Can a Dinner Conversation — Or a Hundred — Ease Racial Division?

Seven strangers sat at a dinner table in downtown Los Angeles, ringed by reporters jotting down notes, and set out to talk about race.

They included a Muslim physician originally from Pakistan; a Los Angeles transplant who had lived in Canada and Japan and whose family had emmigrated from Taiwan to New Jersey; a bisexual man with Cantonese and Ashkenazi Jewish roots; the Mexican American lobbyist who had welcomed them into her chic apartment; and their facilitator, a black man born in Inglewood who reassured them as they settled in for soul food and a guided discussion.

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They were brought together by an unusual effort, brokered through City Hall, to “foster understanding, healing and growth.” The initiative, called embRACE L.A., had been championed by one of the most powerful politicians in Los Angeles, who announced last summer that he wanted the city to host scores of intimate dinners focused on race and inequity.

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City Council President Herb Wesson teamed up with Councilman Mitch O’Farrell and Community Coalition, a South L.A. community organizing group once led by Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, to make it happen. One hundred free dinners were held last week as part of a new program funded with $500,000 from the city.

“We have an opportunity to kick-start or ignite a conversation on race that could travel throughout the nation,” Wesson said.

Word spread online. Several people at the downtown dinner said they heard about it through Facebook. Thousands of people signed up to attend dinners throughout the city — twice as many as city officials had initially arranged for, Wesson spokeswoman Vanessa Rodriguez said. A second round of dinners is being planned to accommodate them.

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After the dinnergoers introduced themselves, Foster guided the conversation with questions: What did they love about Los Angeles, and what about it caused them pain? How had race shaped their interactions with other people? Had they ever had to have difficult discussions about race?

They talked about the toll of homelessness on daily life in Los Angeles. Why the homeless population seemed to be disproportionately black.

How they felt about giving money to panhandlers. Why so few women hold elected office at City Hall. Islamophobia. Coming out as queer.

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Veronica Perez, the lobbyist hosting the dinner, asked her why. Qazi replied that there was hatred out there, adding, “I hope you guys are not very happy with the current POTUS?”

Laughter rolled around the table. No one volunteered that they were.

Another guest remarked that institutional problems with race had long predated President Trump, and would not go away when he leaves.

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Los Angeles has tried to bring people together to talk through differences before: Amid stark divisions over the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial, then-Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas convened people in what became the Days of Dialogue program. Elsewhere in the country, people have broken bread together in Chicago, Chattanooga, Tenn., Dallas and Wichita, Kan.

But if tough topics aren’t brought up, “it’s a bunch of people sitting around, looking differently, having a kumbaya moment,” said Delores Jones-Brown, professor emeritus at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

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At one dinner last week, Wesson said, he heard one person recount seeing “No Reds” signs barring Native Americans from businesses as a youth. A white woman, in turn, talked about “having the privilege of race never factoring into what she wanted to do.”

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In skid row, “the dinner was deep. It was soulful. It was moving,” said Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, which hosted a meal for its members and partners. White said people were asked about their grandmothers, and stories ended up stretching back to slavery and sharecropping.

And at a Chatsworth co-working space, dinner host Sonia Smith-Kang said the talk turned to Rodney King, the black motorist whose beating at the hands of police — and the acquittal of the officers — led to one of the most tumultuous periods in Los Angeles history. “Having folks representing Korean Americans and African Americans, to hear each other’s side, that really stuck out to me,” said Smith-Kang, who heads a nonprofit that advocates for the multiracial community.

But even some Angelenos sympathetic to the cause are skeptical that a simple dinner can address deeper issues. {snip} Sitting down together for dinner is a good start, she said, but only a start.

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Another question is who shows up to such dinners and who doesn’t. Smith-Kang said that though her Chatsworth dinner included millennials, baby boomers, African Americans, Korean Americans and people of mixed heritage, “it sounded like everybody was on the same page” on many issues, leaving her wondering how to bring in others who were not.

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“Americans are really coming to terms with just how bad the polarization is,” said Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, professor and chairwoman of gender studies at USC. Part of the problem, she said, is that with the rise of social media, people are drawn into ideological echo chambers.

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Wesson added that the dinners would also have a ripple effect, as attendees go back and talk with family and friends who might not have turned out to discuss race with strangers. He plans to sort through their feedback to decide what should come next.

That question was also on the minds of the dinnergoers gathered downtown as they wrapped up hours of discussion over black-eyed peas and baked macaroni and cheese. At the end of the night, they were handed a list of local groups focused on racial justice, immigrant rights, homelessness and other issues that touch diverse communities.

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He had left the downtown dinner feeling grateful to be heard and recognized as a multiracial person, and knowing that he had heard other people. But he felt they could have pushed harder to talk through tough issues like how policing in L.A. affects black and brown communities.

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