re not always.”

“I’ll keep an open mind,” Walker promises, but quickly adds, “It’s just I haven’t met any.”

Imperfect endings, the edges rough, like life itself, the idea is to meet people where they are.

What makes it difficult for some is the pace--shuttled from one scenario to the next, trapeezing from one emotional testimony to another, a mountain of Kleenex to prove it. This deluge of advisories, warnings, affirmations, seems too much to be digested in a week, let alone a lifetime.

“It’s hard,” reflects Diaz, sprawled on one of the wooden benches in the lodge. “I say things. People think I’m racist. It’s a good way, but it’s kinda risky.”

*

It is a powder keg.

“You can’t talk about this stuff down here [in L.A.]. I mean, people get hurt in lots of ways,” says youth director Nelson. “People do lose their jobs. People do get beat up. They do get shot. We give them a safe place, I think. The tools and incentive. They have to see that something is going to come out of this because this is risky.”

Down the hill, in the city, where streets appear transformed overnight, can thought be transformed, similarly? And what might the lasting effect be?

The camp’s demographic provides the cultural equivalent of a weather vane. (This year deaf campers and their culture were included for the first time.) And although staffers go to great lengths to keep up with the Southland’s mix, there are some communities still difficult to penetrate (Native American and Middle Eastern), some subjects wary and reluctant to sign on.

The prime spot on the National Conference’s endangered species list belongs to white students--more specifically, white males.

“You go to L.A. city schools and you’re not going to find that many white students,” Nelson points out.

“In L.A. most all of them know they have been blamed and are being blamed,” says Nelson. “And some think it’s justifiable and some don’t. Some are blaming themselves more than anybody. That’s changed a lot. But that’s a hard thing. How they make their peace with that is different, student by student.”

*

Like a chessboard--Little L.A. stands packed tightly just beneath the lip of the stage as staffer Jill Aguilar reads from sheets of the campers’ own creation--ranking each racial group in terms of the power it possesses in the country.

They shuffle back and forth; their bodies tangible charts, bar-graphs. They lend face and form to percentages, wire stories. They look into the eyes of those who have ranked them, who have been ranked by them.

It is no longer an abstract. Power, or lack of it, has weight and relevance. For some it is the first time they have considered their place in society. What privileges it allows them. For others it is the first time they have considered the limitations of their station in life--even in a most abstract way--and the effects it has on them.

In the face of it, cresting above the whispers, rises a wave of racking sobs.

“This is our time to talk,” says volunteer Robert Rodriguez, his expression, controlled, his tone reverent, cautioned.

The white campers have filtered out of the room, and Rodriguez stares down from the stage at a palette of faces--black, brown, yellow and all their variations. He rides the rough swells of emotion, from despair and hopelessness to real anger, that permeate the room.

Miguel Diaz stands near the door, his voice carries: “They have all the power and we’re bustin’ our asses every day. . . . My mother selling oranges on the street beside the freeway. She didn’t have anything, but my brother--my brother and me.”

His voice gives out, only the pain remains, he is out the door, into the night. A staffer lunges after him.

“What makes things change?” Rodriguez asks this numbed assembly. They barely stir, lift their heads. “Telling our truth. Telling our story.”

At this moment, it might not seem enough.

“I’m trippin’,” says camper David Glass, rising to his feet, his voice gathering strength above the sobs. “Seems like before we had those discussions, everything was cool.” Glass glances at the faces, clouded, dispirited. “Now people are distant. And I’m just warning everybody, I’m feeling kinda crazy right now.”

Others are just as candidly wary, questioning the process, as well as the depth of commitment of those who have already become self-proclaimed enlightened beings.

“Some of it you can’t change overnight. Those racist attitudes,” says John Washington, 16, from Verbum Dei High in Watts. “You can change a little. You can change the way you think about people. I’ve learned how to show my emotions. I’ve learned how people feel about me and my race. I have mixed emotions. But I don’t get mad.”

Washington says he’s glad to have the tools. “I now know what to do. But it does bother me, the separation. . . . Sometimes it seems like they are breaking us up and putting us back together. And sometimes you can’t put things back together.”

*

For many of these campers, this journey is about locating a key that not only sets free their emotions, but one that unlocks their power.

And here lies the agent of real change--action. A new perspective that will better define their role in the world as they hurtle toward adulthood.

It is a careful alchemy, Rodriguez admits. Much of the program’s effectiveness hinges on honesty and forthrightness.

“I think it is a mistake to make any false promises,” he stresses. “There has to be the recognition of their feelings and then going from there to a sense of personal responsibility. Without having authority, power, we make a most difficult leap. We can still effect change. Through our personal lives, in traditional activism. In that we are willing to change. Willing to speak the truth.”

But just how lasting are the effects of a weeklong idyll?

“A week is a very short time in a sense, not enough to bind up the wounds,” says Michael Hughes, an L.A.-based marriage and family counselor. “But conversely, a week is a very long time to embed a pretty large seed.

“For a small minority of them, the experience alone is enough to provoke ongoing change. The experience of having their eyes opened and getting to hear so many different kinds of kids talk from their own experiences is likely to be very powerful . . . in a way that will endure.”

Success stories circulate. Prominent Angelenos--including City Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Jackie Goldberg--have cited the program as one that has significantly shaped their world view.

Phyllis Palmer, a professor at George Washington University, who is preparing a book about interracial connections, interviewed campers who participated between 1969 and 1973. “People came home typically with very good feelings, friends they kept telephoning, friends they were dating. And all of the people I interviewed remained committed to a world of equality and social justice,” Palmer reports, “but they don’t necessarily live in more integrated neighborhoods. Their children don’t necessarily have friends of other races.”

This, Palmer allows, seems to have much more to do with the society they re-enter than with the campers themselves. “It’s a double take. People’s attitudes are changed, but they still live in segregated worlds. That’s the reality.’

“You are not the popular person for a week, or a month [after camp],” says youth leader Moira Potter. She thinks for a moment, then corrects herself with a laugh. “For quite a while.”

“First when you go down the hill you notice billboards, the problems with them. I would shred movies. But some of it fades. Sometimes I’m tempted to shred people to death, but I realized that wasn’t helping. I would end up turning people off completely, or it didn’t feel safe.” This time, says Potter, “I’m going to pick my battles. Because this takes a lot of risk.”

Although many, like Potter, are moved, still some campers sense that this isn’t quite enough. That the current political climate calls for something more aggressive, something that channels that emotion, offers direction.”

“It’s all artificial. These people live in Disneyland,” says Glass, attempting to find a connection between this week and his life at school and home.

“This is really doing something for some people,” acknowleges Jade Chin, a 17-year-old who lives in South Pasadena. “But for me, there isn’t anything that I haven’t heard before. There just seems to be a huge lack of exposure and a lot of people who’ve had a plethora of negative experiences.”

Chin, who volunteers as a drug, gang and HIV counselor, is more accustomed to hands-on approaches. “I just feel like there is too much feeling and not enough thinking. . . . I’m not worried about making friends, but saving my neighborhood.”

However, volunteer Rodriguez already sees the camp as a tangible and viable agent of change, a way to unlock the leader in all of us.

“What gives me hope and keeps me coming back is not an attempt to smooth over the difference or avoid the confrontation, but a process built on the telling of the truth. I think it’s given me greater willingness to engage people. Not from a place of, ‘Well, you’re wrong. . . .’ But, ‘I know this is my struggle, this is where I get tripped up.’ ”

Nelson acknowledges, “We don’t push them out there to change the world, and some people criticize us for that. They want us to be pushing them toward more political and social activism. And,” she concedes, since who knows what arrives on the next wind, “it’s an ongoing discussion.”

One that continues, even in the silence around the summer’s final campfire. Staffers and youth leaders resurrect the butcher-paper rolls of bigotry. But instead of unscrolling them for further study, they lift the tubes like staffs, then feed them to the fire. They wither, collapse into ash, the larger embers glowing, floating skyward. Some catch a tail wind. They dip, then hurtle dangerously, out into the night.