First off, let me give you a bit of info on our planned guest, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale_Brewer
I imagine I’ll be asking her about various issues, including development plans, the political situation as we look toward a mayoral election next year and other matters. She may have some things of her own that she’d like to discuss. But most of you are, for now anyway, Manhattan residents, so if there are issues that concern you, don’t hesitate to raise your hands.
Now, on race relations, the history is long, complex and not always pretty. Here is material I’d like you to read. And don’t forget to prepare a brief outline of what you’re thinking of for your final project and how you’d like to go about researching it.
We can’t have a discussion of race issues without looking at the brutal past of slavery in New York. Here’s a study of it:
http://www.peoplesworld.org/slavery-in-new-york-uncovering-the-brutal-truth/
I know we mentioned the 1863 draft riots, but here’s a fuller exploration. They were an important moment in NYC history:
The following looks back at another important moment in New York race relations, the murder in the late 1980s of Yusuf Hawkins, a black man, by a group of young whites in Howard Beach, Queens:
This link gives an overview of severe tensions in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991 after a black boy was killed by a car driven driven by Jews, and then the murder of a visiting Australian student was killed during anti-Jewish riots. This is a look 10 years later:
And this is a look at Crown Heights 20 years later (2011);
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crown-heights-twenty-years-after-the-riots
Following are two pieces on a seminal moment in black-white relations in this city, specifically black-Jewish relations. They both revolve around a 1968 teachers strike that had enormous consequences:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_teachers%27_strike_of_1968 (wikipedia gives a sense of that teachers strike)
Obviously, race relations are not exclusively black and white. As the city became more racially diverse, new tensions arose. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, for instance, there were black boycotts of Korean-owned grocery stores. It wasn’t a pretty picture:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/90877/brooklyn-boycott-racism-1990 (korean)
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/21/nyregion/brooklyn-blacks-and-koreans-forge-pact.html
Chinese relations with other ethnic groups have not always been smooth, either. The indictment of former Police Officer Peter Liang in the apparently unintentional killing of, Akai Gurley, a young African-American in a Brooklyn housing project, is an example:
With the guilty verdict against Liang, there have been protests:
And then, on occasion, there are moments like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/nyregion/a-corner-shadowed-by-racial-tensions.html
There is more. Two years ago, the film director Spike Lee went on a tear about gentrification and the changing demographics in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Apologies to those who may be bothered by some of the language, which is rough, but there’s no way to discuss this without letting Mr. Lee talk in his inimitable style:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/spike-lee-amazing-rant-against-gentrification.html
His diatribe produced some interesting reaction.
There is this long piece that ran a few months ago in City Journal, a periodical published by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank:
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_4_gentrification.html
And there are also these responses to Spike Lee. The first is from John McWhorter, a linguist. The second from the actor Anthony Mackie. Both of these guys, by the way, are African-Americans.
http://time.com/10666/spike-lees-racism-isnt-cute-m-f-hipster-is-the-new-honkey/
http://newsone.com/2933305/anthony-mackie-accuses-spike-lee-of-reverse-gentrification-video/
