THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 20, 1994 TAG: 9408200267
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Challenge of Diversity
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
If Mike D. Margulies hears the guys cracking blonde jokes when he goes back to school in the fall, he's going to walk away.
If Marcus Banks runs into any slurs against Jews, he's going to say, ``I don't want to hear it, man.''
And Kara Couch hates herself for thinking that the black kids at her school are slow.
Those new attitudes are the result of a four-day ``Metrotown Institute'' seminar aimed at teaching teenagers how to stamp out prejudice and get along with people different from themselves.
About 35 youths took part in the seminar sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews at Virginia Wesleyan College. Asian, black, white, Jewish, Muslim and West Indian, the youths themselves represented the spectrum of religious, racial and ethnic diversity.
``When we first got here all the blacks sat on one side and the whites sat on another,'' said Margulies, 18, a senior at Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach.
``I had judgments about black people that I didn't know I had,'' said the tallish, blue-eyed Margulies. ``I've seen movies like `Boyz in the Hood' and because I go to a private school where there aren't very many black people I didn't know any.''
But after days of sometimes offbeat exercises and intense dialogue designed to break down barriers, Margulies and others said, they changed.
In the cultural quiz, the youths divided up by ethnic, racial or religious group. Each asked the other candid questions about foods, cultural practices, idiosyncracies, stereotypes.
``This requires total honesty,'' said Couch, a senior at Maury High School in Norfolk. ``Unless you're honest you can't grow.'' She dared to ask blacks about their use of the word ``nigger'' as a term of endearment.
At times, the ambience reflected a generation coming of age in a multicultural society. A stereo alternately played reggae and Simon & Garfunkel's ``The Sound of Silence.''
Metrotown was conceived seven years ago in Jacksonville, Fla., by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Last year, it traveled north to Richmond. This was its Hampton Roads debut. Local corporate grants allowed students to attend free. Most were selected because of leadership involvement in school.
``What we're really about is a training ground for citizens of the global community, encouraging acceptance of people different from each other,'' said Jeffrey B. Spence, regional NCCJ director.
As the session came to a close Friday, several youths stood before the group to confess their own intolerance or to call on others to overcome.
``I really don't understand prejudice against homosexuals,'' said April Weissman, a 17-year-old senior at Western Branch High School in Chesapeake. ``Why so many people hate them for who they sleep with.''
Over on the couch in another rap session, Jannat Scoon, a 14-year-old Muslim who attends Booker T. Washington High School, tried her best to explain that her religion has little to do with Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan.
``If he was true to the Koran and did what it said, there would be none of this `I hate' because Islam is not like that,'' said Scoon, who wore her hair wrapped in a dark blue scarf. ``Muslims are judged by faith.''
As a young African-American man, Marcus Banks knows he's more likely to face prejudice than many others. But the workshop has helped him rise above it.
``Racism is ignorance, and it will bring you down if you let it,'' said Banks, a junior at Cape Henry Collegiate. ``But I'm not going to let it. I'm going to educate and uplift.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CHRISTOPHER REDDICK, Staff
Dacrie Brooks, 17, of Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia
Beach, listens during a diversity workshop.
KEYWORDS: TEENAGERS RACE RELATIONS PREJUDICE by CNB