Amid the bustle of the lunchtime crowd at Homeboy Industries’ Homegirl Café, a group of 11 Angelenos sat down on April 10 for a conversation about race and issues of racism in the city.

The first embRACE LA meal of 2018 brought together a wide array of Angelenos to discuss racism in the city. (photo courtesy of Council President Herb Wesson’s office)

The lunch served as a kick-off for the embRACE LA initiative, a series of 100 dinners to be held by the City Council and the South Los Angeles Community Coalition from April 16-20 across the city. Each meal will bring together 10 residents, who signed up to participate and were then selected via a lottery system, along with trained facilitators to engage in a dialogue on race. The council expects over 2,000 city residents to participate in the program.

The kick-off on April 11 included Council President Herb Wesson, 10th District; Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, 13th District; Community Coalition President Alberto Retana; Councilman Gil Cedillo, 1st District; his son, Gil Cedillo Jr.; Mark Gonzalez, of social impact firm Revolve Impact; Councilman Paul Koretz, 5th District; Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, 8th District; Councilman Paul Krekorian, 2nd District; Anna Hovasapian, Krekorian’s senior policy deputy; and Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Beatrice Girmala.

The table, with large carafes of water and fruit juices in each corner, featured menus at each setting. Rather than food though, the menu detailed an itinerary, listing welcome and opening, knowing our neighbors, dinner, we cannot heal what we will not face, the city we want to live in, and gratitude. Gonzalez facilitated the conversation and began by asking the participants to share where their grandparents on either side of their family came from and lived. As the diners began sharing their family lineage, the members of the media were ushered out for the participants’ privacy.

Wesson and O’Farrell conceived of embRACE LA and launched the initiative during fall 2016. In May 2017, the pair hosted 20 community members over dinner to discuss to race in Los Angeles, especially in the context of the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The civil unrest, which lasted for five days and left more than 50 people dead, occured after four white LAPD officers were acquitted following the beating of Rodney King. This year, Wesson and O’Farrell decided to take the same format of a dinner, but offer it on a much larger scale to reach thousands more Angelenos.

“When I was a young man, this country faced a lot of challenges. We had racial challenges and there was a war going on and if there was anyone that was different, it was like you didn’t like them – whether they were gay or lesbian, if you were Christian, Muslim or Jew. There was just so much divide that was going on in this country in the ‘50s, ‘60s and the ‘70s. But what occurred during that time – ­something that I can say to you without any pause or hesitation as something that worked – is that we as a people decided to have a conversation about our differences … [and] this country moved forward in a positive way in leaps and bounds. It’s time for us to move forward again,” Wesson said at the press conference preceding the kick-off lunch. “It’s time for us to recognize and respect everybody’s right to exist and that’s what we hope to do. We hope to make history as we ignite this national conversation.”

All 15 council members will participate in an embRACE LA meal in the coming week. With these meetings, Wesson and O’Farrell hope to not only provide spaces for people to share their experiences with racism, but also offer opportunities for those who have not encountered racial discrimination to gain new perspectives.

“Regardless of how we feel or whether or not we want to admit it, we’re all raised – conditioned – to have certain biases,” O’Farrell said. “But here is what embRACE LA can do. Within human nature, everyone, without exception, every individual has the ability to set their biases aside, just set them aside for a moment, and be open to seeing life through a different lens.”

O’Farrell also emphasized that the initiative was not just “for show,” and explained that the City Council plans to develop policy from the discussions to create “a more fair, equitable and racist-free Los Angeles.”

During the press conference, council members also repeatedly cited President Donald Trump J. and his rhetoric as why they felt embRACE LA is so relevant to the city of Los Angeles.

“These dinners come at a crucial time in our nation when our country is struggling on issues of race and as our president takes every opportunity to [fuel] the fire and to continue to talk about race and other ethnicities as if we don’t really belong here, and that is simply not true,” said Councilwoman Nury Martinez, 6th District. “We must be better than this, and we are better than this in Los Angeles.”

The kick-off meal was held at the Homegirl Café, and the following meals will be hosted in private homes with select chefs from Dulan’s on Crenshaw Soul Food, Italian Soul Catering, Lassier Catering, Not Your Mama’s Kitchen and Spoonful of Honey serving free meals.

One of the chefs, Stacey Whitney, of Spoonful of Honey, shared her excitement about being a part of the embRACE LA project and its ideals.

“I have the opportunity to help feed my city, and to express the love for the city that has shown me so much love,” Whitney explained. “I have spent time in Chicago, I spent time in Atlanta and … in Chicago, you got to travel to the opposite side of town, to go up north to see the Indians, you got to go south to see African Americans, you got to go west to see the Latinos, but here – look outside – we’ve got Homeboy here, we’ve got Olvera Street here, we’ve got Chinatown here, all within walking distance.”

As she concluded her speech, the chef noted the extreme political divide in the country, but remained hopeful that embRACE LA would make a significant impact on Los Angeles.

“Even in the most contradictory situations, we can speak through food and we can make positive change,” Whitney said.