Can We Talk?

Society’s fissures erupt too often in Southern California. Intolerance--a kinder, gentler way of calling it what it is, bigotry--shows up with alarming regularity, whether through silent contempt and avoidance or through vicious hate crimes.

Last week, Garden Grove held a “day of dialogue,” a valuable series of gatherings of police and shopkeepers, Latinos and recent arrivals from Korea, people from all ethnic backgrounds and professions. The object was to get people who rarely talk to each other--and who are wary when they do--to communicate freely.

Orange County’s ethnic makeup has changed greatly in recent years, as has that of surrounding counties. With the change has come tension, and hate crimes, in which individuals are attacked because of their skin color or heritage or sexual orientation. In the Garden Grove dialogues, people told of slights great and small at the hands of folks different from themselves. There was discussion of stereotypes and how to break them down.

No one expects an immediate end to hate crimes because of the sessions. But the sort of dialogue that took place in Orange County last week, the same sort of needed interchange that took place last year in Los Angeles after the Simpson trial verdict, must continue if we are to have a real chance at understanding each other.