Decoding
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- October
- 26
For the heaving masses of my blog readers that might not be aware of a big local issue – There was a recent fair housing settlement reached by the Feds with Westchester County, considered by many to be an important marker post in the post civil-rights act era. Surface racial tolerance is fairly advanced around here, but communities are nonetheless segregated racially. Many point to the segregation running along economic lines rather than racial, which is an issue raised in a recent debate between County Executive Andrew Spano and his challenger Rob Astorino. Astorino spoke negatively about the settlement (which called for the building of 750 affordable housing units in non-diverse areas) in terms of “economics” and “zoning” – and saying the opposition he represented was not about “race.” Andy Spano then raised hackles by calling him a “racist” for using codewords. Spano is the one whose integration policies the feds felt needed to be rectified, so he can’t lay claim to any moral high ground, but his point is not empty political rhetoric however. Like those who oppose affirmative action, many people get caught up in the economic arguments, but cruelly and deliberately ignore the historical reasons as to why our African American communities are still struggling to catch up. Sadly, the fact that we are even having this discussion shows there is still a long way to go before we reside in a post-racial society.
This entry was posted
on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 11:29 am by Matt Davies.
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I think that’s 750 affordable units Matt not 750,000.
you know what affordable housing is to me? whatever i can
afford period. Regardless of race that’s how it should work.
Matt, if it was 750,000 units, then we might as well bulldoze the entire county, and start anew.
No, it is a mere 750 units.
When I moved into Crestwood in 1956 it was an upscale racially diverse section of Yonkers where famous actors, diplomats, policemen and fire chiefs mingled in absolute harmony, harmony not mandated or promoted by the NAACP,or ACORN, but by our families, our churches, and our children. It was not a perfect paradise, but it was a workable cooperative neighborhood where those who strove together, succeeded together.
I live elsewhere now, but my family still is there, and the spontaneous diversity continues. Mind you, houses there are expensive. As far as I know, no one has ever been denied housing in Crestwood on ethnic grounds. It would not make sense. All colors were there for decades and decades. My backyard neighbors were a family of black Catholics.My corner neighbors were Jewish Atheists with ties to the Communist Party USA. I began a rock group with their kid. A Nigerian diplomat lived just up the street. The biggest kid in our hangout gang was an immigrant Polynesian guy weighing 275 pounds, who kept us unmolested.
That’s one thing I know first hand.
The other thing I’ve experienced first hand, is Mr. Spano’s joke of an urban development plan, as published on the Westchester.gov website. It lists a sad compendium of why nothing can or could ever be done…too dense….too difficult….not feasible…... can’t be bothered, not enough funding…..etc., etc.This was an injustice begging for a lawsuit, and it was Spano’s commish who wrote it and insultingly maintained it online, as the official Westch.gov housing bible.
I truly believe the document was an unjust document, and cries out for redress.
I also know that the social situation in Westchester is not defacto segregated, or imaginary segregated, or reverse segregated, or partially segregated, or secretly segregated. Since the Judge Sand decisions, the place is not even residually segregated…...It is, as a point of history, factually and legally integrated. Is every ethnicity represented in every house? What is the ideal? An Asian in the dining room, an African in the living room, a Native American in the hallway, and an Inuit on the back porch? Our kids will see to that, by falling in love with each other.
Had I not lived here for 66 years, I might buy some of the fanciful theories bandied about to hide Spano’s shame in accepting HUD cash, with a bummer of an implementation plan intentionally left in place SO HE COULD MISUSE THE MONIES.
That is the crime here.
Not segregation.
Oh my god. What a beautiful sentiment!
“Our kids will see to that, by falling in love with each other.”
This makes me wish for nothing but two things:
1) It might actually happen on an appreciable scale in some kind of future I may experience
2) All blog comments may one day aspire to such simple clarity
I just love the way it transmutes the seemingly inane set-up prior to it. From the ridiculous to the sublime.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, DisasterMan.
Oh and sorry all about my mistaken number stating 750,000 units of housing. Fixed now. I did of course mean 750 but proofread for typos, not brainless errors on my part! Thanks.
I guess I am one of your “heaving masses of blog readers” as when I read this tripe I want to heave. It is funny that Jewish Americans, Italian Americans and most recently Asian Americans have not had difficulty in “catching up” though they all started on the lowest rungs of American Society.
I always find it interesting that people justify special privlede based on skin color such as this housing plan and affirmative action under the banner of “equality” when it is just another cynical form of racism.