Spark 3/27

Sanjek discusses–in great depth–three past mayors of New York City: Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani. Throughout all three of their careers each one increased, or at least sustained, the number of budget cuts employed. Though this can be an effective process, these mayors cut funding to the wrong public institutions and government jobs, and this, unfortunately, is not what New York City needed. As a matter of fact, this is almost the opposite of what New York City needed, as it increased the number of unemployed people. It appears that, when the economy is doing well the government hires a lot of people, and then fires them when the economy starts to dip. However, the government should instead let people work for private businesses (which could require laying them off) when the economy is flourishing, and then hire those people who are laid off during hard times. There are a multitude of job opportunities that the government can supply, from the Health Department, to Law Enforcement, to Public Recreation. Hiring people to fill these positions when the economy is good forces the government to spend money on their worker’s salaries. If they save this money, though, they can then hire workers during an economic depression and thus create jobs.

All of the funding and budget cuts discussed by Sanjek reminds me of how my dad, who worked for the Westchester County Health Department, was basically forced into an early retirement about a year ago (they gave him a retirement incentive and told him he would be fired in the next couple of years if he didn’t retire now). The reason for this being that the newly elected Mayor, Rob Astorino, decided to privatize business and cut government jobs. Thankfully, my dad received a decent retirement package and so was not hurt too badly. However, my sister’s position at the county lab she worked in was cut (meaning no pension or any type of package was given to her), and soon after the entire lab was closed. Because of this, people now have to go a private company that charges twice as much to be tested for STD’s (the same service that the county lab did for free). The best part, is that this private company sent their test samples to the county lab that my sister worked in, before it was closed, to be processed. So, how is privatizing this helping anybody? In my community, people constantly complain that they can’t afford the taxes in Westchester, and yet they have a 70 inch flat screen HDTV sitting in their living room, with a 360 and a PS3 hooked up to it. They see “cutting government jobs and thus reducing taxes” as a good thing because it allows them to keep their expensive products, however, they do not seem to realize the long terms effects of this, much like Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani.

“…but they never got us the money for it” (93) This quote essentially summarizes a good portion of chapter four in Black Corona. Focusing on the renewal time period—when the government decided to try to “fix” or “cure” poor neighborhoods—Gregory highlights a cycle of development that is common among most cities and countries.
The Italians that originally inhabited Corona moved out and were replaced by African-Americans. Unfortunately for these people, affording a proper house to rear their young children, along with the price of living in this community, proved to be too expensive. Rather than immediately addressing the problem, the government first sent in teams to survey the community and see where the “blight” started, and conclude if it really was as bad as the community stated.

The results of the initial surveys were that the area was a suburb that had major improvements over the slums that previously housed minorities. However, the area was quite volatile, which could lead to disastrous results. As these studies continued, it became evident that many of them could not separate racial bias from economics, nor could they remove the political agendas of the government from their analysis.
Eventually, the government decided that it needed to act to prevent the crime that was supposedly prevalent on the “Northern Boulevard Strip”. Their intentions were also political, though, concerned with stopping crime in the area to make themselves look good, rather than actually giving people what they needed.

Finally, in 1969, the Langston Hughes Library and Culture center was created. As the committees and meetings set up to help alleviate poverty prevalent in Corona by building public institutions such as the Langston Hughes Library became more effective, they also grew separate from the people. Attendance to these committees soon decreased due their complex and specific topics, as well as their frequency. They eventually became tools that Mayor Koch would use for his own political agenda.

It’s ironic how, as the process of communicating the needs of the community to the government became less democratic, it simultaneously became more effective. Of course, the effectiveness was only to Mayor Koch’s liking, and so many would argue that is not effective at all. But, if he tries to gain the vote of the poor by building them new community centers or recreational facilities, is he not helping them out in the end? Regardless of his intentions, this corrupt system does seem to work to some degree. That degree, though, was reached when Mayor Koch gained enough power that he could ignore the community’s needs and requests, instead focusing his attention on the more advanced corporate-Manhattan sector.
America seems to be built on a fine balance between a democracy and a republic, and that balance shifts over time (hence the two main political parties differing ideologies). So far, America has been able to (arguably) maintain this balance in a manner that allows it to function. However, is it inevitable that, like Corona, America will fall prey to the wanton desires of a political party rather than the rational, coherent, beliefs of the American people? I mean, that America will fall prey to the private agendas of a deranged political party that is estranged from the common American citizen’s desires? Frankly, I have no answer, but I found it very intriguing that a microcosm–present inside of the macrocosm–can provide insight into the larger issue.

Finally, there is a second idea that I would like to bring attention to: “…civil rights-era gains ‘divided the black community–it destroyed our unity'” (104). I honestly don’t quite understand the explanation for this statement. I think that Gregory states that by prying into the private affairs of the African-American community, the state and federal government destroyed some of their culture. In addition to this, the “political issues concerning racial and class inequality were subordinated to the “riot prevention” strategies and tactics of governing elites and power-evasive discourses of urban blight on which they relied” (105). If anybody else can elaborate on this point, I would really appreciate it. Though the initial statement seems very interesting and bold, the explanation was muddy and not nearly as audacious.