DOWNTOWN : Session Offers Tips to Fight Prejudice

Los Angeles Police Sgt. Bob Medkeff walked around a conference room in a Downtown high-rise and asked each of the 20 men and women there to disclose who they were prejudiced against or what stereotypes they harbor.

“Against lazy people.”

“Foreign drivers. They can be from anywhere, even Arizona.”

“If someone tries to force me off the freeway, it’s always a man.”

“Car dealers came to my mind.”

Apart from those comparatively benign biases, there were some more specific to what the group had come together to work on last week--stereotypes and prejudice.

So began one session in a daylong cultural awareness training workshop for law enforcement officers conducted by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The workshop sought to educate law enforcement and public officials about Middle Eastern immigrants and their cultures, but the message was comprehensive.

“Ninety-five, 97% of a police officer’s job is communicating with people,” Medkeff, a cultural awareness training expert, told the class of probation department, police and federal Social Security Administration personnel. “You’ve got to talk to people, because you can’t automatically assume a black man in a BMW with a car phone is a drug dealer. He could be a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman . . .”

“Or even a cop,” one of the trainees interjected.

For 20 years, the NCCJ has sought to battle prejudice through seminars in workplaces, schools and at law enforcement agencies. But three years ago, the non-sectarian training and education organization began a series of cultural awareness workshops for police officers focusing on specific ethnic groups as a means of fighting racial tensions and improving police-community relations.

“Tolerance . . . is not enough,” NCCJ spokesman Jerry Freedman Habush said. “It’s respect for differences. It’s an understanding of those differences.”

The organization solicits experienced trainers from various ethnic communities and from the county Human Relations Commission to teach the classes.

Although the organization’s Asian and Latino workshops are probably the most popular, the Middle Eastern training has grown increasingly important for agencies that deal closely with the ever-growing ethnic group.

Trainer Laura Atoian taught the class that because of some countries’ corrupt governments, Middle Eastern immigrants may see nothing wrong with trying to bribe officers. Such practices are “a way of life” in their native countries, she said. But, Atoian stressed, “The people themselves are good people,” and advised trainees that generalizations cannot be made about Middle Eastern immigrants, nor about members of any other ethnic group.

Ron Hatcher, a supervisor for the Social Security Administration, praised the trainers’ upbeat and interactive presentations but wondered if the workshop was basically preaching to the choir.

“This course is beneficial, but it should be broadened to the workplace itself,” Hatcher said. “I don’t think any of us can go back and tell other people this stuff effectively.”