Results tagged “racist”

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo now has his eyes set on the city's top two hotel developers who have ties with a contractor recently accused of paying construction workers based on their race. Developers Sam Chang and John Lam— who've created thousands of hotel rooms—used contractor Michael Mahoney, who allegedly paid white carpenters $25/hr, blacks $18/hr and Latinos and Brazilians $15/hr, for a number of their projects. A District Council of Carpenters supervisor said: “Sheetrock, lumber, nails, cost pretty much the same for any contractor. But for these greedy people, labor is the difference and success comes off workers' backs."

Not to be outdone by that measly $1 billion class action lawsuit filed against Greenhouse—the "eco-friendly" but allegedly black-unfriendly downtown nightclub—some other offended blacks have stepped up with their own $1.5 billion lawsuit! Greenhouse: the "big tobacco" of nightclubs. This new lawsuit is being filed today by Raqiyah Mays, a Kiss FM radio host, and three others who say that they were not let in "due to their race." Isn't it about time for Latinos, Hasidim, and Sikhs to get their piece of the Greenhouse bonanza?

Someone at the 32nd Police Precinct in Harlem defaced a Post-It note with a racist lettering, but the NYPD didn't do much about it, one black officer says. Last month Officer Carla Thomas found that someone wrote "KKK" on a Post-It note she kept on a straw mat in her office; she had previously written on the note that the mat was "symbolic of African tradition and history." She filed a complaint with the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, but claims the office only investigated after others complained about the incident. Since then, the investigation was closed without finding out who was responsible.

This Chinatown surveillance video depicts a heated altercation between an NYPD traffic agent and a car owner on Lafayette Street around 3:15 p.m. on October 8th. The video appears to show irate traffic agent Twana Chapman striking driver Qiang Nian Zhu after he tried to cover his registration sticker, so Chapman could not scan it. A crowd gathers, and Chapman is seen getting in one bystander's face, as another traffic agent pulls her away. But because there is no audio, it's not possible to verify an allegation that Chapman also made racist remarks.

The West Soho nightclub Greenhouse has a notoriously tough door policy, and is renowned for excluding throngs of hopefuls from the club's bi-level douchetivities inside. So it's no shocker that two black women interpreted their rejection by the club's door bitch as racist. Kashan Robinson and Maria Sicard are suing Greenhouse; they say they were two of about 100 people who were denied entry to a Teri Woods book party because of their race.

Six New York construction companies illegally paid white workers more than minorities who had the same jobs, a state lawsuit alleges. White workers earned an average of $25 per hour, while blacks netted $18 per hour and Latinos took home only $15 per hour, according to the suit filed by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Since 2002, pay discrepancies at at least ten different construction sites scammed minorities out of $4 million in wages and overtime.

After being embroiled in the Moammar Gadfhafi-Bedouin tent affair last month, now the Trump Organization is wading into European waters with its latest spat: An employee is taking offense at a Scottish lawmaker's reference to "Noo Joysee"!! Seriously, Trump's development director claims the comments were racist.

So about that locked vault that holds controversial books at the Brooklyn Library... the Daily News published a piece by the New York Civil Rights Coalition's executive director, Michael Meyers, chastising the practice of locking up our nation's history—no matter how ugly it can be. The book at the centerpiece is Tintin au Congo, and Meyers says, "we don't need librarians protecting us or our children's wonderment and discovery from 'bad' images and messages in books. Where would such paternalism in the forms of censorship and banishment begin and end? We shouldn't try to hide unpleasant truths from our children. It is historical fact that white racialists colonized Africa, and that explorers and even missionaries thought of black Africans as primitive savages in need of civilizing." Indeed, this history happened and it's not an "Out, out damned spot" sort of scenario where a lock and key will make it disappear.

           

Click on the stills above for more details and reviews on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Afghan Star, My Sister's Keeper, The Stoning Of Soraya M., Surveillance, Chéri , Quiet Chaos, Repo! The Genetic Opera, The Killing, 10 Rillington Place.

An elementary school principal in Harlem has formally apologized for sending a questionnaire to teachers asking them to classify disruptive students by race. But that's not good enough for parents of students at PS 96, which is 71 percent Hispanic and 26 percent black; they're calling for the resignation of Principal Dr. Claudia Moore-Hamilton (who is black). Among other things, the survey asked teachers to identify their problem students as "Black," "Hispanic" or "Other." In an apology letter to parents and faculty, Moore-Hamilton, who's been in charge for one year, acknowledged that her "approach was inflammatory," and the DOE issued a statement agreeing that "the survey was inappropriate." But Fox News reports an investigation is ongoing, and parents say they're fed up after a year filled with fights and students' failed attempts to burn the school down. According to the Post, Assemblyman Adam Powell IV has even chimed in, demanding her removal and citing complaints that she gave children Christmas presents, only to take them back from those on a "naughty" list.

Another day, another political cartoon controversy! This time the center of attention is Pat Oliphant, the world's most widely syndicated political cartoonist, and his recent cartoon depicting a goose-stepping soldier pushing a giant Star of David shark into a defenseless woman and child. In case anyone misses the subtle message here, the woman is labeled "Gaza," and the illustration is tagged "jackboot justice" on the United Press Syndicate site.

The Reverend Al Sharpton is taking his complaints about the NY Post's controversial editorial cartoon to Washington D.C. His organization, the National Action Network, wants to collect 1 million email signatures in support of an FCC investigation into Post owner News Corp.'s waiver that allows they to control multiple TV stations and newspapers in one city, noting, "This seems to give an imbalanced monopoly to the public airwaves and an imbalance in commercial speech, in particular, in light of their blatant insensitivity to issues of race (i.e. the N.Y. Post Cartoon) and bias through the use of those publicly owned and federally licensed communication tools." The Daily News also reports that students at Medgar Evars College in Brooklyn shut down their MySpace pages and burnt copies of the post; Marie Antoine, president of the student government association, said, "We are the ones who are putting money in their pockets. They have treated us like animals."

Two days after controversy erupted when the NY Post ran an editorial cartoon that involved a dead chimp killed by police and a reference to the federal stimulus package, the NY Post has finally apologized. In a way.

The widow of a probationary firefighter plans to sue the city for $10 million, accusing the FDNY of implementing a more strenuous physical regimen than other FDNY classes had undergone in the past. Sherita Sears, an NYPD officer, says her husband Jamel Sears, 33, died during training last November because instructors were pushing him too hard in order to weed out minorities. The FDNY was sued two years ago for allegedly discriminatory hiring practices; Sears's class included the most minorities in the departments history, with more than a third of the 297 members either black, Hispanic, Asian or female.

After the controversy over the "Drunken Negro Face" cookies he claimed were in honor of President Obama, Lafayette French Pastry proprietor Ted Kefalinos has finally apologized. He told the Daily News, "I'm sorry that people were offended by the cookie. We were just trying to make a large number of people happy, and instead we made a large number of people confused and angry."

[UPDATE BELOW] At at a time when any decent baker should have been selling racially harmonious black and white cookies by the truckload, one Greenwich Village bakery popular with celebrities and shows like Sex and the City has outraged neighbors by selling a "Drunken Negro Face" cookie in, um, "honor" of President Obama. [Video below.] A shocked customer tells My Fox NY that Ted Kefalinos, proprietor of Lafayette French Pastry, asked her, "Would you like some drunken negro heads to go with your coffee? They're in honor of our new president. He's following in the same path of Abraham Lincoln; he will get his."

A black security supervisor is suing the owner of a Times Square office building after being allegedly subjected to racist remarks on a daily basis by Wayne Kohlbrecher, the building manager. Now-unemployed security manager Godfrey Williams accuses Kohlbrecher of spewing invective like: "'This is why you are here . . . I don't want these f**king spics, sambos, chimps coming up here!' Kohlbrecher is also accused of greeting Williams with a Hitler salute and saying 'Heil Hitler.' Worse, Kohlbrecher allegedly told Williams, 'This is my f**king plantation! I run it like I want to because I can crack a mean whip, I can cut the flesh from the bone. I heat a hot oven. I like the smell of flesh.'" Wow, those office holiday parties must have been crazy! And who could forget the time Kohlbrecher (allegedly) declared: "We don't owe you black people anything. You need to understand that when we throw you people a bone, you should be grateful." The Observer has more of Kohlbrecher's workplace aphorisms, which would make a really great line of racist Successories posters.

17-year-old Ali Kamara, a black Muslim, was walking home on Staten Island Tuesday night after it was announced that Barack Obama was elected president when he was brutally assaulted by four white men. Kamara tells the Daily News: "I see the car coming. They looked at me and said, 'Obama!' They were not happy. They had hoodies on. They started hitting me with bats and my body started vibrating." Luckily, Kamara was able to break away and hide until the thugs left; his mother, who moved with Ali to Staten Island from Liberia in 2000, showed the News a bloody towel she used to staunch his wounds. An NYPD spokesman says the department's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident as a bias crime. And Kamara says he heard his assailants scream the word "Obama!" but not any other racial or religious slurs, so it could be the bullies just mistook Kamara for the new President-Elect.

Joseph Wintje, a 51-year-old convicted rapist and registered sex offender, is suing his former landlord because she allegedly evicted him from his Brooklyn apartment for racist reasons. According to the Post, Wintje's discrimination complaint against 70-year-old landlord Domenica Pedone asserts that after just four days in the apartment he was given an ultimatum by Pedone when she noticed his black girlfriend around. Wintje says Pedone told him, "I don't want her coming over here." But Pedone insists she only evicted Wintje after her neighbors said he was a "bad man," what with his rape-y past and all. One thing's for sure; after this Post article, Wintje's going to have a tough time signing a lease anywhere with access to the Google machine.

With Barack Obama finally clinching the Democratic nomination for president, we’re now off to the racists. Last week a Staten Island woman noticed that a 5 dollar bill in her wallet was stamped with the above message: “LETS [sic] KEEP THE WHITE HOUSE WH!TE!” The slogan was positioned next to the Lincoln memorial on the back of the bill, according to the Staten Island Advance.

According to its website, Murray Hill's Tonic East “is the most well rounded sports bar in the area, with an attractive scene of locals.” But it seems black was not deemed beautiful by the management: they recently agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the tune of $35,000.

An animal near and dear to the Gothamist heart has been embroiled in a Super Bowl controversy! This year's wardrobe malfunction is now the debate over an animated ad from SalesGenie.com that features pandas.

Brooklyn Surrogate Court Judge Diana Johnson is the first African-American to be elected to a Surrogate Court judgeship in New York history. With only weeks on the bench, however, someone spray painted racist graffiti inside two separate elevators at the Downtown Brooklyn courthouse. One message read "Judge Diana Johnson is Dumb," and the other read "Judge Diana Johnson is a Dumb (n-word)." Dozens of lawmakers and judges held a rally to support Johnson in the wake of the offensive and criminal acts.

The personal assistant accused of killing her boss, realtor Linda Stein, claims that the police forced her to confess. Natavia Lowery's father said, "She said [to detectives] she wanted to call her parents and her attorney, and [they] told her they called them already. They lied and coerced her." Lowery has been charged with second-degree murder. The police say that the 26-year-old Brooklyn resident confessed to killing the 62-year-old former punk rock manager on October...

A few days ago The Apiary suspected that someone was out to get Rififi after reading some new comments on an old post about the multi-purpose venue, and hearing their liquor license was about to expire. One of the managers, Karin Stanley, quickly responded -- confirming the site's suspicions:

Unfortunately you are correct, there is a smear campaign being perpetrated against Rififi by some of the tenants in the surrounding buildings. They are intent on ousting Rififi during this period of license renewal, soliciting surrounding tenants to make complaints, abusing the SLA complaint webpage, and invoking archaic and racist cabaret laws (please refer to this site for a history of the cabaret laws in New York City). Many of these people seem to believe it is illegal for people to eat, drink and make merry.

Continue reading "Will Rififi Be the Next Venue Casualty? "

The Staten Island District Attorney's office has dropped hate crime charges against two young white men accused of beating a black man in Mariners Harbor. SI DA Daniel Donovan said, "At this point I believe the evidence provided to my office by the police is legally insufficient to support hate-crime charges."

The police arrested two white men in the the beating of a black man in Staten Island. The Reverend Al Sharpton appeared with the victim and said, "We cannot live in a city, state or nation where people cannot safely be in the streets or anywhere else because of the color of their skin."

The video of City Councilman James Oddo letting the f-bombs drop on a Norwegian TV comedian is getting mixed reactions - and a fair number of chuckles - from New Yorkers, but now it turns out that he wasn't meant to be a poor sap duped into answering stupid questions about whether Barack Obama is an American citizen and "Hillary Clinton's incident with a cigar."

John Fox was found guilty of manslaughter in the killing of Michael Sandy. Fox was convicted on charges of a hate crime and manslaughter, but not murder, for chasing Michael Sandy onto the Belt Parkway where he was fatally struck by a car. Three men are on trial for Sandy's killing: John Fox, Ilya Shurov, and Michael Fortunato. A fourth man, Michael Timmins, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for his testimony. Fox was being tried alongside Fortunato, albeit with separate juries. Fortunato's defense involves a claim that his innocence is tied to his newly-announced gay status.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a confined space rescue at The Beverly Hotel on 50th St. in Manhattan, a pedestrian struck on West 145th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, and a fall victim on West 24th St. in Manhattan.
• Former NY State chief judge Sol Wachtler got his law license back, 14 years after pleading guilty to being a stalker.
• Some Jewish leaders are angry that Mayor Bloomberg met with London mayor Ken Livingstone, who Councilman Dov Hikind calls an anti-Semite racist. If it's any comfort to critics, it looks like taking a public bus ride with a mayor nicknamed "Red Ken" was Bloomberg just being a gracious guest.
• Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic for The New York Times between 1992 and 2004, passed away yesterday
• Two Brooklyn parents were killed in a car accident upstate when the driver overcorrected after losing control and he crossed into oncoming traffic on a highway near Goshen, NY. Their four-month-old child and two friends survived the crash.
• Fishing for sport or fishing for dinner? Some argue that eating reel-caught fish is fine, which worries some lawmakers.
• Brooklyn Heights Blog features a report (with pictures) of George Clooney shooting a film on Middagh St. today.
• The two cops injured in a shootout in the Bronx this morning had to go undergo alcohol testing––the first time it's happened since the department's new policy was implemented. A union official said that giving a "Breathalyzer" to shot cops was demoralizing and degrading.