This summer, I had the opportunity to work on the re-election campaign for NYS Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz. The Assemblyman needed was facing a primary challenge against Ben Akselrod, a relative newcomer in politics. The Assemblyman needed me to reach out to the Russian community because Ben was a Russian-speaking candidate and could easily communicate with the community. (Just to let all the readers know that in South Brooklyn there is a huge Russian speaking population and this group of people helped elect relative newcomers before.) I thought that my job would involve translating dialogue about issues between the Assemblyman and constituents, but what I got instead was a whopping dish of racism.
It first happened in an Adult Day Care Center. The Assemblyman was to speak and give out tickets to a senior luncheon. After he was done, I was walking with him out and then a man in his 70s stopped us and said, “Hello Mr. Cymbrowitz, what do you think of the schvartzer in the White House?”
Schvartzer is a derogatory term for black people in the Yiddish language. I was in awe. Not because he said the word, but how he said it with such conviction and emphasis.
Mr. Cymbrowitz replied, “That isn’t nice to say about him, but I believe he isn’t doing a good job, but it’s a hard job.”
It was a generic answer, but it was good enough for the man so he walked away.
A week later, I visited a community center with the Assemblyman. We went inside an ESL program for adults. It was filled with Russians, and then a black man came in with a notebook. The room lit up with gossip in Russian.
“What an idiot?” said one person.
“Of course, black people don’t know how to speak normal English,” said another.
“The room started to smell the second he came in,” said one person to her friend.
The black man dropped the notebook on a desk went to the front and said in perfect Russian grammar, “I understand you all. My wife is Ukrainian and I lived there for 10 years. She is the one studying English. She left her notebook at home and I came here to give it to her.”
As the man was talking, the faces of all the Russian immigrants turned pale white, as they were embarrassed. Me on other hand, I turned bright red because it was hard to control the laughter.
2 weeks before the primary, the opponent released a new flier, which talked about crime in the neighborhood. The only problem was that the flier didn’t say the word “neighborhood”. Instead it said “negrohood”. There was uproar everywhere. Before you know it, this story went from being on a local blog site to the NY Times. Everyone was shocked and disgusted. How can someone get the word negrohood from neighborhood? The opponent said it was a typo, but one of the comments said it was a Freudian slip and I believe that error was due to some unconscious train of though.
In my three months of working for the Assemblyman, I encountered racism in 3 languages. This experience showed me that even though everything America faced in terms of civil rights, people still have pre-existing beliefs in racism whether it is in a diverse place such as Brooklyn or a very homogenous place such as West Virginia.
P.S. Last Thursday was the Primary and we won by 200 votes! Now it is time for the General Election.
The Assemblyman and me at a community event!
http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/2012/08/in-flubbed-campaign-lit-assembly-candidate-says-crime-is-up-in-the-negrohood/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip
Interesting piece. The visual aspect was very vivid and it had some great writing elements. It is very unfortunate that you came across such racism, but the second situation was actually pretty funny.
I love this piece, especially with the visuals and the senses descriptions. I have to say, all those things happened in NYC, one of the most diverse cities! Just imagine how races people can be in the other cities… It IS very unfortunate.
Wow. This blog post is full of dramatic twists, and the stories just show how different ethnic communities in NYC have prejudice against each other. Not surprisingly, some people make quick judgements based on media-portrayed stereotype. Like Yeuk San has said, it’s quite unfortunate.
I like your piece because you manage to focus on the issue in your community but make it easy and enjoyable for your reader. It’s really sad that this still happens, as you put it, in a place as diverse as brooklyn. I’m interested in knowing how the opponent actually handled the situation of the flier. Congratulations on the win!