Our Divided City

As we head into the holidays, New York is a city divided. It has always been a place of vigorous debate and contested policies, but the latest controversy over race and policing has dialed up the vitriol and indicates a further departure from civilized debate.

The past summer Eric Garner, a black man on Staten Island died in police custody after being arrested for selling loose cigarettes. A video of his arrest and scuffle with police was widely broadcast. A grand jury declined to indict the police involved in his arrest and the finding was met with instant and widespread protests throughout the city.

Some of my friends are out on the streets getting arrested or leading protests against the police. Some of my friends are in law enforcement or are retired cops who question the motives and the tactics of the protesters.

The Eric Garner grand jury findings came only a few days after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri declined to indict a white police officer for the shooting of a black teenager there. In Missouri, the grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer in the shooting of Michael Brown has resulted in several nights of looting and rioting and at least one blatant and under-reported racial killing.

The question is whether protests are going to hobble travel too much. The police are determined not to let that happen, but when thousands and thousands of people take to the streets at once, it’s usually the best the cops can do to try to steer them in a direction that doesn’t clog things up too much.

New York has had its race riots in the past but is less likely to have them today despite being one of the many epicenters in the country for racial disharmony. While we have the same constant churn of racial and ethnic distrust and ill will as the rest of the country, we don’t have the critical mass of complete hopelessness and depravity in large areas that usually act as a crucible for riots. And while our population of professional protesters helps promote a climate of racial grievance, it also knows it has to keep things from getting too violent if it wants to stay in business.

There used to be a gentlemen’s agreement between police and protesters. Years ago, protesters would sometimes block streets or buildings and get arrested. They wouldn’t get too aggressive and the police in turn would process their arrests on the spot and then let them go. Under Giuliani that changed. Police started putting protesters through the system, which can often mean a night in jail or at least several long hours in a police holding cell. Mayor Bloomberg generally kept to those policies.

I urge protesters not to attempt to stop the subways and busses from running; however just you think your cause is, when you throw a monkey wrench into the fragile works of the New York City mass transit system, you are playing with fire. Hell hath no fury like a New York City commuter purposely delayed.

The protests will continue and no minds will be changed by them. The divisions that existed before these latest incidents will remain and people’s views will only be intensified by what they see as the excesses or the ignorance of the opposition.

The Central Park Five Are Probably Guilty and Will Soon Be Rich

This past week, New York City’s Comptroller approved a settlement reportedly totaling $41 million to members of the “Central Park Five.”

The five men were convicted in 1990 of the brutal rape and bludgeoning of a woman jogging in Central Park in April of 1989. No one who was living in New York at the time could ever forget it. The jogger was so badly beaten that a friend had to identify her by a ring she was wearing on her finger. There was no telling how many people took part in the assault. The five who were convicted were part of a mob that numbered in the dozens.

Four of the five had confessed, and videos of their confessions were shows on the news. They renounced their confessions, claiming they were coerced, and went to trial.

Because several of the accused were juveniles, there was no way they would serve enough time in jail. They were somehow acquitted of attempted murder. They were convicted of several crimes committed that night, including the rape and assaults on other people in the park, and were sent to prison.

Years later, a serial rapist named Matias Reyes claimed that he had attacked the jogger that night and had acted alone. DNA evidence showed him to be guilty. The Manhattan District Attorney asked that the convictions of the Central Park Five be vacated as a result.

Here’s the first big problem with the confession of the alleged lone rapist Reyes: his tale of being the only attacker goes against the medical evidence that indicates the Central Park Jogger was attacked by multiple people. Part of this evidence includes bruising on both legs of the victim indicating she was held down by more than one person and cuts from a blade (Reyes said he only hit her with a rock and tree branch).

After the verdicts were vacated, the New York City Police Department published a detailed examination of the case, the Armstrong Report, which details evidence beyond the confessions that indicate that the defendants were involved in the assault. This includes statements some of the defendants made to police outside of the interrogation, things they said to family members, and details of the crime some of them provided that were not known to police at the time (for example, the NYPD did not know what property had been taken from the victim but two of the five separately described her Walkman being stolen).

The five sued the City and were helped along by filmmaker Ken Burns, who declared them “exonerated” despite the significant evidence of their guilt and made the documentary “The Central Park Five.”

The Burns documentary is an interesting examination of the case, but it is very one-sided and contains glaring omissions.  

Fans of the Burns film are buying into a narrative that lets them feel righteous indignation at a supposed injustice, but the evidence in the case does not gel with the idea the Central Park Five are victims of injustice at all.

The documentary presents its case without any of the skepticism required. It assumes that self-proclaimed lone rapist Matias Reyes is some kind of born-again angel for confessing to a crime (after the statute of limitations had expired, by the way), even though his story is full of holes.

Part of the reason that there is a belief in the innocence of the Central Park Five is what is known as the “CSI effect.” People believe that there is always going to be a mountain of DNA evidence with every case, though there often isn’t. Keep in mind also that the use of DNA collection and examination was in its early stages in 1989. Yes, DNA evidence proves Matias Reyes raped the Central Park Jogger; the evidence shows he was not alone in doing so.

But the public wants to buy into the popular story. Earnest and well-meaning New Yorkers are smitten with Ken Burns’ films and want to believe that the violent men about to become millionaires deserve it and are getting some measure of justice. They are very wrong.

Beavers, Vultures and Lemmings in East New York

Beavers, Vultures and Lemmings in East New York

Famous street artist Banksy is currently in New York City leaving works of art here and there, and spectators are flocking to see these pieces.  

Recently he painted a picture of a Beaver on a wall in East New York, a Brooklyn neighborhood bordering Queens that is known for being dangerous. Art gawkers dutifully went there to view the piece, and local East New York residents promptly went about robbing these art tourists, blocking the view of the graffiti art meant to be public and charging people $20 to view it.

It’s to be expected that street criminals will look to make a quick buck off of less-than-streetwise tourists, what makes this latest hustle more bothersome is that it’s won approval from the very class of victims most likely to be taken by the scam. The Gothamist blog called the street thugs “savvy” and many commenters thought that since white people dared to go there to view some art, then they were serving some worthy cause to be ripped off by the locals. I disagree.

Robbery is robbery, and feeling you have a right to rip people off because they’re not from your neighborhood or they don’t look like you is no reason at all. What’s more reprehensible is the multitude of self-hating “enlightened” white people thinking this is a good thing or that local East New York residents have a right to a life of petty crime because of their race or their station in life.

Let the local residents capitalize on the Banksy art legitimately. Set up a food cart there or make picture postcards of the art. There are real ways to make money that don’t involve thuggery and intimidation.

And as for the sorry state of East New York, it wasn’t street artists from England or art enthusiasts from Manhattan who made East New York the way it is today. There are people there who can do better; let them. But treat street hustlers like the low vultures they are.

Misplaced Guilt Problems

            Perusing the vastness of social media, a phrase has caught my eye a few times and has been repeated enough to call it a trend. The phrase is “Middle Class Problems.”

            Except that isn’t the real phrase. It’s a glossed-over sanitized version of a more apt, accurate and original term that caught on first.

            The expression is “First World Problems,” not “Middle Class Problems.” To be really hip, write it without spaces and with a hash tag (#) to replicate the preferred style of the Twitter social media site. #Firstworldproblems. “There is too much guacamole on my omelet,” is a good example of such a "problem."

I’m old enough to have gone to grammar school when the schools were still teaching students real subjects. Sure we had our share of lame love-in student assemblies from time to time, but there were some facts that they didn’t hide from us. One of those facts is that we, being Americans, lived in the First World. That meant that we lived in a country where widespread famine and disease were eradicated, political decisions were made nonviolently and the basic necessities of life were easily obtained by almost all of the population. Those countries that suffered from widespread poverty, famine and disease were Third World countries. Those were the countries we were thankful not to live. It was a testament to how lucky we were to live in the First World. We weren’t taught to be ashamed of that, but to be grateful for what we had, because there were many people in the world who did not have that.

            The Second World, we were told, consisted of countries like the Soviet Block, that were developed but still lacking in many things. Once the cold war ended we saw just how second-rate the Second World was, and while our government had lied to us about a lot of things, the horrors of Communism turned out to be every bit as bad as we were told.

            Nonetheless, there was no moral judgment or implied superiority in this division of the world. It seemed to make perfect sense and was instructive to us. There is nothing about “First World Problems” that ought to offend anyone unless you’ve actually been caught complaining about how the sound of your maid cleaning your house woke you up.  Living in the First World is a good thing. No one asks to be born where they were. There are millions of people who would love to live in the First World rather than where they’re living. Why would it be wrong to say so?

            There’s no reason to feel guilty about living in The First World or declaring it so. Developed Western Civilization gets to give the nomenclature to its own standard of living, and we have our shit together better than anywhere else; that’s fact. Trying to shame us into ignoring that or saying otherwise doesn’t bring indoor plumbing to the people of the Serengeti. It’s more misplaced guilt that has no place among a sane, self-confident people.

            And in fact, the phrase “First World Problems” is not a boast of wealth, racial superiority or some other politically incorrect geographic prejudice, but an acknowledgement of our society’s own fixation with the trivial. It at once exposes and parodies the shallowness and self-regard that comes with great material success and the corruption of societal excesses. It’s the snarky, electronic media equivalent of your mother reminding you not to be such a shallow jerk; there are starving kids in Africa, you ungrateful snot.   

            The refusal to use the term when that’s what you mean is the worst kind of moral cowardice. First of all, though they are surely related, economic class and the different spheres of the developing world are not the same thing. Being middle class in the U.S.A. is nothing at all like being middle class in Ethiopia. But living in the First World means living in the first world not matter what you’re class. In their effort to not offend, these phrase murderers are substituting a subset for a set, and it doesn’t follow.

In fact, using the phrase “Middle Class Problems” as a substitute puts the user in the worst of all categories: enjoying the benefits of living in the First World and most likely not doing anything of consequence to improve things for those people starving in other parts of the world, somehow needs to alert others to their superior sense of moral rectitude. Thanks for the implied moral lesson, now go send all your co-op groceries to Somalia. Don’t have the international postage coupon to send your artisanal cheese to Africa? First World Problems. 

Groupthink and Unfashionable Facts

The current atmosphere surrounding the shooting of a Florida teenager by a neighborhood watch volunteer is one of frightening groupthink and near hysterical self-serving bloodlust.

If you haven’t seen it plastered all over the news, on Feb. 26, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claimed self defense and the police did not charge him with any crime. News of this incident has sparked a nationwide outcry among black racial activists and their political allies. The Department of Justice has begun investigating the case and the chief of police of the town of Sanford, Florida has temporarily stepped down.

The narrative that popular sentiment promotes is that this is a case of racial profiling turning murderous. That a white (though later identified as a mixed-race Hispanic) man thought a black teenager was a criminal simply because he was black and murdered him after provoking an altercation.

Even assuming the worst of the case, that the shooter harbors racial prejudice and was acting completely irresponsibly when he followed Trayvon Martin, there is still not enough evidence to charge him with murder. Furthermore, there is yet to be convincing evidence that the authorities erred in the decision not to charge him with a crime in the first place.

“Hey, we’ve had a lot of break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy…” So begins George Zimmerman’s 911 call to police. Even if you believe that the call contains a muttered racial slur on the part of Zimmerman, the call is not a racist rant but a call from a concern citizen who sees activity he finds suspicious and then grows frustrated when the suspicious person moves to avoid detection.

Zimmerman describes Martin’s behavior before he’s fully aware of Martin’s race. During the call, he tells the 911 operator that the suspect is possibly under the influence of drugs and is holding something in his waistband. He reports that the subject is now staring at him and then confirms that the suspect is black.

It is true that Trayvon Martin did not have a gun and that Zimmerman followed him and was suspicious of him. It’s also true that Zimmerman, and not Martin, has a criminal record including a charge of assaulting an officer and at least one complaint of domestic violence.

But one critical aspect of the case is often overlooked and is essential to determining whether the shooter acted lawfully. That is: it has been reported that Zimmerman was on the ground screaming for help and being punched by Martin when the shooting occurred. So far nothing has shaken that assertion. It’s backed up by witnesses and appears to be corroborated by later 911 tapes of people who called after hearing the two men fighting outside.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for the keyboard commandos publishing Zimmerman’s home address and calling for his blood. But if Zimmerman was being beaten by Martin and was screaming for help, as witnesses appear to confirm, then there’s no case against Zimmerman at all, no matter what kind of jerk he might be.

Zimmerman was indeed advised not to pursue Martin by the police and it appears he ignored this advice since the two met up later. Zimmerman complains on his 911 call about Martin possibly getting away. It is after this remark that the alleged racial slur occurs. For some reason, this has been seized upon as reason to declare the shooting unlawful, but the point, while it certainly is a damaging display of poor character is true, wouldn’t change facts if he was indeed on the defensive when he shot Martin. At least one report indicates that after exchanging words, Zimmerman was heading back to his vehicle and was struck from behind.

But as is often the case, the mainstream media falls in line relatively quickly and sticks to a predictable narrative. In doing so, many facts get tossed quickly out the window. In the Sanford, Florida shooting, the media is in the mode of portraying Martin as nothing but an innocent victim and Zimmerman as a villainous, racist ogre. But the shooting has to be judged by the evidence of the shooting itself. The calls for Zimmerman’s arrest fly in the face of the basic facts of the case.

And sadly, so far, the Trayvon Martin case is just that: racial hysteria that is inflated into front-page news by an echo-chamber media too scared to look at facts and tell the hard truth.