Mayor de Blasio
To get the nod from those whose nod really count in the New York City mayoral election, the rich and the powerful, Bill de Blasio, was shuffled in and out of front doors and back doors, and opened and closed meetings, to become the next mayor.
You can bet your bottom dollar promises were made with the rich and powerful, to secure their approval. Then Public Advocate de Blasio got the nod.
The campaign to influence public opinion intensified, big time. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio made hay off the de Blasio run to capture City Hall.
One day the story was that his wife, Chirlane McCray, is an African. The next day the story was about her past life as a lesbian. The next day the story was the drug use of Chiara, his daughter. The next day the story was about de Blasio’s son, Dante, and his Afro.
None of these stories provided voters and news consumers any insight into how good or bad Mr. de Blasio would be as the next mayor of New York City.
On the campaign trail de Blasio spoke of there being a culture here in New York City of two cities; one rich and powerful and the other poor and powerless.
Looking back at the 2013 New York City mayoral campaign, one could readily see that Mr. de Blasio was correct. There are two New York Cities — the rich and powerful is code word for White, and the poor and powerless is code word for Black or people of Color.
Being aware of this reality, Mr. de Blasio and his campaign played well in both cities.
He was paraded uptown and downtown; and on the eastside and the Westside. He was paraded through the various ethnic communities of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan.
All around the town de Blasio had a tale of two cities to tell; and of how he and his administration would make New York City less a tale of two cities and more a tale of equanimity: more access and fairer play where larger numbers of the different peoples of the city can get a break.
African and Latino families and youth were promised that some fundamental changes to unwarranted “stop-and-frisk” by the New York Police Department (NYPD) would take place.
Municipal unions and workers were promised immediate honest contract discussions with an aim to resolve years of working under expired contracts agreements that were never renegotiated under the Bloomberg Administration.
Mr. de Blasio hinted at new contracts with all municipal unions with years of retroactive back pay for individual workers included. The back pay which will amount to billions of dollars over a period of years; buying votes have always proven to be a winning ticket.
(So far the City recently announced a deal with the United Federation of Teachers subject to approval by other unions; let’s see what follows).
Mr. de Blasio stuck his neck out on the issue of charter schools by stating he would like to put them out of public school buildings or, at the very least, charge them rent. After all, these are private schools owned by for-profit private corporations, occupying space in public school buildings.
It appeared as though the de Blasio campaign team carried out the proverbial whirlwind campaign tour, up to and including promising almost everything from a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.
All of the above rants of Mr. de Blasio among the working class could be viewed as his tactic to get the votes he needed to secure the count necessary to claim an electoral victory. After all, Mr. de Blasio had already gotten the proverbial wink and nod from the rich and powerful; all that was left was the votes from the poor and powerless to be secured.
At the end of the day public advocate de Blasio was successful in his run for New York City’s mayoral office.
Congratulations Mayor de Blasio. Now, what is to be done?
Between the poor and the powerless the rich and the powerful whose promise will be broken and who’s promise will be kept? Well here’s a clue.
As we heard throughout the mayoral campaign Bill de Blasio made it clear that when selected and elected his administration would be “open and transparent”. But, no sooner had be been sworn in as the 109th mayor of New York City, give or take a few weeks, guess what happened?
The new mayor snuck off to an unannounced Manhattan gala of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel (Zionist) lobbying group. It seems like the first de Blasio promises to discarded were the ones marked “openness” and “transparency”.
The New York Times reported on January 25, 2014 that at this “seemingly secretive” appearance before the pro Zionist lobbying group, AIPAC, Mayor de Blasio was slated to give an unannounced, pro-Israel, speech. Mayor de Blasio, of New York City, is reported to have said, “part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel.” Is Mayor Bill de Blasio telling us that the duty of mayors of New York City is to defend Israel and Israeli aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world?
The New York Times article goes on to quote Mayor de Blasio assuring AIPAC members and supporters that “City Hall will always be open to AIPAC”.
I don’t quite know how to read this comment in any other way than that Palestinian people should not expect to find “any rooms at the inn” in the Bill de Blasio Administration.
De Blasio goes on further to say “when you need me to stand by you in Washington or anywhere, I will answer the call, and I will answer it happily, because that’s my job”.
Mayor de Blasio, I am an African citizen and resident of New York City, by way of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, The MAAFA.
I, or we, the millions of Africans in this city, have yet to hear you declare to us, as you have been quoted to have declared to Europeans of the Jewish faith, in your unannounced speech at the New York Hilton January 23, 2014, that “City Hall will always be open” to African citizens; and that when we need you to stand by us in Washington or anywhere, you will answer the call and will answer it happily, “because that’s my job”.
Since we are on the topic Mr. Mayor, will City Hall be opened to The Central Park 5 as well? Just as you promised to always be a friend in city hall for AIPAC, for as long as you are mayor will the families of the following also have a friend there: Raymond Santana; Antron McCray; Yusef Salaam; Kevin Richardson; and, Kharey Wise?
What do you have to say, Mr. Mayor? Inquiring minds want to know.
In the Mayor’s attempt to mitigate New York City journalists’ criticism after a journalist was kicked out of the AIPAC event, this is what Mayor de Blasio had to say: “We do owe you a clear understanding of where I am and what I’m doing.”
These comments were made at a news conference in the Blue Room at City Hall. He said the organizers of the event requested that no journalists be allowed to attend. Some people question if this request extended to the Jewish press too.
According to The New York Times, in the future, the mayor said “he would make his remarks available to the public in instances where the news media was not given access.”
The mayor said he would do this “in many cases”; “I’m not going to say every case”, the mayor said, “because there could be some particular dynamic that would make that wrong.”
And what could such a “particular dynamic” be? I’ll bet my dollar to your dime that the journalist who was given the boot was not of the Jewish press.
This damage control of the de Blasio administration was their effort to quell any criticism because the last thing the administration needs, at this time, is having to defend against charges of censoring the press coverage of the news.
Then, on the matter of his campaign promise of openness and transparency there was this: “We want to make sure that we’re as transparent as possible.”
Now it’s as transparent as possible? Mr. de Blasio, what happened to the campaign mantra of “open and transparent”?
Oh, should it be understood that on the campaign trail the mantra is “open and transparent” but once in office “open and transparent” becomes open and “as transparent as possible”?
I am here reminded of the book by George Orwell: “Animal Farm”.
In the book, the animal constitution written on the back wall of the barn states in one article, “All animals are equal”. Then one day one of the farm animals goes to the back of the barn to refresh his recollection of the seven articles of the constitution.
As the animal pushed away the tall weed and bush so as to read the articles of the constitution he observed that it now had but one article and it read: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
Another troubling example in the mayor’s vocabulary is his definition of what it means to be an American. At the same gathering of the Zionists, Mayor de Blasio is quoted as saying, commitment to the defense of Israel is “elemental to being an American”.
In that case then I suppose, there are thousands of Jewish people right here in Brooklyn who aren’t Americans; and millions of other citizens in this country who are not Americans either, because they are not supporters of the Zionist state of Israel.
The point here is that not all Jewish people support the Zionist state of Israel; nor do all Americans who are Christians, Muslims, Hindi or Atheist.
Mayor de Blasio goes on to tout Israel as a “haven of democracy”. I wonder if the Mayor has spoken to any Palestinians of Gaza or Ramallah about Israeli “democracy”?
Who are the real terrorists in the world today? For decades the state of Israel has been bombing the hell out of unarmed Palestinians and evicting them off of their ancestral homelands.
The government of Israel is bull dozing the houses of the Palestinians and uprooting their crops and olive trees. Israel would be unable to carry out these terrorist acts without the financial and material support of the United States of America. It does indeed appear as though these two are the real terrorists in the world today.
So Bill de Blasio may sound good on the campaign trail and he might look good and wholesome in the family portrait, but us Africans need to keep our ears tuned, our eyes peeled and keep good notes on mayor de Blasio.
After all, he is still a White man and White men come with a history, as far as we Africans are concerned.
