200th Blog - Thank You

This is the 200th blog of Manhattan Viewpoint. Thank you for reading.

What is Manhattan Viewpoint?

Manhattan Viewpoint is focused on local issues, local activities, and local perspectives. Some national or international issues have a major impact locally and should be addressed with respect to that local impact. Many local issues are overlooked as we focus more broadly. Manhattan Viewpoint is here to help us see what is happening to us in our neighborhood.

Most Read Blog

The most read blog entry of the first 200 was a blog reflecting the local connection to a national issue. On May 30, 2011, Manhattan Viewpoint addressed the decline numbers of Board members of color at our nation's largest companies.

Though people of color represent 34% of the US population, people of color are only 10% of the population of Boards of Directors of Fortune 500 companies.Perhaps more troubling is the trend. The Boards of the largest 100 US companies lost nearly half of their Black male Board members between 2004 and 2010, going from 93 Board seats in 2004 to 51 Board seats in 2010. The combined male and female numbers for Black Board members dropped from 120 in 2004 to 77 in 2010. In 2010, Black Board members represented less than five percent of all Board seats.

In that same blog, Manhattan Viewpoint addressed the differing views of racial discrimination coming from different racial groups.

Perhaps a sign of the challenges our country faces in curing its race-oriented realities is a new study that shows that white US residents believe that the primary victims of racism are white Americans and that racism against white Americans in the US today is more severe than racism against Black Americans. While these findings are shocking, they may help explain why Boards of Directors of US companies are aggressively reducing their Black populations in recent years.

Prescient Blog

As Caroline Kennedy sought to be appointed to the US Senate by Governor David Paterson, we wrote that Paterson would be smarter to pick a young Congress member named Kirsten Gillibrand.


Senator Gillibrand has made us very proud. We told you so.

Mayor Bloomberg

Manhattan Viewpoint has consistently been critical of the Mayor's support for the racist stop-and-frisk policing of the NYPD, the Mayor's refusal to support racial integration of the NYC Fire Department, and the Mayor's exclusion of people of color from leading positions in his administration. The criticism has extended to his handling of education in our city, where only 28% of Black male students graduate high school.


We have not been unwilling to praise the Mayor when he deserved praise. He has improved the health of our residents with aggressive anti-smoking rules, improved information regarding calorie content provided by restaurant chains, led the opposition the proliferation of guns, and other undertaken other praise-worthy initiatives. Mayor Bloomberg was outspoken in support of the building of an Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan, even as polls showed that NYC residents opposed such a center. We praised him for being right about that center.


In the end, the Mayor's unwavering defense of intensely racist policies is not outweighed by the good that he's done. He has not been held accountable by voters for his support of those policies, but, Manhattan Viewpoint will continue to attempt to illuminate how unacceptable the Mayor's approach is.

What Next?

We hope that Manhattan Viewpoint does not end at 200 blog entries. The goal is to continue this effort to illuminate, educate, inspire, and mobilize.

Bloomberg's Dedication to All-White Fire Department Proves Costly

The racial discrimination in hiring at the FDNY that persisted under Mayor Bloomberg (despite efforts from his allies to convince him to abandon the practice and despite a law suit by the Bush Administration) is going to be costly for NYC taxpayers.

$128 Million Price Tag

The Federal Judge overseeing the Bush Administration's suit (continued under Obama) against New York City for racial discrimination has imposed a fine of $128 million. The amount is calculated as the amount of wages the would-be fire fighters would have earned if there had been no racial discrimination. The payment will be made to the applicants who became the victims of the discrimination, but it will be reduced by the wages that the victims earned in other jobs since the time that they were excluded by the racially discriminatory practices of the FDNY. Therefore, the final total will be less than $128 million.

Ironically, Bloomberg's determination to avoid racially integrating the FDNY is going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars and hasn't created any problems for Bloomberg himself. He has been able to discriminated based on race with impunity. His allies have not held him accountable, and the electorate has kept him in office for a decade.

As Errol Louis said, "Many credible institutions tried, with zero success, to convince Bloomberg and Scoppetta that the fire exam needed a reworking. The city's own Equal Employment Practices Commission, an independent watchdog, presented City Hall with a long account of nearly a decade's worth of complaints about the fire test and a plea to re-examine it. They were ignored. The federal Justice Department under the Bush administration sued the city after issuing strong warnings about the need to desegregate the FDNY. Bloomberg fought the feds in court. Why Bloomberg's high-profile black and Latino supporters don't call him on the carpet and demand an end to the spin and denial, I have no idea."

Bloomberg's Ongoing Fight for the All-White FDNY

 Of course, rather than pay what he owes and end the discrimination, Bloomberg has vowed to fight the latest ruling. Only 3% of the FDNY's brave professionals are Black, and preventing that number from rising is a key goal of the Bloomberg administration.

We should not be surprised.

Bloomberg has had a decade to end the discrimination and has instead embraced it. He was sued by the Bush Administration because his racial discrimination was too severe for even a Republican President to ignore. He has set records each year for police stops of innocent people of color. He moved gifted and talented schools out of communities of color. He has assembled the least inclusive and most white administration our city has seen in modern times.

In the end, reducing opportunities for Black and Latino New Yorkers and increasing the burdens on Black and Latino communities are Bloomberg's signature achievements. As his time as Mayor winds down, he seems to be treating any potential reduction in the level of racial discrimination in our city as a direct attack on his legacy. Skin color has become his primary focus.

His predecessor developed a reputation for racial animosity. Giuliani helped lead a rally in which Mayor Dinkins was called "a washroom attendant", and in which racial slurs were tolerated. Giuliani refused to meet with Black elected officials. But, while Giuliani seemed to embrace racial confrontation to win the votes of those who hate people of color, Bloomberg seems to focus on actually harming the prospects of people of color. Bloomberg's obsession with racial discrimination seems aimed less at gaining votes from racists but rather aimed at fulfilling some psychic need in the Mayor himself to hold back the progress of Black and Latino individuals while undermining any sense of empowerment or progress that may be emerging in Black and Latino communities.

We are amazed that in 2012, the Mayor of New York City would be in court defending efforts to exclude people of color from the FDNY. Even if he feels personally wedded to an all-white fire department, the Mayor must realize that our city and our country are beyond those days. Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in 1947 (the US military was integrated in 1948). Sixty five years after Jackie Robinson "broke the color line" and sixty four years after the US military ended its racial separatism practices, we are running NYC based on skin color. One skin color is allocated jobs in the administration and in the FDNY. Other skin colors are abused with non-stop interrogations by law enforcement and are excluded from administration jobs and FDNY opportunities. Certain skin colors have been declared synonymous with criminality. Bloomberg's own skin color has not suffered that fate.

We live in NYC in 2012 and endure a race-based approach to governing NYC that seems more appropriate for 1912.

As Bloomberg's fighting to keep the FDNY all white and to keep his stop-and-frisk attacks targeted again only non-white New Yorkers, we hope New Yorkers will ask him to move his views into the modern era and move beyond his obsession with racial discrimination.

Quinn Seeks Distance from Bloomberg on Homeless Rules

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn seems to be having a change of heart related to her undying loyalty to Mayor Bloomberg.

Homeless Shelters

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has supported Mayor Bloomberg through thick and thin. She led the fight to give him(and herself) an additional term in office - in direct opposition to the will of the people of New York City as expressed in two referenda. She has remained quiet as Mayor Bloomberg has defied federal courts and worked tirelessly to avoid racially integrating the Fire Department of New York. She has provided her tacit approval of his race-based policing approach (more on that is discussed below). 

But, after Mayor Bloomberg decided to require single adults to prove that they have no alternative place to live before they can enter a homeless shelter, he was opposed by Speaker Christine Quinn. She led the New York City Council to oppose his change in homeless policy. The City Council sued the Mayor for the first time in Speaker Quinn's tenure.

It is a good sign. Although she should not have waited until the Mayor implemented as absurd a policy as requiring homeless people to prove that they are homeless, Christine Quinn should be commended for opposing the Mayor in this case. One wonders how a homeless person proves he or she is homeless. Is it a letter from every friend and family member? Is it an eviction notice. Perhaps the best evidence of a lack of other options is the presence at a homeless shelter. Perhaps the Mayor will ask patients in emergency rooms to prove that they don't have friends who could save their lives outside of the hospital.

Stop and Frisk Record Pace

After all of the controversy surrounding Mayor Bloomberg's racist stop-and-frisk approach, this year, his Administration will set a new record for the number of stops. In fact, more than four million stops have occurred under the racist Bloomberg approach since 2004. Nearly all of the stops are stops of people of color, and very close to all of those stopped are completed innocent and are never given a summons or arrested.

Despite a lawsuit against the department claiming the stop-and-frisks discriminate against minorities (in 2008, 80 percent of those stopped were black or latino) and a call from city officials, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, for the federal government to investigate the program, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne defended the practice this week as a success in curbing crime.

Based on Mayor Bloomberg's record at the FDNY and his approach to policing, he should resign immediately. There is no place for his type of policy approach (skin color defines all outcomes and determines rights and opportunities) in 2011. In fact, our country rose up and outlawed his style of governing in 1964 . . . nearly 50 years ago.

FDNY Racism Confirmed By Federal Judge Part II

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg's dedication to racial discrimination was highlighted by a Federal Judge. This is only days after the same Judge focused on the intensity of the racial discrimination within our city's fire department.

Previous Judicial Findings

In last week's blog, we wrote that the Judge in the FDNY racial discrimination case stated:

The under-representation of black firefighters in the FDNY — a direct result and vestige of the city’s pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates — is responsible for making blacks significantly less likely to apply to become New York City firefighters. The city’s culture of bureaucratic blame-shifting and accountability avoidance [exposes the fact that] the city does not want to be held accountable for the results of its recruitment efforts. This is unacceptable.

The Judge found that our city government kept the Black population of the FDNY at 3% or below through a practice of discrimination against Black applicants and would-be applicants.

The Mayor's behavior remains difficult to understand or accept. After many years of fighting such decisions, Mayor Bloomberg vowed to fight on in his efforts to retain his right to an all-white fire department in the nation's largest city. If he has evidence that our city's residents believe that only white fire fighters can protect our city, he should both provide that evidence and work to help our city's residents learn to evaluate talent and competence without a bias against non-white professionals. If he has evidence that having Black firefighters in our city will result in less safety, he should provide that evidence. Thus far, he has doggedly and unceasingly fought to avoid bringing racial integration to the FDNY without offering any evidence that an all-white fire department is a superior approach than the adoption of racial integration. If he is motivated simply by a psychological need to avoid racial integration, he needs to understand that there are Federal laws that will ultimately prevent him from implementing his racist approach indefinitely. Eventually, he will be forced to follow the law and allow non-white fire fighters at the FDNY.

There is anecdotal evidence that his obsession with racial discrimination is also very observant. When he learned that Black Community leaders were helping Black candidates apply for entry into the FDNY, Mayor Bloomberg changed the application procedure in order to undermine that assistance. He even made paper applications difficult to obtain.

What Next?

Last week, the Federal Judge issued a ruling that specifically focused on the Bloomberg Administration's pro-racism approach to the FDNY. In deciding that a court-appointed monitor of hiring practices at the FDNY was necessary, the Judge stated:
Though the city's use of discriminatory hiring practices has persisted through numerous changes in city leadership, the evidence adduced in this case gives the court little hope that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or any of his senior leadership has any intention of stepping up to the task of ending discrimination in the FDNY.


The Judge called the FDNY a "stubborn bastion of white male privilege" and addressed Bloomberg's obsession with preventing racial integration at the FDNY.

Instead of facing hard facts and asking hard questions about the city's abysmal track record of hiring black and Hispanic firefighters, the Bloomberg administration dug in and fought back [against efforts to end discrimination]. Today - four years of litigation and two adverse liability rulings later - the city still doesn't get it.

Bloomberg, predictably, vowed to fight indefinitely for the right to avoid adding Black fire fighters to the FDNY. His lead attorney stated that Bloomberg will appeal the rulings "as soon as the law allows."

Bloomberg's commitment to racial discrimination reminds us of our reaction to Bloomberg's announcement of a $30 million donation to a $127 million effort to improve the lives of young men of color in New York City. Bloomberg's $30 million was matched by billionaire George Soros.

For now, the most powerful action Mayor Bloomberg can take to improve the lives of men of color in our city is an action that he can take without the help of George Soros or any of his fellow billionaires. He should resign.

FDNY Racism Confirmed By Federal Judge

A Federal Judge has confirmed that the Fire Department of New York lacks people of color because of a practice of excluding people of color from its ranks.

Background

As we stated a year ago:

Despite extensive and persistent efforts, the FDNY remains a racially discriminatory institution. Our city's fire department is more than 90% white, but Mayor Bloomberg has fought the addition of people of color to our fire department. After a decade of very credible complaints about the racially discriminatory hiring practices at the FDNY, Mayor Bloomberg remained committed to the racially discriminatory approach he led from City Hall. Finally, the Bush Administration's US Justice Department sued New York City in order to combat the racial discrimination that Mayor Bloomberg stubbornly promoted. The Bush Administration won the law suit, but the Bloomberg Administration refused to end its discrimination.

The courts have attempted to guide the Bloomberg administration away from racial discrimination, but they have failed. A federal judge gave Mayor Bloomberg five options for hiring a class of FDNY rookies this year and ending the pattern of racial discrimination. Mayor Bloomberg rejected all five options and decided to hire no FDNY rookies this year.

We are not surprised, but we are saddened to see Mayor Bloomberg put our lives in jeopardy in order to keep the FDNY more than 90% white. We need the additional firefighters, and we need an end to the racial discrimination at the FDNY.

When residents of New York City are facing the terror of a fire, they never demand that only white fire fighters participate in the life saving work that is needed from the FDNY. In fact, our city's residents have not demonstrated Mayor Bloomberg's commitment to racial discrimination. Perhaps the people of our city will raise their voices and demand that our city bring on board the additional fire fighters that our city had planned to hire - and demand that the new hires not be selected in a manner designed to prevent persons of color from joining the FDNY.

Latest Development

Last week, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis issued an 81 page opinion stating that Black firefighters had proven their claims that minorities trying to become firefighters suffer disadvantages. The Judge's decision on remedies remains to be declared, but observers expect the Judge to require substantial oversight from outside of the NYC government. Garaufis said, "The court cannot adequately ensure the city’s compliance with applicable equal employment opportunity laws and policies...in the absence of court supervision."

In a stinging indictment of NYC's approach to hiring at the FDNY, the Judge wrote:
The under-representation of black firefighters in the FDNY — a direct result and vestige of the city’s pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates — is responsible for making blacks significantly less likely to apply to become New York City firefighters. The city’s culture of bureaucratic blame-shifting and accountability avoidance [exposes the fact that] the city does not want to be held accountable for the results of its recruitment efforts. This is unacceptable.

The efforts to keep the FDNY all white are indeed unacceptable and were a key priority of the current NYC Mayor during all ten years of his continuing reign.

Bloomberg Counters His Own Attacks on People of Color

NYC Mayor Bloomberg has pledged $30 million of his own money toward improving opportunities for Black and Latino men, but he continues to promote the most policies geared toward damaging people of color.

The Mayor's Own Money

Mayor Bloomberg has pledged $30 million of his own money toward a $127 million city initiative to provide help to Black and Latino men. George Soros is matching Bloomberg's contribution, and the city is paying the remaining costs. The initiative will focus on parole reform, job training, and education. More than a dozen city agencies are connected to this initiative, and Bloomberg added to the spending by issuing an executive order barring city agencies from placing undue barriers before job applicants with criminal convictions.

One would find it difficult to oppose the $127 million of funding, the $30 million contribution from the Mayor, or the focus on the plight of men of color in our city, but this initiative is small in comparison to the problems faced by these men. By my estimation, it results in less than $50 per man of color in our city.

Our primary reaction to this initiative is to marvel at the inconsistency of the Mayor's approach to men of color. As we'll discuss later in this post, the Mayor is one of the key components of the pain inflicted on men of color, and he could end that pain at no cost at any time. Instead, he continues to punish people of color in our city for not being born white.

People of Color Facing Challenges in Our City and Beyond

In our city, men of color have far higher unemployment rates than other men and earn far less when employed than other men earn.

We have recently seen that across the United States, the median household wealth for persons of color is approximately one-twentieth of the wealth of the median white household. Therefore, a typical white family has 20 times the wealth of the typical Black or Latino family in our country.

We also know that simply having a name that appears to be a Black name makes a job applicant half as likely to be interviewed when compared with an identical applicant whose name does not seem Black.

Across nearly all metrics and analyses, people of color are provided fewer opportunities, pay higher prices, and suffer more abuse than other people.

Mayor is Chief Tormentor of Men of Color

Mayor Bloomberg has provided over the highest ever levels of stops and frisks of innocent people of color. He sets a new record every year. In Black neighborhoods, the chances of being stopped in a year are an astonishing 30% or more, while white New York City residents escape the stop and frisk terrorism despite the fact that white New York City residents are more likely to have illegal weapons or illegal drugs than people of color in our city. In June,

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, the stop and frisk numbers “are going in the absolutely wrong direction.”

"Stop and frisk has a place in law enforcement but the abuse of this tactic to target absolutely innocent people is bad for all New Yorkers,” she said. “This practice seriously undermines the quality of life for people of color in New York City, particularly in the poorest, most vulnerable neighborhoods."

Ninety percent of those incarcerated in our city are people of color, and only 28% of Black men in our city graduate from high school.

Mayor Bloomberg's administration is the most lacking in people of color since Mayor Koch.

Mayor Bloomberg has been dedicated to preventing people of color from becoming members of the Fire Department of New York City. He fought against the Bush Administration as the federal government sought to reduce the racial discrimination in hiring at the FDNY. He chose not to hire any firefighters in order to avoid adhering to a federal judge's order to end his "white-only" FDNY hiring approach.

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg's $30 million investment is a part of a new thinking by him that will change our city. For now, the most powerful action Mayor Bloomberg can take to improve the lives of men of color in our city is an action that he can take without the help of George Soros or any of his fellow billionaires. He should resign.

Bad News for Black Men in NYC

Last week was a week of bad news for Black men in New York City. The Village Voice detailed the City's commitment to prevent Black men from obtaining a fair chance to join the Fire Department of New York, and the Community Service Society showed us that only 25% of young Black men in New York City are employed.

FDNY - A Closer Look

The Village Voice showed us last week how the leadership of our city has invested heavily in preventing the 90% white Fire Department of New York from becoming more representative of the racial make-up of our city.

Though the article in the Village Voice focuses initially on the plight of Black would-be firefighters who scored very well on the FDNY entrance exam but who cannot join the FDNY because New York City refuses to accept any of the options for accepting new firefighters put forward by a federal judge, the truth of the intensity of New York City's commitment to racial discrimination in hiring at the FDNY is made clear.

The entrance exam has a history of resulting in higher scores for white applicants than for Black or for Hispanic applicants. The test also has no relationship to being an effective firefighter.

Because the test results have favored white applicants without any relationship to the jobs being filled, the test has been declared by the federal courts to violate the US Constitution.

The federal courts have offered the City multiple options for hiring new firefighters without discriminating based on race, but New York City has refused to accept any of the options provided.

Though 5% of the FDNY was Black in 1971, it is now less than 4% Black, and the 90% figure for white representation in the FDNY compares to approximately 35% white population in our city.

As we have stated in the past, Mayor Bloomberg has demonstrated an obsession with finding ways to discriminate against people of color in New York City and has essentially excluded people of color from his administration.

If we are going to make any progress in moving away from racial discrimination as the primary organizing principal of New York City, we'll need a new Mayor.

Only 25% of Young Black Men in NYC Are Employed

The Community Service Society has issued a new report examining unemployment in NYC, and it has found a troubling trend. During the current economic downturn, Black men have been the hardest hit demographic in terms of lost employment.

Unfortunately, young Black men now have only a 1 in 4 chance in being employed in NYC.

That horrifying statistic nearly matches the horrifying 28% of NYC Black males who graduate from high school.

Our city is failing to educate its young Black men, and those Black men are suffering in the job market.

Perhaps our city will start to show the type of dedication to helping Black males that is has shown to keeping them out of the FDNY, excluding them from the city administration, or stopping and frisking them in record numbers in a humiliating display of the abuse of power permitted by our city when the victims are Black members of our community.

Bloomberg Promotes Racial Discrimination

Last week, in a move that is infuriating, frightening, and sad, Mayor Bloomberg has chosen to hire no new firefighters this year in order to ensure that Black and Hispanic firefighters remain nearly non-existent within the Fire Department of New York.

Bloomberg Remains Obsessed with Racial Discrimination

In May of this year, we addressed the Mayor's obsession with racial discrimination.

We discussed the Mayor's refusal to end race-based policing. Though more than 90% of those stopped and frisked by New York City police are people of color, though 90% of those stopped are never accused of any crime, and though the small number of white individuals who are stopped are twice as likely as the people of color to be in possession of illegal guns or drugs, the Mayor continues unremorsefully with his record-setting stop-and-frisk pace.

He used obnoxious racial imagery in his re-election bid in 2009; he endorsed the concept of making Rudy Giuliani the Governor of the state of New York, and he pushed our city's gifted educational programs out of communities of color into white communities.

The Mayor also was shown to have the most white-dominated administration in a generation. Eighty percent of the senior staffers in the Bloomberg Administration are white, while other major cities have persons of color represented in percentages that are twice (or more than twice) as large as what we experience in New York City.

FDNY Racial Discrimination Continues

Despite extensive and persistent efforts, the FDNY remains a racially discriminatory institution. Our city's fire department is more than 90% white, but Mayor Bloomberg has fought the addition of people of color to our fire department. After a decade of very credible complaints about the racially discriminatory hiring practices at the FDNY, Mayor Bloomberg remained committed to the racially discriminatory approach he led from City Hall. Finally, the Bush Administration's US Justice Department sued New York City in order to combat the racial discrimination that Mayor Bloomberg stubbornly promoted. The Bush Administration won the law suit, but the Bloomberg Administration refused to end its discrimination.

The courts have attempted to guide the Bloomberg administration away from racial discrimination, but they have failed. A federal judge gave Mayor Bloomberg five options for hiring a class of FDNY rookies this year and ending the pattern of racial discrimination. Mayor Bloomberg rejected all five options and decided to hire no FDNY rookies this year.

We are not surprised, but we are saddened to see Mayor Bloomberg put our lives in jeopardy in order to keep the FDNY more than 90% white. We need the additional firefighters, and we need an end to the racial discrimination at the FDNY.

When residents of New York City are facing the terror of a fire, they never demand that only white fire fighters participate in the life saving work that is needed from the FDNY. In fact, our city's residents have not demonstrated Mayor Bloomberg's commitment to racial discrimination. Perhaps the people of our city will raise their voices and demand that our city bring on board the additional fire fighters that our city had planned to hire - and demand that the new hires not be selected in a manner designed to prevent persons of color from joining the FDNY.

Bloomberg Avoids Racially Integrated Administration

Mayor Bloomberg continues to establish new lows in his racial record as Mayor if our great city. He has eclipsed the noisome racial record of Rudy Giuliani, and there seems to be no end to his racial missteps.

Worse Diversity Record Than Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani is generally viewed as the classic anti-Black elected official. He refused to meet with any Black elected officials while he was Mayor, even when those Black elected officials were state-wide officials. He regularly engaged in racially incendiary rhetoric, and he participated in a racist protest against Mayor Dinkins during Dinkins' term as Mayor.

However, Mayor Bloomberg, who succeeded Giuliani, has a racial record that is worse than Giuliani's.

We have repeatedly highlighted the record level of stop-and-frisk incidents in New York City under Mayor Bloomberg and the ugly racial dynamics of the stop-and-frisk incidents and the resulting database of innocent-yet-abused people of color.

We have also highlighted Bloomberg's focus on maintaining racially discriminatory practices in New York City's Fire Department.

Last week, we saw the New York Times lay out the statistics to demonstrate that Bloomberg has been worse than Giuliani in terms of the hiring of persons of color to senior positions in New York City government.

Lack of Diversity

As the New York Times has pointed out that while Chicago and Los Angeles have senior staffs that are 52% and 61% white, respectively, New York City has a senior staff that is more than 70% white. In fact, in most key categories, the figure is far closer to 80% white than 70% white.

New York City's white population is 35% of the city's overall population, but Bloomberg has carefully avoided having the City's leadership reflect the City's population.

In fact, in every category investigated by the New York Times, Bloomberg's diversity record was worse than Giuliani's, and both Giuliani and Bloomberg has records far worse than Mayor Dinkins. The Mayor has refused to acknowledge that he needs to reverse course with regard to his anti-Black and anti-Hispanic governance philosophy.

We continue to hope that the Mayor will change his approach on race in his third term as Mayor, and begin both to value diversity and to oppose racism. Thus far, he has promoted racism and opposed diversity. Time is running out.

Super Bowl in NJ? and Bloomberg's Obsession with Racial Discrimination

Mayor Bloomberg's obsession with discriminating on the basis of race took a strange turn last week, and though neither team admits to it, the NY Jets and the NY Giants home is in New Jersey, where the NFL will bring the Super Bowl in 2014.

Bloomberg's Obsession with Racial Discrimination

Mayor Bloomberg has demonstrated an obsession with racial discrimination. He has created a record number of stop-and-frisk incidents in New York City, despite the fact that 90% of those stops are stops of Black or Hispanic members of our community and despite the fact that 90% of those stopped are never charged with any misconduct. He keeps a database of all of those stopped, and he has defended these racist practices in the face of law suits and in direct defiance of common sense and hundreds of years of progress against the promotion of racism in the governance of our city.

Bloomberg made a direct appeal to white voters to stand against Black political empowerment during his 2009 campaign. He also stated that Rudy Giuliani is the right person to be the Governor of New York State, and he moved nearly all educational programs for gifted students out of communities of color and into white communities.

The Mayor fought aggressively to maintain racially discriminatory barriers to the integration of our city's fire department. As we stated in 2009, Errol Lewis of the Daily News made the key point in his column: Bloomberg invested heavily in defending the racial discrimination that made the FDNY a more than 93% white institution. As Errol Lewis wrote: "Many credible institutions tried, with zero success, to convince Bloomberg and Scoppetta that the fire exam needed a reworking. The city's own Equal Employment Practices Commission, an independent watchdog, presented City Hall with a long account of nearly a decade's worth of complaints about the fire test and a plea to re-examine it. They were ignored. The federal Justice Department under the Bush administration sued the city after issuing strong warnings about the need to desegregate the FDNY. Bloomberg fought the feds in court."

After losing in the courts, the Mayor is still fighting to discriminate on the basis of race. The Judge who found that Bloomberg was guilty of discriminating on the basis of race chose a distinguished New Yorker to oversee the New York City's efforts to end its racial discrimination in this area. But, predictably, Bloomberg continues to fight FOR discrimination and is now objecting to the choice of former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau as the person to guide New York City's integration of non-white firefighters into the FDNY. He is clearly fearful that Morgenthau's credibility and competence will make continued racial discrimination impossible, so he is seeking someone that he can intimidate into helping him keep non-white individuals out of the FDNY.

Unfortunately, the Mayor is having great success in discriminating on the basis of race, but he is having far less success in delivering on his stated agenda of improving the economy in our city and providing families in New York City with better lives.

Super Bowl in NJ?

The 2014 Super Bowl is coming to New Jersey. The impact on the NYC metro area economy will be powerful and wonderful. There is tons of work to be done, but it will be well worth the effort when we celebrate and enjoy the Super Bowl festivities in February 2014.

Accountability In Vogue

After a second horrible political week in a row for Upper Manhattan, we look forward to the future.

Paterson Faces More Questions

The lesson seems to be re-learned again and again. The cover-up is more of a problem than the initial act. Governor Paterson has been accused of encouraging an accuser of one of his aides to avoid cooperating with the investigation into the investigation. That misstep has combined with his low poll numbers and his unwise attacks on the Kennedy family to cause him to announce that he will not seek re-election. Last week brought new allegations and new calls for the Governor to resign.

Those calls for resignation preceded the release of new ethics findings suggesting that Governor Paterson lied under oath with regard to a handful of World Series tickets he received from the Yankees (We are skeptical of any Yankee-related accusations, because Governor Paterson is a Mets fan). The situation may remind many of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy's legal troubles during the Clinton Administration. In Espy's case, there was no cover-up, and Espy was found not guilty of each of the mountain of charges he faced. The key is to avoid the cover-up.

Speaker Silver has expressed a desire to see Paterson remain in office, for now. We can all imagine that absorbing yet another NY governor resignation may cause more chaos than cleansing. Lt. Governor Richard Ravitch is enormously respected and has demonstrated the skills one seeks in a Governor. But, elevating the Lt. Governor will create new problems as he would seek to replace the Paterson staff and advisers with individuals he trusts personally. The budget negotiations may need to be re-started, and Governor Ravitch may choose to seek the appointment of a new Lt. Governor.

All of those challenges may be less problematic than the challenge of a lame duck Governor facing multiple investigations for misconduct.

Let us hope that Paterson proves to be an effective lame duck in spite of the allegations and investigations he faces.

Rangel's Gavel

Upper Manhattan's Congressman, Charlie Rangel relinquished his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Though all of the allegations against him relate to sloppiness rather than greed or corruption, he found that he was creating more political problems for his Democratic colleagues than he was willing to endure. He stepped aside.

We hope that after the 2010 election, Congressman Rangel will return to his role as Chairman of Ways and Means or be placed in another high-impact chairmanship in the House. His 40 years of service may make him as effective leading another committee as he would be leading Ways and Means.

Bloomberg Must Be Scrutinized

The Paterson and Rangel troubles have reminded us that politics is a tough business. Warm-hearted people who would never harm another person can be hit with mud and attacks that don't end until they force a resignation (or that even go beyond the resignation, as in the Espy case). Both men will continue to face attacks from political opponents and journalists, and both men will face intense additional scrutiny in the coming months.

But, Mayor Bloomberg has escaped scrutiny for far worse deeds than the allegations of misconduct facing either of Paterson or Rangel.

Bloomberg has set a new record for stop-and-frisk activity in NYC, and he has permitted that activity to focus only on Black and Latino residents of New York City. Despite many protests, Bloomberg has continued to collect and retain data about the hundreds of thousands of NYC residents that are stopped each year. If Paterson had ordered the state police to stop hundreds of thousands of white residents (but to avoid stopping non-whites) and retain their personal details, does anyone think that he wouldn't be held accountable for that act of racial discrimination, poor policing policy, poor judgment, and violation of the rights of the people of New York? Bloomberg gets away with it every day. A New York Times columnist sought the resignation of the Police Chief because of the "gruesome and racist" practices of the NYPD in a column last week. But, the Police Chief takes direction from the Mayor. The fish rots from the head. Bloomberg should resign.

Bloomberg aggressively fought to continue the racial discrimination against African Americans in the Fire Department of New York. Even after the courts ordered him to cease the racial discrimination, Bloomberg expressed his wish to continue the discrimination.

Bloomberg moved nearly all gifted and talented programs in the New York City public schools out of communities of color and consolidated those programs in white communities.

Bloomberg was responsible for the deaths of fire fighters, and he interfered with the prosecutorial process related to those deaths. The father of one of the deceased fire fighters expressed his disgust with the double-standard in place to protect Bloomberg from being held accountable for his actions.

Regarding the governor's actions in the possible intervention between his aide and a woman, the media and politicians are all stating that any allegation of improper influence must be investigated thoroughly and completely.

Where was this same concern when the mayor's office admittedly intervened into a criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney of the Deutsche Bank fire, which killed my son Joey Graffagnino and fellow Firefighter Robert Beddia? The mayor's office even brokered a deal that there would be no criminal charges against any government agency or general contractor Bovis.

Where was the outcry from the media and politicians? Where were the cries to have an in-depth and thorough investigation into the mayor's office's actions? I guess the rules are different for a powerful mayor than they are for a besieged governor. How come no one has asked the attorney general to investigate this hypocrisy of justice? After all, the Deutsche Bank building is state-owned and state funds were spent.

Justice and unbiased investigations are more than just words. They are the foundations that all Americans are to believe and adhere to. Equality should be the same no matter if you're the governor, the mayor or a common citizen. Would the attorney general investigate the city's actions and the DA's actions into the Deutsche Bank fire and subsequent actions since then, or must it be during an election year? - Joseph Graffagnino

Now that we have found ourselves fixated by the desire to hold our elected officials accountable for their behavior, we should apply the accountability standard to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg Burned In Fire Department Scandals

Two Fire Department scandals ignited recently and threaten to undermine the ability of Mayor Bloomberg to continue to lead New York City.

Deutsche Bank Building Deaths

Two FDNY firefighters died two years ago in a fire at the vacant Deutsche Bank Building, and we now know that the Bloomberg Administration was the proximate cause of the deaths of these civil servants. What we don't know is whether the Bloomberg Administration will truly be held accountable for these deaths.

There was a "15-day rule" in place at the time of the tragedy. All construction sites must be inspected every 15 days by the FDNY, but the Deutsche Bank building was not inspected for six months prior to the tragedy. Yet, none of the senior leadership of the FDNY have been disciplined or terminated. Mayor Bloomberg has supported the cover-up strategy that places the blame on FDNY personnel who were simply following the policies set for them by their superiors. Bloomberg's team adopted a policy of ignoring the 15-day rule, and that policy killed two heroes. Bloomberg's team seems to have no interest in taking any responsibility for their role in the tragedy.

At Manhattan Viewpoint, we hope that the Mayor is held accountable for his role in these deaths. Of all possible scandals, the death of these firefighters that resulted from the Mayor's failed leadership is exactly the type that should cause New Yorkers to wonder whether he is as indispensable as Mayor as he claims that he is.

"Our billionaire mayor will never be tarnished by the traditional pay-to-play and influence-peddling schemes that compromise politicians with ordinary bank accounts. Instead, his defining debacle is a failure of leadership, accountability, and transparency, revealed in one law enforcement report or news story after another, ever since Beddia and Graffagnino succumbed to smoke on the 14th floor of the city's most toxic building, just 118 feet from where 343 of their brothers perished six years earlier."

Racial Discrimination at the FDNY That Even George W. Bush Would Not Tolerate

When a city discriminates against people of color so horribly that George W. Bush takes legal action against the city, those that led the discrimination should be forced resign their official posts.

In New York City, where more than 93% of Fire Department personnel are white (the FDNY is 2.6% Black) but where white residents are a minority of residents, the Mayor led an effort to prevent persons of color from becoming members of the Fire Department of New York. Then, he defended it when it came under attack from the George W. Bush Justice Department.

For all of Bloomberg's defense of his discrimination against people of color, the Judge in the law suit that resulted from that discrimination was very clear how unacceptable Bloomberg's approach had been.

"From 1999 to 2007, the New York City Fire Department used written examinations with discriminatory effects and little relationship to the job of a firefighter. These examinations unfairly excluded hundreds of qualified people of color from the opportunity to serve as New York City firefighters. . . I recognize that it is natural to assume that the best performers on an employment test must be the best people for the job, but the significance of these principles is undermined when an examination is not fair . . . the city did not take sufficient measures to ensure that better performers on its examinations would actually be better firefighters."

Errol Lewis of the Daily News made the key point in a recent column. Bloomberg invested heavily in defending the racial discrimination that made the FDNY a more than 93% white institution. Now, we need to see if he'll be held accountable for that focus on defending discrimination rather than eliminating it. As Errol Lewis wrote:

"Many credible institutions tried, with zero success, to convince Bloomberg and Scoppetta that the fire exam needed a reworking. The city's own Equal Employment Practices Commission, an independent watchdog, presented City Hall with a long account of nearly a decade's worth of complaints about the fire test and a plea to re-examine it. They were ignored. The federal Justice Department under the Bush administration sued the city after issuing strong warnings about the need to desegregate the FDNY. Bloomberg fought the feds in court. Why Bloomberg's high-profile Black and Latino supporters don't call him on the carpet and demand an end to the spin and denial, I have no idea."

Moving Jobs Out of New York City

Perhaps, we should move jobs into New York City instead of moving them out. As the Mayor and the City Council battle over how to eliminate the residency requirement for New York City jobs, all residence of New York City should oppose efforts that will result in increased numbers of New York City jobs being held by residents of communities outside of New York City.

Police, Firefighters, and Teachers Have Residency Exemptions

While most of New York City's governmental agencies and departments are permitted to employ only workers who live within New York City's five boroughs, police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, corrections officers, and teachers are permitted to live in New York State counties surrounding New York City.

While these positions are often viewed as difficult to fill with highly qualified employees without the competition from the counties surrounding our city, the absence of the residency requirement has negative consequences as well. Many of us have encountered police officers who express a hatred for New York City, and we might be spared the horror of many of the worst incidents of police misconduct if officers who hate New York City worked elsewhere. If such officers were forced to choose between moving to New York City and finding jobs near their own homes, those officers would likely leave the NYPD, which would improve community relations and save lives.

A residency requirement for firefighters might improve the racial make-up of the FDNY to more closely reflect the racial make-up New York City. The lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the FDNY has resulted in law suits and embarrassment that might be avoided or reduced with the implementation of a residency requirement. While most New York City residents are people of color, the Fire Department of New York is 90% white.

The combined Black and Hispanic populations of New York City comprise over half its total population. Yet, as of October 2007, Black and Hispanic firefighters comprised only 3.4 and 6.7 percent of the FDNY, respectively. New York City has the least diverse fire department of any major city in America: 57 percent of Los Angeles, 51 percent of Philadelphia and 40 percent of Boston firefighters are people of color.

Expanding Residency Exemption

Earlier in 2009, the New York City Council passed a bill lifting the residency requirement for the DC 37 union, the union with the largest number of New York City workers. Mayor Bloomberg opposed the bill because it included a provision demanding that any DC 37 workers employed by New York City who reside outside of New York City be New York City residents for at least two years prior to moving out of New York City. The Mayor vetoed the bill, and but the City Council overrode the veto, making the DC 37 residency exemption (with the two-year residency requirement) law.

The Mayor had agreed in 2006, as part of his negotiations with DC 37, to lift the residency requirement without the two-year residency requirement, but the provision required City Council to change the law. During the nearly three years of negotiation between the City Council and the Mayor over the residency requirement provision, other unions sought to get the same flexibility that the Mayor had offered to DC 37.

The Mayor reached agreement with the unions to lift the residency requirement (without the two-year residency requirement), but the agreement with those unions requires City Council approval. The result, thus far, is a repeat of the DC 37 experience. Last week, City Council passed a bill that would eliminate the residency requirement for city workers but would require two years of residency in New York City. The Mayor is expected to veto that bill, and the City Council is expected to override that veto.

Residency Has Its Advantages

The City Council's approach is better than the the Mayor's, because it attempts to address the concerns of city workers who are seeking to move to locations with lower costs of living, but it does not allow residents of surrounding counties to take jobs away from New York City residents looking for employment within the government that they fund with their tax dollars.

One must wonder whether it is good public policy to reduce the residency requirements at all. New York City residents need more job opportunities during this period of record-high unemployment, and the trend is toward creating job opportunities within the New York City government for those who live outside of New York City.