Open Thread Wednesday

By on July 26, 2016 11:25 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Michael

    Does anyone know why there were police on henry street near the pizza place?

  • Edwin

    “via poverty caused by a history of systemic and other forms of racism”

    –there are plenty of ethnic groups that have experienced systemic and other forms of racism that don’t go around punching innocent people.

    If your argument that systemic racism causes ethnic groups to result to crime and violence is an accurate one, we would see examples of it with every ethnic group that has experienced such racism (which we don’t).

    Let me be clear, I am not saying that a certain ethnic group is predisposed to crime and violence; I’m only saying that blaming that violence on systemic racism is an overly simple and naive way of looking at the situation.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    You make a fair point. But I wouldn’t quite characterize my argument as stating “that systemic racism causes ethnic groups to [resort?] to crime and violence”.

    I was trying to illuminate a correlation that I think is readily observable, but it’s not a necessary one: poverty (sometimes caused or exacerbated by a history of systemic racism) breeds crime, but not necessarily under all conditions, and so yes, different populations will be variably susceptible to this correlation. I was even careful to use language that does not paint a black-and-white or overly simplistic picture of the correlation, or present it as a single-channel causal relationship.

    In contemporary American discourse on race and poverty and crime there seems to be a gray area between acknowledging statistical likelihoods and correlations, and misattributing the variables in those correlations as causes, symptoms, or arbitrary characteristics. Misattributions are sometimes mistaken for racism, and sometimes the direct result of racism.

    I hope that clears up my argument…the last thing I’d want is to be misunderstood!

  • Remsen Street Dweller
  • StudioBrooklyn

    Hah! I try to preface my remarks with phrases like “I think” and “it seems”, to make it clear that my comments are not absolute assertions, and inviting correction and debate. I trust you’re perceptive to that…?

  • StudioBrooklyn

    And if I’m interpreting your post of this clip correctly, I want to assure you that under no circumstances have I ever considered myself to be especially smart or even well-informed, but I do have a habit of pondering and looking for patterns. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that what you’re responding to is my tendency, in the face of problems like Joralemon Street park-related crime, to get way more interested in understanding root causes than in reacting with [what I’ve continually asserted is well-deserved] indignation. If you feel this tendency is somehow inappropriate or disrespectful, please let me know; I think that’s a conversation we could be having to better understand one another.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    You sound like a very nice person — just a tad more long-winded than I am used to.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Thanks. I’m just trying to be thorough.

    “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” -Mark Twain

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    :)

  • redlola

    i just hate the assumption that all these kids must be poor and thus acting out cause they’re black and poor cause those three things go together. can’t they just be black and acting out? . like’ve i’ve said 100x before, poor or not, someone has taught them right from wrong. doing the wrong thing makes has consequences for them like everybody else.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Indeed! I just try not to look at these things in a vacuum…again, it’s the mutually compatible difference between looking at root causes and reacting to the behavior.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Maybe they like pizza?

  • Moni

    Longwinded StudioBrooklyn really must learn to edit. That said, let’s stop pretending racism isn’t at work here, Replace the basketball courts with tennis courts? Gimme a beak. Bklyn residents are about 32% black and this is their park to enjoy as much as anyone’s. If they had decent parks where they live, there’d be no issue, but the only neighborhood “improvements” they can expect are more luxury condos for outsiders. Yes, where there’s poverty, there is violence, including white and asian populations. The Mafia, the Tong, the Westies grew out of areas steeped in poverty and violence.
    However, no group has been more oppressed in this country than Arican Americans, and that is th unpleasant FACT that has no abated.

  • Michael

    That pizza is delicious. But they were arresting a guy, curious what he did

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Hahaha I’m a very good editor, thank you very much, just not an especially emphatic or speedy one! ;)

  • Andrew Porter

    I think the corner of Henry and Cranberry Street, where the Cranlyn apartment building was built in 1931, once housed a building used by the City of Brooklyn, and it may have been there.

  • Andrew Porter

    I’m 32% black? News to me…

  • Heights Observer

    Just by way of information, Native Americans had their lands stolen from them, were slaughtered mercilessly and were not granted US citizenship until 1924. Many states did not allow them to vote until 1957.

    Blacks got the right to vote 1870, though always some tried to stop them from voting.

    There’s been enough oppression to spread around in this country without trying to claim a prize.

  • redlola

    Moni, please stop the bullshit. The majority of this neighborhood never complained about the park or wants tennis courts. What we don’t want is violence and other destructive behavior in the neighborhood. Everything you’re talking about is a non-sequiter. If you can’t come here and walk to and from the courts without punching a 65 year old man in the face, then you don’t need to be here. in fact, you don’t really need to be anywhere. the community has the right to express concern over incidents of theft, violence and damage. My husband is black and his family is from the deep south so please spare me the rhetoric on oppression. somehow he and his relatives have managed to make it down the block without hitting people and destroying their property — just like the many other people who go to the courts and the park without incident. Those who can’t don’t get a pass just like they wouldn’t get a pass in their own neighborhood for hitting a 65 year old man in the face. This park situation never needed to be anything but positive. The community didn’t make it negative. a couple of badass kids did. not there are cops everywhere.

  • redlola

    more importantly, this particular situation has less to do with oppression and way more to do with a couple of badass kids who don’t know how to act. there are many ppl who use those courts who come from all kinds of neighborhoods without issue. the assumption that these few kids are being assholes because they are poor and oppressed is so basic and racis. like i’ve said before, pretty sure they have a parent, grandparent or other person in their lives who’d slap the taste out their mouths if they knew they were here playing the knockout game, stealing phones and vandalizing property.

  • Concerned

    If it’s not oppression and socioeconomic factors, how do you explain the statistics that show that the overwhelming majority of violent crime in NYC is committed by african americans??? I would think that oppression and socioeconomic factors are a pretty valid reason.

    http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/analysis_and_planning/crime_and_enforcement_activity.shtml

  • redlola

    um it’s a generalization and an assumption to impute that to the behavior of a handful of kids doing this. there are more kids going to these courts without incident. just because they are black does not mean they are poor or acting out against oppression. the most racist thing in the world is to impute a stereotype. until you talk to these kids and ascertain their specific motives they are just being assholes. white kids do that too.

  • Concerned

    A specific motive and the actual reason may be two different things, despite what a person says. And I’m not so sure it’s just a “handful”. The brawls that have been documented sounded pretty large. Also, the groups that have had to have police escorts up Joralemon have sounded very large, as well.
    Obviously, the vast majority of people playing basketball at BBP are not criminals. I do understand why you’re saying the socioeconomic/oppression reasons are a stereotype, but it seems as though the statistics I cited to would have to have a valid reason to be, and that the valid reason would have some correlation with the issues at the Basketball courts.

  • Emma tracy

    Stop making excuses for the pos punk kids that are preying on our elderly. Emma and tracy please go to hell. Invite these punks into your house.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Maybe bklyn84 has seen me attempt a layup? This spectacle is such a contradiction to the concept of human achievement, I wouldn’t blame him for wanting me dead.

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