Hate has no place in our fair cities

Orange County, with Newport Beach as its ideological heart (and

pocketbook), has long taken pride in being “the most Republican

county” in the country, an absolutely reliable voter base for the

party -- and a top source of campaign funds to the GOP. Its

conservative political nature is a central feature of the county’s

identity -- and Newport-Mesa’s as well. (It may have been the

defining characteristic until “The OC” tweaked it a bit.)

That identity, though, has an ugly past. In the 1950s and 1960s, the county’s conservatism allowed the anticommunist John Birch

Society to flourish, and Newport helped send society member John

Schmitz to the state Senate. In 1970, Schmitz, then a national

director of the group, won a Congressional seat following the death

of James Utt. Look back further and you can find members of the Ku

Klux Klan winning citywide elections in the county.

Even today, Newport Beach has the fewest number of minorities in

the state. A report in 2002 found the city to be 90% white, and the

2000 Census showed a breakdown of the city’s 70,032 residents that

included 64,342 whites, 3,301 Latinos and 354 blacks. In Costa Mesa,

the picture is more diverse: The 2000 Census found that of the

108,724 residents, 61,778 are white, or 57%, 34,523 are Latino, 32%,

and 1,313 are black, or 1%.

Given that history and that background, it was alarming last week

to see a report from the Anti-Defamation League that anti-Semitic

incidents in Orange County and Long Beach jumped nearly 25% in 2004

and that one-fifth of those in this county happened in Newport-Mesa,

an area that accounts for less than 7% of Orange County’s population.

Anti-Defamation League officials noted a particular increase at UC

Irvine as a reason for the increase, as well. Both the local number

and numbers nationwide were at a nine-year high.

“There seems to be less sensitivity today, especially in our

schools and in our public discourse,” Joyce Greenspan, regional

director of the league’s Orange County-Long Beach region, told the

Pilot. “Anger is often expressed in ways that are harmful.”

Detailing the numbers softens the concern a bit. In our region,

there were 48, including five in Costa Mesa and three in Newport

Beach. The nationwide number was 1,821. But while these incidents are

not everyday occurrences here, they do happen nearly once per week --

and that’s far too frequent.

We hope, though, that the Anti-Defamation League’s shining a light

on anti-Semitism here and across the nation will send these numbers

plummeting, and we applaud the group’s diligence in tracking the

numbers. Getting those numbers as close to zero as possible certainly

must be the goal in Newport-Mesa, where we tout our cities as being

among the best places to live and work in the world.