The Slights of Life Make ‘Outsiders’ Grow Wary

“I feel for those students you wrote about who didn’t get in UC Berkeley. . . . But I would feel sorry for them if they were white too. The real issue of unfairness is their underprivileged background, not the fact that they are black or Hispanic or Filipino.

“I don’t understand why everything has to become an issue of your race or ethnic group. Whenever something bad happens to me, I don’t assume it’s because I’m white. It’s so tiresome. . . . Why does it always have to be about race?”

I understand the sentiment, the frustration behind this e-mail message that landed in the wake of my column about a civil rights lawsuit filed against UC Berkeley. It does seem that everywhere we turn these days, one group is feuding with another, vying for the role of most aggrieved:

* In the San Fernando Valley, a Jewish principal at a predominantly Latino school is beaten unconscious by thugs who issue a warning: “We don’t want you here . . . white principal.” Latino parents condemn the beating but say they’re being scapegoated for problems that the principal caused.

* In the parking lot of a suburban Episcopal church, a black priest in full religious regalia is accosted by a phalanx of police officers, guns drawn. In front of frightened parishioners, the police handcuff and order him to his knees, mistaking him for a robbery suspect.

* In Inglewood, a high school principal cancels celebrations of Black History Month and Cinco de Mayo because he fears a flare-up between bickering black and Latino students. Last year, a mini-riot erupted during a protest by Latino students angry that blacks got a monthlong commemoration while they only got one day.

It ain’t exactly “Ally McBeal,” where the white star’s romance with a handsome black doctor provokes not so much as a raised eyebrow among her rainbow coalition of co-workers and friends.

In this real world, they do matter. Race, ethnicity, language, religion. . . . They all carry baggage that’s as cumbersome as it is impossible to divine.

*

At the Burton Street Elementary School, there is more than enough hostility to go around.

The principal--before he was beaten--complained to the Anti-Defamation League that he faced discrimination by Latino parents agitating for his removal. The parents say they want a principal who speaks Spanish because the current leadership neither understands nor cares about their needs.

The dispute seems to spin on language and culture . . . a demand by one group for accommodations by another.

But look at the parents’ list of complaints: teachers tardy to class, classroom assistants wearing tongue rings, inadequate playground supervision. . . . It’s mostly nuts-and-bolts stuff, typical parental concerns. The principal counters that his school is well-run, that a handful of disgruntled parents are stirring the pot, threatening the peace.

But the parents go on to say that neither school nor district officials take their issues seriously. It’s not just the language they speak that’s at issue. It’s the perception they’re not being heard.

“We just want justice for our kids,” says parent Lorena Aguilar, proceeding to ask: “If this was an Anglo-Saxon community, would they treat us the same? Or would they be different?”

*

If we were white, would someone pay attention to us?

That’s the unspoken implication, the unbidden fear that surfaces every time our kids are given the rotten teacher, our restaurant reservation is misplaced, the salesclerk waits on the other person first.

Call it paranoia if you will. But it can be hard when you’re “different,” be it black, brown, Jewish, gay . . . to escape the nagging worry that you’re being singled out and marginalized by the majority, by those in control.

Ask the Rev. Ronald D. Culmer, the black priest who was handcuffed at church, just after celebrating the Eucharist.

A month later--after news stories and a request from religious officials--police apologized, kinda, to the priest and his congregation. They said they regretted the embarrassment they’d caused.

But they continued to maintain that their actions had been appropriate. They’d been pursuing two armed black men who’d jumped a fence and fled into the churchyard. Culmer--religious vestments or not--was black. Case closed.

“Lots of people in suits commit dangerous crimes,” LAPD Chief Bernard Parks said. “We hold them too.”

True enough, but even the white bishop heading the regional diocese questioned the role race may have played.

“I must wonder whether I, as an Anglo clergyman, would have experienced [such] treatment,” said the Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Borsch.

Good question. If police had been looking for two white guys who jumped the fence onto church grounds, would they have stopped all the white men in that parking lot, handcuffed them and made them kneel? Wasn’t it race that made the unlucky Culmer an easy target?

Not everything has to do with race, as my e-mail writer sagely noted. What we call discrimination well might be coincidence, luck of the draw.

But accumulate enough slights--real or perceived--day to day and you begin to wonder: Is it because I’m a Chavez or a Bernstein, because my skin is black, my manner is odd, my accent reveals my foreign birth?

Maybe it really has nothing to do with any of that. But those of us cursed with “outsider” status can never be sure . . . and that’s why the threat keeps nagging us so.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.