Racial/Ethnic Discrimination Rahat, Ryan, Ariella, Maria

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • The People of New York City
• Education
  • School Segregation
  • Teacher Demographics
• Policing
  • Police Demographics
  • Broken Windows
  • Stop & Frisk
• Hate Crime
  • Unjust killing of African Americans
  • Eric Garner vs. Michael Stewart
  • Marcelo Lucero vs. David Kao
• Conclusion

Introduction

New York City is the most diverse city in the world. Known as a melting pot or a “pressure cooker” for some, this metropolis is home to individuals of all ethnicities and cultures. Home to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Empire State Building, New York is a city rife with the American dream that has inspired so many immigrants that have chosen to call this place “home.” Despite its status as a shining testament of liberalism, New York has fallen victim to a plight that America has been burdened with since its inception: racial and ethnic discrimination.

Although the discrimination is arguably less pronounced in New York City than in other places where the “minorities” truly make up the minority of the populous, the fact that it is still very much alive remains today. In his 1960 essay “Fifth Avenue, Uptown,” outspoken writer James Baldwin famously wrote “[minorities] are, therefore, ignored in the North and under surveillance in the South, and suffer hideously in both places.” While some progress has been made since the 1960s, a large portion of the city believes that racism is for the most part over, when in fact it has just reared it’s ugly head in alternative and arguably more subdued forms including school segregation, hate crimes, murders.

This is the recent population makeup of New York City: ¹

Keep this in mind while we examine some of the major issues regarding racial/ethnic discrimination in New York City.

School Segregation in NYC

Research conducted by The New School’s Center for New York City Affairs demonstrates that school segregation is prevalent in NYC and is not always the result of housing patterns. The study shows that there are dozens of high-poverty elementary schools which almost exclusively serve Black and Latino children that are located in far more racially and economically mixed neighborhoods. Simply stated: even diverse and integrated neighborhoods are home to segregated and marginalized schools. Housing segregation still has a large impact, however. Large ranges of the city have high concentrations of poverty and these high poverty neighborhoods are made up primarily of Blacks and Latinos. Student enrollment in hundreds of schools reflects that reality.

The maps above demonstrate that 124 of the city’s 734 neighborhood elementary schools are significantly poorer than their school zones. For these schools, the approximate household income of the zone is at least 20% higher than the estimated household income of the children enrolled.

Socioeconomically disadvantaged students that belong to a certain race receive an inferior education. With the ongoing struggle against racism in this country and overcoming inequality, a solid foundation in good education can be the first step in vanquishing discrimination. But alas, this is not the case. The lack of education only hampers marginalized individuals’ quest to overcome the odds.

Take District 13 in downtown Brooklyn, for example. The estimated household income of children enrolled at PS 287 is less than half that of all households in the school zone. While the school enrollment is 89 percent Black and Latino; the zone is just 43 percent Black and Latino.

Studies suggest that socioeconomic integration is one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to improve academic achievement for poor children due to the fact that high-poverty schools tend to have fewer resources. Therefore, these districts have trouble hiring and retaining qualified teachers; with fewer resources and less funding, the staff has little incentive to stay.

The Institutionalized Nature of Superior Teachers

These underqualified teachers in “minority” schools have become a bonafide epidemic throughout the city in recent years. The Daily News cites a specific school – Banana Kelly High School in the Bronx – as representative of schools in poor neighborhoods across the city. At this high school, many of the students had been in the institution than the teachers there. Indeed, Capital New York reports that the state’s new mandated teacher evaluation program has confirmed that teachers with the highest rating tend to be employed in affluent neighborhoods and be a comparatively rare occurrence within the neighborhoods’ poorer counterparts.

This report cites that the reason teachers prefer affluent neighborhoods is that they prefer “teaching kids who have higher attendance, who are ready to learn, who come to school with fewer distractions,” even in schools that would provide similar or identical salaries. The sad truth is that the schisms that exist among schools have become so entrenched that some of the teachers themselves have become so disheartened with the situation that they have publicly come to blame the students (see Ed Boland’s The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a NYC High School) rather than the circumstances they are victim to.

Teacher demography may also help to shed some light on the issue. Since the turn of the century, the number of teachers actively employed throughout the city has dwindled from about 77 thousand to 73 thousand in 2012, the most recent year with available data. ² The number of teachers employed had been relatively stagnant with no significant dips or gains between the years of 2000 and 2008. Since then, the number of teachers has dramatically dropped off. The reason for this? The recession. Though the recession doesn’t accurately justify the dip in the number of teachers as the amount of people needed to teach a given population does not change during times of economic crisis, even if pay were to take a hit.

Now look at NYPD’s demographics…

Stop and frisk is defined as a brief, non-intrusive, police stop of a suspect.  Police officers are required to have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed before stopping a suspect, according to the Fourth Amendment.But do they? No. Most of the time they don’t even let the suspect know of the reason they are being stopped… Jackie Yates remembers the fury she felt three years ago when she looked through her South Bronx apartment window and saw police officers harassing her children.”They’re just walking down the street and get pushed up against a wall and get patted down,” says Yates, who is African-American. “My son said, ‘That’s nothing. That happens all the time.’ Our kids thought this was something that was normal.” Normal. Let that sink in.

This is a twitter timeline for a twitter bot that posts a tweet every ten minutes for each of the 685,724 people stopped in 2011.
Tweets by @stopandfrisk

This is a graph showing the number of Stop and Frisk for each year between 2003 and 2015. The data is provided by the New York Civil Liberties Union ⁴, who analyzed the dataset given by the NYPD. As you can see, the ones affected by the Stop and Frisk program were disproportionately Black and Latino.The number of Stop and Frisks peaked in the year 2011. However, starting from the year 2012, many New Yorkers stood up and protested against the program. Police stops started to be videotaped by the public, causing police officers to think twice before stopping someone without a just cause. In the year 2015, the number of Stop and Frisks were at an all-time low, however they still tend to happen often in neighborhoods with residents that are Black or Latino.

The Unjust Killing of African Americans

The police are meant to protect our communities from harm, yet we continue to see many atrocities being committed by the police force up to this day. This needs to stop. Here are just a few of these incidents that have taken place in New York City over the past few decades:

Eric Garner was killed on July 27th, 2014 in Staten Island, New York when an NYPD officer put him in a chokehold ⁵ for more than 15 seconds when arresting him. Before that happened, NYPD officers confronted him because they thought he was selling untaxed cigarettes. When Garner said he wasn’t selling cigarettes, the officers tried to arrest him. One officer took him by the neck and pulled him down onto the ground. Four other officers then restrained Garner on the ground, who had to repeat “I can’t breathe” a total of eleven times before losing consciousness. He remained on the ground for seven minutes before an ambulance came, and was declared dead just an hour later.

11 times. Let that sink in…

Media Response & Community Response

As soon as new outlets released the footage of Michael Brown’s killing, the public took to Twitter and began to use the hashtag #icantbreathe ⁶ to express their outrage with the racism that exists within the U.S. Justice system and to raise awareness of the issue. This hashtag was not simply a trending Twitter fad, but rather a national movement.

This simple hashtag gave way to protests that stretched far beyond the streets of New York City. Many NBA teams and players promoted awareness and voiced their opinions by wearing #icantbreathe t-shirts to warm up on television before games. Star players, such as Derrick Rose, Blake Griffin, and Lebron James, used their platform off the hardwood to speak out on the issue as well. In addition to NBA players, other prominent athletes, such as Calvin Johnson, also used their positions to raise awareness ⁷. It is worth noting however that the movement was the most unified in the NBA.

Outside of the world of sports, A-list and B-list celebrities from a variety of fields also spoke out on the issue. In a YouTube post, Samuel L. Jackson urged celebrities to sing ‘I Can’t Breathe,’ while comedian John Stewart pointed out the blatant racism of the U.S. Justice system that some seemed to deny. Rapper J. Cole went on “The Late Show with David Letterman” to perform an original song addressing racism and police brutality that became stuff of internet legend. With the first two individuals reaching out to high income and politically aware audiences, respectively, and the latter preaching more to the “common man,” as well as a bevy of other celebrities speaking out, a culture of unity was cultivated behind the outcry against the killing of Mr. Brown.

Government Response

Mayor Bill de Blasio hosted a roundtable meeting on July 31st with police commissioner Bill Bratton, Reverend Al Sharpton, and many officials in order to discuss the tragedy ⁸. Commissioner Bratton stated that there is a need to retrain all 35,000 members of the police force and Mayor de Blasio supported that idea. They believe that the retraining will improve community relations with the NYPD.

On December 3rd, the Richmond County grand jury shocked the country by deciding not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the officer that was responsible for the incident.
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer responded by saying that the Department of Justice should launch a federal investigation into the incident.
The President also responded to the decision⁹:

“When anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law, that’s a problem. It’s incumbent on all of us as Americans …that we recognize that this is an American problem and not just a black problem. It is an American problem when anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law.”- Barack Obama

Former President George W. Bush said that he thought the verdict was “hard to understand” and “very sad”.

Police Response

The #icantbreathe Movement

Young African Americans and all those who were shocked by the recent African American killings and the injustice that followed sparked protests ¹⁰ all throughout the nation to bring awareness and justice to not only the police officers involved but also to the justice system at hand. Movements sprung up such as #ThisStopsNow, #HandsUpUnited, and the most famous of all #BlackLivesMatter, which sought to let everyone know that black lives do indeed matter. Eric Garner’s murder lead to the #icantbreathemovement, which trended on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for weeks. Protesters united by means of sit-ins, die-ins, picket lines, and blocking highways and bridges. They demanded their voice be heard, they demanded that the murders immediately end and that the undoubtedly racist criminal justice system go under a radical reformation.

Michael Stewart was a graffiti artist who died after being detained by the New York City Transit Police for spray-painting graffiti on the wall of the First Avenue subway station. When the officers confronted Stewart, he became violent and then ran to the street before being beaten to unconsciousness. He was then taken to Bellevue Hospital Center for psychiatric observation. Stewart died later due to a heart attack, but a physician said the death was caused by strangulation. All of the officers happened to be white ¹¹
, adding to the controversy. He was just twenty-five years old at the time, making this a tragic incident.

Media Response & Community Response

Seeing as Michael Stewart was an aspiring artist and model, this struck a particular chord among Black artists at the time. One such artist was Andy Warhol’s bromantic partner, Basquiat. Being a black artist, Basquiat was shaken by the death of Michael Stewart ¹². This identification and realization led Basquiat to paintDefacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)

Government Response & Police Response

When the Stewarts’ case went to trial ¹³, the defendants, judge, jury, and all the attorneys on both sides of the conflict (even the ones on Stewarts’ side) were all white. All these white individuals were representing the victim, the only black person involved in this case. And so, as the case unfolded all six white police officers involved were acquitted ¹⁴, and the Stewarts family, as well as the rest of the world, were reminded that justice is blind… or at least it is when people of color are involved.

Justice is blind.

The police were indicted for criminally negligent homicide, assault, reckless endangerment, perjury before the Grand Jury in a cover-up attempt. Medical Examiner claimed Stewart died of a heart attack “pending further study.” William McKechnie of the Transit Patrolman’s Benevolent Association claimed the forensic evidence pointed to a heart attack from exertion resisting arrest complicated by alcohol consumption. All officers were later acquitted and the officers could return to duty within a week. This sparked many protests.

Hate Crime Against Hispanics

Marcelo Lucero was an Ecuadorian immigrant who had been living in the USA for 16 years killed by a gang of white teenagers what called themselves the Caucasian Crew in a sport they called “beaner hopping”, which is violence targeted against Latinos, a plain and simple hate crime. ¹⁵ The seven teenagers were arrested and convicted for the hate crime.¹⁶ A vigil is now held every year in the spot that Marcelo Lucero died, the first of which included over a thousand people. Community leaders also spoke out against the anti-immigrant atmosphere in the wake of the killing. Schools also started to discuss the issues of tolerance in connection to this horrible crime. The community response was covered by the film organization Not In Our Town. Joselo Lucero, Marcelo’s brother, is active in the community to try to work with children to promote tolerance.

The violent killing called attention to violence against suspected undocumented immigrants ¹⁷. Police initially minimized the incident, however when the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a Spanish-speaking researcher to Suffolk County, Long Island, a much more troubling pattern revealed. Attacks on Latino immigrants were found to be rather commonplace. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center website: “Latino immigrants in Suffolk County are regularly harassed, taunted, and pelted with objects hurled from cars. They are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles, and many report being beaten with baseball bats and other objects. Others have been shot with BB guns or pepper-sprayed. Most will not walk alone after dark; parents often refuse to let their children play outside. A few have been the targets of arson attacks and worse.” Hateful rhetoric and the intolerant attitudes of the local politicians and police force also contributed to a dangerous climate for Latino immigrants. Police were indifferent to reports of attacks against Latino immigrants, and at worst even contributed to the issue themselves. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York reached a settlement with the local police to implement new policies to ensure the safety and rights of the Latino immigrants under their charge.

Media & Community Response:
Marcelo Lucero’s death received extensive coverage from local and national media outlets including CBS News, CNN, and the Huffington Post. Despite this coverage, the community response was mostly contained to local outcry from family members and others within the Suffolk county community. This is notably different than the response that occurred in cases of Black males being the victims of hate crimes and victims of unjust police violence.

Despite the lack of overwhelming community response, enough of a concern was raised that the situation caught the attention of the federal government ¹⁸. In this case, the previous Latino victims of this particular gang of teenagers had been frightened to speak up. This is because many had questionable immigration statuses. Either being in the country illegally or overstaying their visa, they valued being in America more than they valued their safety. With the death of Lucero, the issue finally was brought to the attention of the public without the possibility of the victim being deported. This led to other victims coming out and federal government oversight which worked with Latinos throughout Suffolk County to protect their rights and allow them to speak up regardless of immigration status.

Hate Crime Against Asians

While hate crimes against African Americans and Hispanics are covered widely by the media, the same does not fully apply to hate crimes against Asians. One example is the story of David Kao, a 49-year-old man from Flushing, NY who was strangled to death by two African American teens who were just 16 and 17 years old ¹⁹. The teens admitted to brutally beating Kao before dropping his body off on a nearby street.²⁰ These teenagers had also confessed to confronting another Asian man who was also from Flushing just a month before, yet the prosecutor of Kao’s case does not believe it to be a case of hate crime. ²¹ This is troubling because hate crime against Asians is a real problem ²², and it can’t be solved just by ignoring it.

The reality is that there is not much news coverage regarding cases of hate crime against Asians. Even for Kao’s case, which took place in 2009, it was difficult to find much information or even discussion about it online, which is surprising considering it was just as severe or even more extreme than some cases of hate crime against Blacks and Hispanics. The issue may be that cases like these are misidentified by law enforcement authorities as just regular violent crimes rather than hate crimes, which can be a problem for people in the future who may face similar experiences because the issue of hate crime against Asians isn’t taken as seriously.

Conclusion

Upon examination of the struggles, inequities, and tragedies suffered by the minority groups of a city that prides itself on its diversity and its attainability of the American Dream, the need for action in response to such a discrepancy between ideals and reality is undeniably clear. However, such deep-rooted problems, especially those with such far-reaching effects over time, are not immediately fixed. Such issues requires a fundamental overhaul of the existing infrastructure and increased understanding and empathy between members of different races and ethnicities in order to create an environment where an individual’s success is truly based on merit rather than the color of their skin or the origin of their birth.

Given the information discussed on this website, to take a colorblind standpoint on these issues would be ignorant and possibly very damaging. In order to properly serve all members of a population, the differences between individuals in this population cannot be neglected.

There are misconceptions perpetuated by media and rhetoric within communities that interfere with the ability to communicate and peacefully interact with members of different communities. Overcoming this communication and empathy barrier, and abolishing an us-versus-them mentality without abolishing the differences between us, is most likely the first step toward solving many of the serious detriments that prevail today and have prevailed in years past.
It is a slow and often frustrating process. However, in order to facilitate mutual understanding between races and ethnic groups, one must try to understand the standpoints of those who are not from their background, and in turn be vocal about their own standpoints and experiences.

Footnotes