Dave H.

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 21:08:17 -0500

Am I the only person that finds this new revelation about the Yusef Hawkins murder fascinating? The crime was previously characterized as an act of a viciously racist community murdering a black person for wandering onto their turf. While there's no doubt that racism exists in the city, the fact that the murder was explicitly directed by a mobster against a specific person--albeit not Yusef Hawkins who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time--seems to take the fangs out of the accusations that Hawkins' murder was a general indicator of race relations in NY at that time. As opposed to a random crowd of racist whites attacking a black man, the crowd was actually a crew of lowlifes summoned by a mobster to protect a store from an unrelated argument involving a woman who threatened to have her friends settle a score. When Yusef Hawkins stumbled across this motley crew, he was on the verge of explaining his way out of the mistaken identity when he was shot by a man obviously eager to ingratiate himself to his mob boss. So instead of a representative group of the community killing a man just because he was black, this was a collection of reprobates assembled to hassle a specific black man or group of black men, when things took a turn for the further moronic. I don't know; I just find that very extremely interesting.

Not reading your replies

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 05:12:36 -0500

you know why the black mom and her kid died? Because they were black.

saffron

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 22:59:45 -0500

hey, I was visiting all the city-ist sites, and there is a glaring absence of Sydney! When will there be a Sydneyist? We have such cool things to share with the world

Gothamist: Extra, Extra

Dave H.

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saffron