Subdued in a manner belying their image, about 50 "skinheads" gathered at a San Fernando Valley park on a recent Saturday to listen in respectful silence to the words of one of their leaders.

"Wear your (identity) with pride," said Todd Schwartz, glancing at his yellow armband. "You got to know who and what you are."

Meet the self-described anti-racist skinheads, a breed apart from the better-known, hard-core variety. While they share many of the same interests of other skinheads, they also claim to pursue racial harmony and pacifism.

Indeed, certain elements of these youths' appearances made them readily identifiable as partisans of the youth subculture whose name of late has become almost synonymous with neo-Nazism. Nearly all of the boys and many of the girls sported short-cropped hair. Most wore combat boots. Many wore odd-colored suspenders.

But scattered among what has come to be widely regarded as such easily recognizable symbols of defiance were some surprises as well. More than a third of the youths in the park were black, Latino or Asian. And they sported yellow armbands marked with the letters SHARP, an acronym for Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice.

"Real skinheads aren't racist," said Iby Miranda, 16, a dark-skinned Latino high school student who favors short hair and black army boots. "Those who are are just bald punks."

Amid the barrage of media coverage depicting skinheads as neo-Nazi thugs, this new voice is quietly attempting to gather strength.

Members of these groups claim there are hundreds of anti-racist skinheads in Southern California. To make their points they are meeting in parks, picketing at concerts, distributing leaflets, recruiting members, holding rallies, publishing newsletters and generally conducting an aggressive grass-roots public relations campaign to get the word out that not all skinheads are racist.

"We're providing the kids with an alternative," said Schwartz, 21.

A U.S. Marine with the rank of lance corporal based at Camp Pendleton, Schwartz--who is Jewish--is the West Coast coordinator of SHARP, one of the largest and most visible of the loosely organized skinhead groups that call themselves "two-tone" to describe their racially integrated membership. Other such groups spotted in Southern California, police say, have included United Skins, the Mickey Mouse Club, the Mods, West Coast Front, Brotherhood Skins, Mad Skins and Anti-Racist Action.