KIDS AND RACE

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Rodney Gullatte Jr., 17, an African-American student in Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Ga., was still in middle school when he got his first lesson in racism. It was then that a group of white kids, whom he describes as part of a growing "skinhead" element in his school, began to harass him. "Hey, Rodney, how does it feel to be a nigger?" they would taunt. "How does it feel to know you'll always be a nigger? Is your mother a nigger too?" After a time Gullatte punched one of the white kids in the face. That earned Gullatte an in-school suspension. Worse, nobody believed him when he explained why he had lashed out. "They kept saying the kid would not say something like that, that stuff like that doesn't happen in the Cobb County public schools," says Gullatte. "But people don't know what really goes on."

What does go on? With the number of reported hate crimes on the rise nationwide, what do most of today's children really think about the racial chasm that has divided this country since its inception?

The days of Bull Connor, police dogs and fire hoses are long gone, and many would find it comforting to believe that skin color is no longer an issue for kids. Has the newest generation of Americans finally arrived at that melanin-friendly Promised Land? No. But a new TIME/CNN poll of 1,282 adults and 601 teens (ages 12 to 17) has found a startling number of youngsters, black and white, who seem to have moved beyond their parents' views of race. These kids say race is less important to them, both on a personal level and as a social divide, than it is for adults. It must be noted that more than half of both white kids and black still consider racism "a big problem" in America--however, more than a third classify it as "a small problem." Asked about the impact of racism in their own lives, a startling 89% of black teens call it "a small problem" or "not a problem at all." In fact, white adults and white teens are more convinced than black teens that racism in America remains a dominant issue.

Furthermore, black teens are more reluctant than others to blame racism for problems. Indeed, nearly twice as many black kids as white believe "failure to take advantage of available opportunities" is more of a problem for blacks than discrimination. That's especially extraordinary given the fact that 40% of the black teens surveyed believe SATs are loaded against them, and that blacks have to be better qualified than whites to get a job. These responses seem to indicate that black teens believe color barriers exist, but, despite that, they retain an admirably dogged belief in self-determination.

Is this surprising portrait a sign of hope? Or is it just an example of youthful naivete? Probably both. "One word explains it--experience," speculates sociologist Joe R. Feagin. "You have to be out looking for jobs and housing to know how much discrimination is out there. People doing that are usually over 19." Sure enough, only a quarter of black teens surveyed said they had been victims of discrimination, whereas half of black adults say they have. For all that, these kids remain astonishingly optimistic: 95% of the black youngsters think they're going on to college, as do 93% of the whites.

But is that gullibility? Or gutsiness? Today's teens have respect for the past, faith in the future--and a distaste for scapegoating that outstrips that of their parents. One of the survey's more notable findings: even though neither black teens nor whites tend to blame racism as a cause of problems facing blacks, they nonetheless support gender- and race-based scholarships in greater numbers than adults.

People don't always level with pollsters; they're notorious in fact for giving answers they believe to be socially acceptable at the expense of revealing their true feelings. But teens are less likely to do that than adults. Sociologist Howard Pinderhughes, author of the new book Race in the Hood: Conflict and Violence Among Urban Youth, says, "Teenagers are a mirror of our souls. They speak plainly about things that adults would like to hide. Political correctness isn't an issue to them. You're more likely to get what they think unfiltered."

Extensive interviews with children, parents, educators, researchers and law-enforcement officials make clear that the new optimism takes place against a backdrop of a number of new challenges, such as the growing presence of hate groups on the Internet, and old ones, such as interracial dating and ethnic turf wars.

A disinclination to blame problems on racism does not mean a reduced sense of racial identity. Psychologist Beverly Tatum, author of the recently published Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, says she often asks her psychology students to complete this sentence: "I am ______." White students tend to answer with personality traits: "I am friendly," "I am shy," etc. Students of color tend to fill in the blank with their ethnicity: "I am black" or "I am Puerto Rican." The foundation for racial identity, Tatum argues, is constructed in adolescence by peer pressure, societal influences and self-reflection; it is a time when children make choices about who they are.

The attitudes expressed by respondents to the TIME/CNN poll are all the more remarkable given that outside of school, black teens and white teens most often live in separate neighborhoods and sometimes, it seems, on separate planets. Danny, 17, a white Chicago youngster interviewed by TIME, professed to having "more black friends than I do white friends" but also admitted that "we just talk in school" and that he never visits the homes of his black buddies, who tend to live in crime-plagued housing projects.

Danny's situation is not uncommon. While few teens view their neighborhood as dangerous, 40% of black teens reported that they knew someone their age who had been murdered, in contrast to only 15% of white teens. Black teens also feel they don't get a fair shake from the police: one-third of them feel they are at risk of being treated unfairly by cops, while only 1 out of 5 white teens shares that fear. Real improvement in communication, says historian John Hope Franklin, head of President Clinton's task force on race, won't come until "you have improvement in the home conditions of kids of all kinds."

But growing up in a comparatively deprived environment doesn't necessarily lead to bad choices. In a direct counter to long-held stereotypes, the poll found that it is white kids, not black, who are most likely to have experimented with drugs and alcohol--by roughly 2 to 1.

America's schools are becoming increasingly diverse. But where kids live can lead to a separation that even a diverse school cannot bridge. For example, at Teaneck High School, a racially diverse school in New Jersey, the doors of opportunity are literal. There are three main entrances at the school, and kids refer to them as "the black door," "the Latino door" and "the white door." Originally, the nicknames came from the fact that those were the doors the various groups entered when the buses dropped them off; even though Teaneck has become more integrated, the terms have stuck, and each group continues to hang out by its respective door.

Kris DeBlasio, 20, a graduate of Teaneck High School who is white and works as a lifeguard at the school pool, says when he was a student, he entered through the "black door" and a black student grabbed him by the throat until another black classmate said DeBlasio was "cool" and should be left alone. Still, DeBlasio, who says his best friend is black, believes there has been progress. "When my father was growing up in Brooklyn, I don't think he had a single black friend," he says. "[Racism] still exists, but it isn't as blatant as it used to be."

Bias crimes, however, one of the most obvious expressions of racism, are still a fact of teen life. According to Justice Department statistics, the number of hate crimes reported nationwide rose 10% from 1995 to 1996 (the jump could be due to better reporting). In Chicago black youngster Lenard Clark, 13, was beaten into a coma in March, allegedly by a group of white teens. "This is not about race," argues Tommy, 23, a white resident of Bridgeport, the neighborhood where Clark's beating took place. "A lot of times it's about territory. If we fight with black guys, we're called racists. But that's not true. If you're from a different race and you show disrespect, we're going to straighten you out." Says Tommy's friend Kevin, 18, who is also white: "Half of them over there [blacks], they got better cars than we do. And they don't even have jobs. They got free rent, and their grocery bills paid. You know something? I don't have no pity in my pinkie toe for those people."

And in a bizarre incident in Tucson, Ariz., a group of skinheads built a Nazi bunker on city property (it was bulldozed) and then, a few weeks later, mounted a cow's head on the hood of a 1970 Ford Thunderbird and drove around town shouting white-power slogans. Many of today's race-hate groups, however, are more sophisticated. According to the TIME/CNN survey, 75% of white teens and 55% of black teens say they have access to a computer with Internet capability at home or school. There they may find that hate groups are also plugging in and logging on. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center says the number of "hate sites" on the Internet--ranging from the Aryan Dating Page to the Nigger Joke Center--has doubled in the past eight months and stands at more than 500. "Lunatic fringe does not translate into lack of sophistication," says Cooper. "The Web has given an unprecedented opportunity to the lunatic fringe of racists to market their ideas to young people."

One of these cyberhatemongers, a National Socialist White Peoples' Party member named "Wolf" who is based in Toledo, Ohio, is a "good example of a youth recruiter," says a researcher, who requested that her name not be used. "He has a lot of catchy slogans. He seems attracted to kids who are having problems at home. He becomes their father. They'll go on and on, talking about their schoolwork, their community, whatever is bothering them today. Then Wolf brings in National Socialism. He'll say, 'You can find family here.'"

In the face of that, the teenagers polled by TIME/CNN retain a bracing sense of optimism; three-fourths of the white youngsters believe race relations will get better, as do more than half the black teens (adults of both races are more skeptical). "What we're seeing here is a hidden aspect of the black survival process," says Michael Eric Dyson, author of Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line and a visiting professor at Columbia University's Institute for Research in African-American Studies. "You imagine a reality better than the one in which you presently live. I wouldn't call it optimism; it goes too deep. It's hope. Hope goes against everything you can see."

That hope sometimes flies in the face of the pessimism and racial intolerance teenagers hear expressed by their elders. Thecla Hoeberechts, 13, who is of Dutch and Greek ancestry, often plays in Ridgefield Park, N.J., with friends of different races. Thecla says an older friend recently asked her why she hangs out with black people all the time: "She said, 'Look how loud and rude they are.'" Children of color face similar pressures. Cynthia Bou, 13, a Dominican-American friend of Thecla's, says an older cousin asked her why some of her friends are white. "White people are whack," she warned Cynthia. "You're going to change when they treat you wrong."

Parents too can serve as regressive influences, though perhaps less so than in the past. One out of 8 white teens and 1 out of 9 black youngsters say they've heard their parents say something negative about another race. One white father in Bridgeport, in an interview, went on at length about his capacity for racial tolerance (he helps send holiday turkeys to poor black families), but when he was asked about the subject of interracial dating, he declared, "Listen, if Jesus himself stepped down off the Cross asking to date my daughter, and he was black? I'd tell the guy to go to hell."

Some observers see trouble ahead because of the continued deprivation of so many black families in wrecked city neighborhoods. (Less than half the black teens polled live with a father or stepfather.) "This generation of kids we're raising now in these urban centers have no conscience, no values," says the Rev. B. Herbert Martin, minister of Chicago's People's Church. "They are growing up in isolation."

That in itself can breed bigotry. One black Newark, N.J., teen interviewed by TIME launched into an ugly tirade about Jews--but many more expressed a sense of catharsis simply to be talking about the racial difficulties they face. On the other hand, white teens interviewed seemed to have more trouble discussing racial issues, and were often unable to even find the words to describe their feelings about ethnicity. Part of the problem, according to psychologist Tatum, is that some parents, particularly white ones, silence their children when racial issues are raised. This is done, sometimes, as part of a well-meaning effort to teach children that such distinctions don't matter. But as a result of such silencing, children are left without answers to their questions and without the social skills to deal with racial issues.

Some youngsters are trying to reach beyond the silence. After Gullatte had his fight with skinheads in his school, he felt he had no one to talk to. He has since joined Group X, a program started in the Cobb County school system in 1993 in which students meet on a semiregular basis and discuss race. Some 450 students are signed up. The meetings, held in groups of about 20, can get emotional. At a recent session, Alison Garcia, 12, stood up, tears in her eyes, and exclaimed, "All Hispanics are not dumb! You don't know me. My father and my uncle were part of the Cherokee tribe, and my uncle had the highest scores in school." Says Gullatte: "What the Group X project did was help me to be able to tell other people about [my experiences] and say what I really feel." It's just talk. But it's a start.

--With reporting by Kevin Fedarko/Chicago, Sylvester Monroe/Atlanta, Elaine Rivera/Teaneck and James Willwerth/Los Angeles

With reporting by KEVIN FEDARKO/CHICAGO, SYLVESTER MONROE/ATLANTA, ELAINE RIVERA/TEANECK AND JAMES WILLWERTH/ LOS ANGELES