COMMENTARY : Squirming Away From the R-Rated Topic : A political awards dinner that was ambushed by racial dialogue gives us a starting point to overcome our own discomfort.

Ever notice that people often zone out if the conversation turns to race or affirmative action? Especially if the dreaded issue surfaces in the office or at a dinner party? Except for talk-show addicts, who’ll babble on about absolutely anything, and certain college students, who are happy to gab about all they know, which of course is just about everything, America would rather talk about something else. Anything else. So the much-needed American dialogue about race is not happening. The subject is becoming the untouchable and the unmentionable. Bring on a sitcom, rack up some ice and a stiff drink, and roll over Beethoven.

What a rude surprise thus awaited the dinner audience assembled in a Denver hotel ballroom last month for what they thought was to be a standard awards banquet for retiring Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.). No doubt the speaker’s committee thought it had done wisely (i.e. safely) by inviting Peter Goldmark Jr., the respected president of the Rockefeller Foundation, to give the dinner address. Wrong. Goldmark didn’t come alone; he brought two others to the dinner dais. There too was Barbara Jordan, the fiery former congresswoman from Texas, and Los Angeles’ own Antonia Hernandez, the brilliant president and general counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The three of them materialized on the dais to talk about, among other things, race--whether anyone wanted to hear about it or not. And of course many did not. Undaunted, they launched into a didactic but pointed trialogue. Here is how they portrayed the controversy surrounding California’s affirmative action referendum initiative, which supporters hope will be on the 1996 ballot (Colorado may get one, too). The measure reads: “The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”

What could be simpler, right? Jordan asked this question, then the three speakers illustrated to the audience how very differently a white man, a black woman and a Latina viewed those very same words: Said Goldmark: “If you are white, like me, this proposition may seem to say to you: ‘No discrimination based on race.’ Simple and innocent as can be.”

Said Jordan: “If you are black, like me, you hear something quite different. You hear: ‘You black people have gone as far as you’re going to go. We’re closing the door.”’

Said Hernandez: “If you are Latino, like me, you hear something like this: ‘Your contributions are not valued or wanted. You are not a real American.” ’

Then the Rockefeller Foundation president asked: “Are we ready for a symbolic referendum on race when the symbols have such different meaning to different people?” Well, ready or not, California is about to have just that. Race is the great American divide, and no one seems to have yet invented a powerful enough modern public policy bridge to traverse it.

Consider affirmative action. Yes, such measures do have the vital effect of lifting some minorities onto the economic ladder. But they also have the extremely unintended effect of alienating other Americans who, in the main, are not racists. After all, it doesn’t take a racist to doubt the wisdom of affirmative action--consider the mother who worries that her daughter won’t get into the university because she’s not a minority--and you don’t necessarily have to be a minority to favor affirmative action--witness the multiracial protests against UC’s plan to drop race as an admission criterion. But if we continue to avert our eyes, much less call each other names, soon enough we’ll find that we’re only muttering to ourselves.

Goldmark rightly asked for “a thoughtful and honest national conversation on race together.” The Denver audience’s reaction? Predictable. Some clapped politely, but many sat on their hands in Rocky Mountain-low silence. The muted, almost anesthetized reaction was a mirror of America at large.

The fab trio’s act may not be ready for Broadway, but the message is needed on Main Street: If our minds and hearts remain closed, it’s hard to see how America can for very long remain an open society.

“And so this is how we start,” said Goldmark the White Guy, at the end, throwing the ball to Hernandez the Latina, who finished the thought: “by talking, as we have been here tonight, about things that make us uncomfortable.”

* Tom Plate’s column runs Tuesdays. His e-mail address is: tplate@ucla.edu