Working Paper 93-22, August 5, 1993(1)
By Leo Cardenas
U.S. Department of Justice
Director, Rocky Mountain Regional
Office of the Community Relations Service
(1) This paper is an edited transcript of a talk given by Leo Cardenas for the Intractable Conflict/Constructive Confrontation Project on April 10, 1993. Funding for this Project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the University of Colorado. All ideas presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Consortium, the University, or Hewlett Foundation. For more information, contact the Conflict Resolution Consortium, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0327. Phone: (303) 492-1635, e-mail: crc@cubldr.colorado.edu.
© Conflict Resolution Consortium. Do not reprint without permission.
The Rocky Mountain Regional Office of the Community Relations Service is an agency in the U.S. Department of Justice that has been in business for almost 30 years. We were created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a core of individuals who would go into communities around the country assisting people in solving their disputes and difficulties--in our case, conflicts based on race, color, or national origin. We have experienced some changes over the years, but we still do not get involved in conflicts of gender or sexual orientation. With the Clinton administration there is now renewed efforts to expand our legislation and, hopefully, with it will come resources with which to handle these types of problems.
Our region serves six states. We are a very small agency--there are only 125 of us. There are six of us here in Denver. Fourteen members of our agency are in Los Angeles at this moment awaiting the verdict of the second Rodney King trial. I have called the result of the last verdict, the "mother of all riots," and, obviously, the potential for another outbreak of violence exists this time around as well. Los Angeles, because it has been in the news, is a good city to use as a model. I know of no other city that has such a large racial mix. In essence what L.A. has become today is what has happened to almost every community in this country. Five percent of almost every U.S. community has been augmented by additions of people of color, minorities, or immigrants settling in those communities.
The Community Relations Service has been trying to follow those trends, using the gauge of five percent to denote a significant change in the demographics of a community. That is, if there has been a population increase of five percent in any one city or in any one neighborhood, it is time for that municipality to respond with a plan as to how it is going to accommodate the new individuals in that community. The response can entail law enforcement services, social services, the educational system, health services, and employment opportunities. The responses spiral, often due to language problems.
As these things happen they bring with them a myriad of problems. In "governmentese," we may call them simple difficulties, sometimes we call them plain old problems, we call them issues, we call them concerns, or we may call them disputes. But, whatever the label may be, these difficulties exist and there are many ways of handling the variety of issues that they precipitate. The most familiar method for managing change or perceived problems is for a mayor or a city council person to ask the police department for help. They ask the police department to handle people problems! We then wonder why conflicts occur!
One of the things that we have done in our agency is to analyze causes of conflict before we look at methods of resolution. Because of this, we have to begin to have a sense of what brings about these problems other than looking at statistics and saying, "Well, we have had an influx into all major cities or rural communities." We have developed what we call a "two tap-root theory." The first, we call "disparity of treatment," and the second one, "confidence in the redress systems."
Let's put ourselves in any community--your community--for a minute and see if we can see ourselves as a disadvantaged person or a new person in a new community and deal with "disparity of treatment." Your perception would be that they don't treat you (the minority, the new person) very well in that community, that you are generally not welcome even though there might have been a welcome wagon in your community. That is the perception. You deal with your own group, those with whom you have a common language, those who are in your family. That perception is etched clearly in your mind as to who you are and what your standing is in that community. The perception is that the treatment that you are going to get is going to be unequal.
This brings us to the issue of "confidence or lack of confidence in the redress system." Here you are, a minority with language problems, with employment problems, feeling unwelcome in this community, and now you have to ask that system for help--this may be in any of the areas I mentioned above, health, employment, social services, etc. The help that you need has to come from a system in which you do not have any confidence. They do not know your language, they do not know who you are, and they do not know your cultural customs. As you can see, "disparity of treatment," and "confidence in the redress system" are two inextricable dynamics. Into this comes an incident--"a triggering incident"--whether it be in your barrio or your ghetto or downtown. Remember that for almost any problem, wherever these people reside, the police are sent in to respond.
For example, in Washington, D.C., during Cinco de Mayo, an inexperienced policewoman was sent into the barrio to handle a public drunkenness case. She did not know the language and she feared the people she was dealing with. She reacted to this situation by pulling her gun and pulling the trigger. This was, of course, a triggering incident. I am using an extreme example, but incidents similar to this occur in communities on a daily basis.
In light of this, I want to cite some statistics that are not generally known. The riots that occurred in the nation's capital in May of 1991 occurred in a community predominately settled by people from El Salvador. When the riots occurred in Los Angeles, the majority of the people who were arrested were Latino, mainly from El Salvador. I cite this fact because usually when we think of riots and race problems we think of African American issues. Often, because the media tends to concentrate on blacks, it is perceived that African Americans alone invented the Civil Rights Movement and when the "mother of all riots" broke out in Los Angeles in the black community, it was commonly thought to be only blacks who were involved. That is not true in Los Angeles and it is not the case in most urban or rural areas where there is a mixture of peoples.
What we look for in our attempts to prevent violent conflicts, are "tension-breeding incidents." We then try to bring them to the attention of those governing the communities. The next step is then to create dialogue--dialogue with newcomers, law enforcement officers, city councils, school boards, an employment board, or whatever institution or group that seems appropriate.
The communities of our nation are constantly confronted with such changes--this is one of the reasons we are discussing intractable conflicts and constructive confrontations. These are not someone else's problems. They are ours.