Racial slur placed under ‘symbolic’ ban in L.A.

What started as a feel-good discussion on ways to reduce racial bias quickly turned into a freewheeling debate Friday as the Los Angeles City Council voted to declare a “symbolic moratorium” on the use of a common slur against African Americans “in the context of threats and violence.”

Voting 11 to 0 on a resolution by Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the council ceremoniously banned the use of the word “nigger” after hearing testimony from lawyer Gloria Allred, a group of civil rights leaders and the owner of the nightclub where “Seinfeld” star Michael Richards used the word repeatedly during a stand-up routine last year.

The testimony quickly veered into other territory as several African American audience members addressed the council to argue that the city had not worked hard enough to protect its black residents from gang members of Mexican descent.

“This is a false attempt by Councilman Parks to cover up the fact that they have not done anything with the illegal alien gangs who are killing black Americans in South Los Angeles,” said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.

One speaker said he would prefer a moratorium on gang violence and out-of-wedlock births. Another said that in South Los Angeles, “you have one race of people exterminating another race of people.”

Parks, who is running for county supervisor, acknowledged that the resolution was symbolic and would not do anything to end the “ills of the world.” Nevertheless, he and his colleagues said the council needed to make a statement about discrimination.

Councilwoman Jan Perry said she was so emotionally scarred after hearing the word directed at her years ago that she recoiled when she heard it used by any people, regardless of their race or ethnicity. “It affected me so much psychologically that I remember to this day, the name and the place and the person who used that word,” she said.

Councilman Tony Cardenas, who is of Mexican descent, described how he heard people use the word “wetback” when he was growing up. And Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who is gay, described how he was beaten as a 22-year-old by five men who called him a “faggot.”

“I know what a hate crime is,” he said. “If we can symbolically say, ‘Stop it’ in the context of this violence, I can support this.”

There has been a substantial amount of public outcry over use of the racial slur recently. In February, the New York City Council took a similar stance against the word, and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People held a mock funeral for the word at its annual convention last summer in Detroit.

The L.A. Council’s resolution got its start last year when an African American used the slur at a council meeting to protest city efforts to ban certain items that he had been selling on the Venice Beach boardwalk. The speaker, Michael Hunt, used the word to describe how he was being treated.

Council members complained about Hunt’s choice of words. They were advised by their lawyers that they could not ban certain words but could ban disruptive behavior caused by certain language. The council subsequently adopted rules of decorum that do not mention specific words but prohibit “threatening, personal or abusive language.”

Minutes after Friday’s vote, one speaker, Matthew Dowd, tested those rules by using the racial slur and another curse word. Dowd was warned by the council’s attorney that he would be asked to leave if he used the slur again. He didn’t.

Hunt protested the council’s resolution Friday by standing at the lectern in a T-shirt with the banned word on the front. “It’s not what you say but how you say it,” he told the council.

NAACP national board member Willis Edwards rejected that notion and said it was crucial for lawmakers nationwide to take a stance against the word. “It’s important that we educate all communities -- including our own -- about this word,” he said.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com

steve.hymon@latimes.com