New NY State License Plate Revealed—And Required On All Cars
Cops: Columbia Prof Punched Woman In "White Privilege" Brawl
Despite Gay Brothers, State Sen. Diaz Still Anti-Gay Marriage
Flashback: Last Brownstone Standing
Cops: Fort Greene Violence Sparked By Chicken Wing Promotion
Things got heated in the City Council yesterday as former Black Panther and Council Member Charles Barron squared off against Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who had removed the name of Sonny Carson from a list of people to be honored with having streets named after them. Sonny Carson was an activist who railed against Korean grocers and, not wanting to limit himself to an accusation of anti-Semitism, said he was anti-white in general. Quinn feels that Carson was a divisive figure in New York's history and Barron thinks he was an important individual who united his community.
Earlier this week Barron and a state Asemmblyman from Brooklyn independently renamed Linden Park in Brooklyn "Sonny Abubadika Carson Park" despite the Parks Department's insistence that no such name change was going to be recognized. Barron said "This is official, because I am an official" and Mayor Bloomberg was quoted saying naming anything after Sonny Carson was one of the worst ideas in recent history. The Parks Department said that it would remove the signs that Barron had affixed around Linden Park and the Council Member promised to just keep putting more up. The bizarre park incident was the precursor to yesterday's Council event, which included a vote to amend the bill by re-adding Carson's name to the list of proposed street names.
The event was not amicable, as the amendment failed 25-15 in the 51 member body. Barron's aide Viola Plummer heckled Quinn during the meeting and later vowed to end the career of Leroy Comrie, a black council member who abstained from voting on the amendment, using the term "assassinate him". No black council members voted against the amendment. It sounds like a racially acrimonious meeting and NY1 thinks that it could eventually injure Quinn's aspirations for higher office.
(Photo of Charles Barron by Bebeto Matthews/AP)
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Absolutely ridiculous. Let's honor racism by giving it a street name...
Good for Quinn and the rest of the Council Members who have brains.
Democracy may be the best form of government, but occasionally it fails - for example, when a moron like Barron is able to win an election.
Never Again, Now you will see.
God bless you Charles Barron.
This is only the beginning.
Never again always forever.
Peter,
"but occasionally it fails - for example, when a moron like Barron is able to win an election."
I don't think it failed. The people have elected him. That's democracy. The fact that his constituents are racists is a different matter.
"never again always forever", could you please explain that?
"Never Again" is most often associated with the Holocaust and seeing how Sonny Carson was "Anti White", I'm not making the connection...
S.D. - Don't forget that he was Anti-Jewish and Anti-Korean too!
While Carson put his stance in ethnically-charged and prejudicial terms, the basic idea was "buy black," which is and always has been a legitimate form of economic activism for the black community.
Before desegregation, we blacks largely patronized businesses owned and operated by other blacks because we had to; once we stopped having to, many of those businesses died, along with a sizable portion of our middle class.
Black people are dying and dying out in this country -- economically, who's to blame for that? And don't start with that "well if you didn't buy sneakers instead of putting in the bank" bullshit.
Matukanyc-
Without disputing your facts about post-desegregation businesses, are you contending that segregation was actually good for blacks?
I don't know who is to blame for why blacks are not doing as well economically but I have a hard time believing that it is due to desegregation.
"who's to blame for that?"
Blame the culture. Teenage pregnancies, children out of wedlock, lack of discipline, etc. I went to a public high school in brooklyn and the difference between american born blacks and that of recent carribean immigrants is pretty noticable. They acdtually respected the teachers, cared about their grades, etc.
It's Our Time now,
Never again,
Never Again Always Forever, look it up.
Does the City Council have any kind of impeachment option?
let the people who use the park name it after whoever they want. Are Quin, Bloomberg or anyone who doesnt live in the immediate area actually going to visit it. No. Barron, like any other race baiter, wins the more the establishment complains about this non issue.
If you think teen pregnancy, lack of discipline, unwed mothers etc is only exclusive to one group, I have a bridge to sell you.
Visit a WalMart below the mason dixon/washington beltway or west of Trenton and you'll see.
You don't even have to go that far, there's these people everywhere, from Seldon LI to areas of trash in Rhode Island and Boston.
"If you think...", nice strawman, there.
To me, people who live in projects are the same type of people who live in mobile homes.
one salient point to make about out of wedlock births is that the percentages for black and white women are not only radically difference, but the result is disproportionately heavy on black children (48% in poverty versus 11% for whites).
this story touches on this:
www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9218127
wanted to inject a factoid or two; enjoy the trolling!
Never Again Always Forever sounds like a mountain dew slogan gone bad.
It's sad what the "civil rights" movement has devolved into. Sadder still that people like Barron make people like Sharpton seem almost professional by comparison.
breakfast clubber, I hate to actually bring, well, facts, into this debate, but the teen pregnancy rate among African Americans in New York State is more than 3x that of whites.
Check out teenpregnancy dot org.
If you say so. that's not what you wrote.
your kids are healthy, right? Good.
You love and teach them well.
Also, 2/3 of births to african-american women in NY in 2004 were out of wedlock, while only 20% of births to white women were.
per cdc dot gov.
I don't think it failed. The people have elected him. That's democracy. The fact that his constituents are racists is a different matter.
You are quite correct. Democracy did not fail - it produced a bad result, but that is not the same thing as failure.
frog, you may be missing the point of barron and sharpton, etc. they serve a niche that exists because of the accidents and incidents of history, just like any other politico. their rhetoric just happens to be sharper.
they're also drawing on a historical current that goes back, at least in new york, to the days of marcus garvey before the great splintering. that's a hell of a long time.
one of those splinters, btw, became the various "lost tribes" groups, one variation you can still see in times square. i recommend listening for a while because it is a fascinating peek into a culture which has retained physiological presumptions about race that date back to the end of the high water mark for eugenics in the united states.
a poster mentioned the unwed births by race,
that's the entire country. show me where is it that black teens are having more births out of wedlock for the entire U.S.?
ever been to West Virginia? take a drive through there on your way to chicago.
Or, maybe it's just the white girls who just throw their just born baby in the dumpster before going to the prom, look that up.
Barron is ridiculous. If he would only call himself a "Rev." it would complete his insanity
DHex.
If inner-city blacks want to rally around the angriest man in the room, that's fine. I'm sure it's very cathartic and will cement their sense of "community" for generations to come. Will it make their children take school more seriously? Will it repel the influence of hip-hop "culture" that turns so many young men into outmoded and useless vulgarians? Will it promote a sense of opportunity in the community or persist in perpetuating a debilitating sense of victimhood that convinces young blacks at a painfully early age that they really just shouldn't bother trying?
We really need to get rid of Barron. He's a joke. Can you imagine a councilmember flouting the law? He is illegally renaming a park! Get rid of that loser.
nyc the capital of the world, I really don't understand what you're saying. Either that, or you don't understand the concept of a rate vs. an absolute number.
The statistics show:
1. 69% of black babies in the US, and 67% in New York, and born to unwed mothers, while 25% of white babies in the US, and 21% in NY, are born to unwed mothers. So, a black baby is about 3x as likely to be born to an unwed mother than a white baby.
2. There were more babies born to unwed white mothers (562k in 2004) in the US than to unwed black mothers (401k in 2004), in absoute terms, but that's due to the fact that there are LOT more white people than black people in the US.
3. The % of babies born to unwed mothers is higher from blacks than for whites in every single state in the US, including West Virginia (77% vs. 34%).
frog: frankly, i think "hip hop culture" or even "taking school seriously" pale in comparison to the war on drugs and what that's done. (ny state in particular still reels from insane federal laws on crack as well as our state laws)
think about it quite simply: if you remove a huge chunk of the male population from a given human community, what have you done?
1) you've made males a far more scarce commodity than females.
2) you've made potential advancement for males far more difficult, due to conflicts between the larger but difficult to access "legitimate" economy and the underground economy. as well as a larger police presence, drawn both by existing violent crime and a history (and thus, perception) of future violent crime.
3) you've made short term investment in multiple partners far more attractive. marriage becomes a risk for men and a huge risk for women, in that you are tying yourself to someone who has not only a huge incentive to not support you, but also faces a higher chance of injury or imprisonment through involvement in the underground economy.
4) this results in alternate choices for status seeking in both men and women. having a child, regardless of marital status, not only creates and immediate social bond but is an accomplishment in and of itself.
i've never been one much to think music or movies or games or the "role models" contained therein have nearly the impact on human lives that personal connections do (i.e. black metal fans, especially in america, tend not to run around decapitating people with viking weaponry, much less invoking old norse gods.) but this tends to also be a good boiler point for people to hang their hat on.
additionally, this has led some conservatives and some liberals to point to various incentive schemes to encourage marriage - i.e. covenant marriage rules in various states, which are virtually ignored due to the constraints put on both parties; or more simply, paying people to get married. (beyond tax incentives already in place, which generally don't effect the populations that legislators are trying to reach)
i tend to think of these positions as foolish, or typical political grandstanding, because while legal and cultural destruction can be wrought from on high, building anything is far more difficult.
1) When criminals break the law they go to jail.
2) Difficult to access? Are you saying that black criminals are all really A students who got disillusioned with the "difficult to access legitimate economy"?
3) See #1
4) Accomplishment how?
stan:
1) and when rain falls, things get wet. this statement, however, tells us nothing about hurricanes, floods or thunderstorms.
2) consider for just a brief moment that different layers of society have different levels of access to the economy. this may be difficult to imagine, but there is a perception on the parts of some that certain classes have different amounts of "buy-in" and can access things like safer schools, better social connections, more college options, etc. class may not be destiny, but it is definitely an albatross.
3) see #1
4) surely this isn't very hard to understand - when someone has a child they also gain access toa role to fulfill, a focus for attention (and then some) and a framework and perhaps even a "purpose" in life. they enter a new social role - a mother - and everything. outside of the unaware, the ambivalent and/or infanticidal, children generally bring a sea change to one's life, regardless of social class.
none of this means personal sovereignty isn't still one's own responsibility, ultimately, but trying to explain social phenomenon through grandstanding (whether you're charles barron or Stan LS) is a surefire way to gain no data whatsoever.
1) Precisely! It has nothing to do with race, but with criminals. I have a problem "you've made males a far more scarce" when these males have free will and choose to do crime.
2) Not difficult to imagine at all. My family came here (the 4 of us) with $1k and 2 bags per person. English is not our first language. I attended a public jr high school and high school in brooklyn, the later was at least 35% black, had metal detectors, x-ray machines and magnetic locks.
So there you have it. A kid whose family came here with no money, who went to the very same school as everybody else, used the same books, had the same teachers (minus the special considerations that some of them gave to "underprivileged" kids) and went to graduate college and get a decent job.
Like I said. The problem is with culture. I've seen kids on welfare (easy to spot, they don't pay for lunch in the cafeteria) walk around in $120+ sneakers and all the latest fashions.
3) Yea. And criminals still go to jail. Regardless of race.
4) Uh, having a child is not an accomplishment. Raising one right is.
1) except that it does, particular in regards to the war on drugs (or war on some drugs, if you want to be more accurate; or war on some drugs segram's doesn't sell, if you want to be vitrolic) - the changes in federal sentencing guidelines weighed crack violations far more heavily than powder cocaine. these terms were pushed for, ironically, by some black politicians, due to an ignorance of how underground economies work.
2) feeds into this point - as you'll notice from the economist article - that family matters very deeply. your accomplishments, thankfully, had a built-in support group. if the larger problems of encouraging stable families were not largely intractable, folks like barron might focus on that more heavily, but there's very little the government can do to back off of destroying families beyond moving past the simplistic enforcement values of the war on drugs. (and who knows what we're going to see as the first crop of people getting out of ny prisons due to rockefeller laws and their 20 - 25 year mandatory minimums are being released now)
3) again, see point one. sentencing guidelines and what one might call asymmetrical enforcement have had a disparate impact along racial lines - seen especially in the split between urban and rural black males. (among many other points - rural blacks have a far higher rate of legal gun ownership, yet a far, far lower murder rate, both in terms of committing and being the victim of murders.)
i predict we'll see a similar pattern among rural whites below a certain income line when federal laws against methamphetamines become overbearing (meth being the drug scare du jour, as anyone who has tried to buy decongestants has probably noticed by now)
4) well, in some groupings it is. shrug.
i am not denying that culture is important. it is vastly important. that's exactly what's been chipped away at from various forces, especially governmental. how to reverse this? fucked if i know.
how does one encourage marriage and stability?
i dont think anything pisses me off more than someone who interjects their story and blames everyone for not having the same morals.
read any fucking sociology book.
i recommend this one:
The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become - Dalton Conley
but pick something against his views and at least we'll have a worthwhile discussion.
1) "due to an ignorance of how underground economies work" - why do you insist on not naming things for what they are. Dealing crack (among other things) is illegal. You can call it an "underground economy" or whatever, but its illegal. If one was to lessen the violations for dealing crack, then you would be saying that the government is not taking it seriously, because it primarily plagues the black community.
2) We seem to agree on something. It's not the color of a person's skin, but the culture.
3) I'ld have to see statistics re your point on enforcement accross racial lines. Too often numbers are quoted, but specifics are not mentioned. For example, which group has a higher rate of repeat offenders, etc. Things like that affect sentencing.
4) I think we should stop making excuses for bad behavior. Also, affirmative action has got to go.
Ah, I apologize for expecting others to take responsibility for their own actions. How unrealistic of me.
Carry on.
WOW!! Talk about gettin' off track!
Carson was a racist asshole that deserves no recognition whatsoever - unless it's to name a Sanitation Depot after him.
The relationship between whites and blacks is little more than the winter of a marriage gone sour. White people keep bending over backwards and doubling over with guilt over what has happened in the past and promise that none of it will ever happen again. Black people, meanwhile, have had enough and have run out of trust. Rather than simply walk out, though, they want to make sure they're at least going to be set up after what they've been through and so they hang on near the fringes, feign an interest in continuing the relationship but only so long as it takes to build a case for alimony.
1) it's still an economy. people still pay money for services. its legality or illegality is immaterial. well, that's not entirely true, as its illegality inflates the cost of doing business, creates several side effects that have to be dealt with by taxpayers, enriches terrorists and drug lords and military juntas, and inflates the final street price by a tremendous amount.
also keep in mind that i'm arguing about the effect certain policies have had. if i were arguing morality, i would not only take issue with the simplistic "it's illegal" routine (legality does not imply morality, lest one believe that castro's cuba and north korea are bastions of morality, because, hey, they have laws) but with the moral framework of the war on drugs. i think the impact of plan colombia alone far outweighs the social cost of addiction, which is a smaller subset of drug use. (just as drinking is a smaller subset of alcoholism)
(fun random factoid: did you know during the great plague in london in 1666 children and adults alike were encouraged to take up smoking both tobacco and cannabis to prevent plague transmission?)
2) we certainly do, and thank goodness for that.
3) if one wants to talk about sentencing in new york state, one has to start with the rockefeller laws and other mandatory minimums. the issue there is suddenly a certain threshold of drugs by weight turned into 20 and 30 year prison sentences, regardless of offense number or intent or whatever, because the minimum guidelines were mandatory. judges no longer had discretion.
now, the drug law reform act from 2004 was a huge step in righting this wrong, but that's still 30 years of wrongs to go forward with.
keep in mind that i'm not a conspiracist, so i see things like drug free school zones as oddly enough being a major problem. why? nearly every fucking part of the city is near a school zone!
www.justicepolicy.org/reports/SchoolZonesReport06.pdf
i don't hold out much hope for too much change, but one never knows.
4) again, i can only say that this is an issue of a disagreement over a framework. i'm looking at causes, and you're looking at meanings. i'm not so interested in meanings, and i largely agree with you in terms of final judgments (i.e. 18 year olds don't make good parents, by and large, etc; personal sovereignty is important) and because all the judgments in the universe have never, ever changed culture the way brute force does. problem being, what's the brute force solution to marriage? force people to marry someone they breed with under penalty of imprisonment?
outside of mass murder or forced displacement, there aren't a whole lot of top down solutions to cultural problems - they tend to result in all kinds of ridiculous side effects.
1) Regardless. I support legalization, but this is not what this argument is about. The point is that selling drugs is illegal. You break the law, you go to jail. That's as fair as it gets.
And its not as if people are breaking that particular law to make a political statement. They are doing it to make a quick buck.
As for Cuba and North Korea, that's a rather silly analogy. If you oppose the laws of these country you are free to renounce your citizenzhip, leave the country, etc. North Koreans and Cubans do not have that luxury.
It's not as if there are boats of americans floating to Cuba to protest our government's policies ;)
2) Cool!
3) Who do you think is going to campaign to relax the drug free school zone law? That would be a PR nightmare! Regardless, again, the problem here is culture. It's not as if legalization would turn the current drug dealers into model citizens.
4) Well, like I said before... I think the cause is the society justifying negative behaviors. Everybody is a victim. We should expect more from each other. No more of the "inner city school" excuse. There are plenty of immigrants who go to the same inner city schools that blacks do, and they do well. Don't blame the system, blame the parents.
Shame that no Black council members had the integrity to vote 'no' on this disgrace. We knew Charles Barron was racist, who knew the other Blacks on the council were so gutless? Christine Quinn finally showed some courage.
In the words of Howard Stern luminary Daniel Carver: Wake up White people.
yep, it's gonna be a long hot summer,
u ain't seen nuthin yet. keep it up, how long you think that off duty cop can get into the city in an emergency?
what if his tank is only a quarter full and with gas approaching $4 a gal. you think he'll spend cash money to protect you? hahahahahahahahah
Bwaaaaauaaaaahhhhhhhh, muaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.
it's sonny carson time.
"Whoa. Y'all take a chill. You got to cool that shit off. And that's the double-truth, Ruth."
It just shows that the majority of black council members in New York are either cowards for not standing up to Charles Barron or they actually share the racist ideas of this bigot. Or maybe both.
The only way I would allow my tax dollars to put a public designation or two with the name Sonny Carson on it is to put a parenthesis -Racist Way or Racist Park. That way, anybody who use the street or the park is a RACIST.
Years ago, some of Sonny Carson's followers had a fundraising table set up outside Thomkins Square [and its too late to remember how to spell that]. When I walked past, they asked me for money. When I indicated no, they yelled at me "Jewess!" Ummm, no. But it was interesting that that's how they thought.
And I'm glad Barron was voted down. He still likes Mugabe....