Not the beating of Rodney G. King or even the 1992 riots. The jumping-off point for Tuesday's discussion at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance was, instead, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. People in the community didn't understand. Around the horseshoe-shaped ring of desks, some participants nodded and others listened impassively. An ethnically and professionally diverse panel that included Mayor Richard Riordan's chief of staff, the head of the city's human relations agency, hate crime experts, police, several Southern California city managers and a filmmaker included one person who suggested that the murder trial and subsequent civil case illustrated the need for mandatory citizenship classes in schools.
Fear breeds violence.
While L.A.'s preoccupation with the Simpson case makes it unusual in the national discussion about the state of race relations, the solutions floated by Tuesday's panelists were for the most part familiar. Education and expansion of economic opportunity topped the lists of most participants. Afterward, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense William E. Leftwich III said those areas are the most frequently mentioned in discussions across the country. It informs people about their differences, and it positions the child or student to do better in life. Although many echoed those themes Tuesday, the issue also sparked some sharp differences.