My oldest sister was a teen-ager when she and a small clutch of friends were accosted by a group of young men who wanted them to know that they were in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time.

        My sister, her date and friends, were black. The Philadelphia neighborhood they were in was predominantly white.

        They'd been to a movie, but they knew they'd stayed too long. It was getting dark. They were about to catch the elevated train home when the first rocks and bottles flew. Then came racial slurs and an advancing group of young white men yelling at them.

        A girl in my sister's group was cut. My sister's boyfriend, who later became her husband, fought with the men. A brown belt in karate, he and another male friend scared off the crowd.

        My sister came home that night with cuts and bruises, and a feeling of impotent anger and resentment.
       

Wrong place, wrong time

        We wanted to do something about this — even though we knew it had happened before to others, that whites caught in our neighborhood at night ran similar risks, that the assailants probably couldn't be found.

        In the end, we did nothing. We stayed out of that neighborhood. Lesson learned.

        Recently a similar lesson rained down on travelers in Cincinnati. On Vine Street in Over-the-Rhine on April 15, several white motorists driving through an unruly, African-American crowd were targets of the same racist message:

        Don't be in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time.

        The crowd, which witnesses numbered at 300, was already riled up after viewing a fight between two teen-aged girls. Racist bullying to some of them was just more entertainment.

        They hurled racial insults at several whites, pelted cars with rocks, bottles and other detritus handy in a deteriorating neighborhood. Black drivers were ignored.

        The danger passed in minutes. Three people were arrested; three complaints were filed with police. But what remains is the same anger and resentment. The same lesson learned.
       

Brutal, racist and wrong

        Have things changed much in the 30-something years between these encounters, or amid the numerous other nameless race battles brewing in our country? Yes and no.

        No, because racially segregated neighborhoods continue to divide us. So many blacks and whites have lived apart for so long, in such separate worlds, that when they come together, even momentarily, the potential for friction arises.

        Ask any bully or feuding faction, friction is perfect for flame-ups.

        But the racial tinderbox isn't what it used to be. There are thousands more interactions these days between blacks and whites in Cincinnati, in this nation, and even in my old neighborhood. Thousands more opportunities for understanding, for relating to each other as humans.

        Even small efforts — like the study circles that bring small groups together or the dialogues by larger groups like the National Council for Community and Justice, the Amos Project (no relation to me) and Cincinnati Community Action Now — help sprinkle some hope.

        But we can do so much more, and we must not let these events deflect us. We have to build more economic, educational and cultural opportunities to get Cincinnati's youth involved in positive efforts. We have to show more leadership, pointing them to those doors, so would-be members of the mob can trickle out.

        If the mob gets small enough, the anonymous attackers can't remain anonymous any more.

       
       Denise Smith Amos can be reached at 768-8395, or e-mail damos@enquirer.com.
       

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