Racial Politics in Black, White and Dollar Green
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- October
- 25
In this election cycle, incumbent Westchester County Executive Andy Spano has received $15,000 in campaign donations from G&S, the Long Island development firm that was able to transform much of downtown Port Chester, thank to an abusive implentation of eminent domain. That’s a little added tidbit that’s relevant to today’s column, which begins as follows:
By attributing racist motives to those who may be skeptical of a controversial settlement in an affordable housing lawsuit, Andy Spano has unwittingly put himself on notice.
If the incumbent county executive truly believes in the principle of a level playing field in which everyone – regardless of racial, ethnic and economic background – has an equal shot at the American Dream, then he can make a very simple statement to back it up.
To see how that involves eminent domain and Port Chester, read more by clicking on column.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:22 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
Too bad it has to be me,
but everybody else is scared to speak.
Will Westchester’s African Americans truly be served by shipping 750 “lucky” families to Scarsdale, Somers, Yorktown Heights, & Bedford, where they can’t get soul food, can’t afford to dress right, can’t speak local jargon or engage in “hood” entertainments? What kind of “community” will that be? A diaspora? Will “Da Boyz” take up jogging and yoga? Out among an uptight uncaring highly competitive bourgeoisie, without comparable jobs to their neighbors, without adequate transportation, no money for upscale clothes or amenities, their kids without likeminded peers, a Spanoesque circus spectacle, the odd man out in every way….will they flourish? Or is this a provocation, reminiscent of the Army outposts Mr. Obama is now abandoning in Afghanistan as pointless and untenable? When can we expect the first police brutality allegation?
It’s a noticeable thing about the central American immigrants who are filling in all the unused housing stock in our towns & cities. They have no complaints about the arrangement. Being partly made up of illegal migrant laborers, without a longterm anti-majoritarian beef, and used to much worse elsewhere, they view whatever they can get as adequate. So Spano’s failure to provide them HUD-quality affordable housing is apparently a non-issue. Or maybe being a poor Hispanic is somehow just not as poor as being a poor Afro-American with a lawyer.
Meanwhile, those for whom Westchester county was sued allegedly feel otherwise. (according to their self-appointed negotiators). There’s apparently an endowment attached to being in that lower half of the traditional nonwhite contingent, that does not attach to any other people. In hindsight we could term such folks, “Poverty Royalty”. No Asians need apply here. Since the housing bubble, well-to-do nonwhites of all origins go where cash takes them, no barriers at all, often no money down, and even no mortgage payment for 2 years either.. Under such gratuitous minority-promoting the legal case alleging color discrimination grows thin to the vanishing point, or even reverses itself into a brand new sort of Balkan ethno-vendetta.
Moneyed blacks go where they can afford. Poor Hispanics do not matter. This leaves only poor blacks unserved. But are they? What of Westhelp, SSI, section 8, and other arrangements in place for young, poor unwed mothers? What of just living at home with Mom & Pop, abstinent? I guess, really, only poor black young men are left out. Better call Bill Cosby (or your local Army recruiter).
The shock here is to see Spano, viewing everything through a cynical mirror of self interest, turn this into a get-me-off-the-hook opportunity, purloining HUD funds, and then falsely pinning his personal larceny on the 940,000 innocent residents of Westchester county so ill served by him, like a wily criminal suddenly turning state’s evidence, with a tall, tall tale to tell, and then running for re-election. (by 750 families).
Socially, the Westchester settlement is irrelevant.
It’s a Spano-regime-incompetency door prize.
Rob Astorino would have to be the dumbest, laziest, most untruthful man on earth,
to do any worse as county exec..