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With the Nov. 25 police shooting in Queens—resulting in the killing of Sean Bell—racial issues have once again returned to the forefront of city politics. But some say they were never really gone.
City Council Member Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) has been one of the most vocal protestors, and he has not shied away from the inflammatory.
“Don’t ask us to ask our people to be peaceful while they are being murdered,” Barron told the media at the scene of the shooting the following day. “We’re not the only ones that can bleed.”
Barron’s comments prompted a mix of backlash and support from his colleagues in the Council.
“He knew he needed to say something to get on TV and he did. No responsible elected official would call for bloodshed against the police,” said Peter Vallone, Jr. (D-Queens) who has often clashed with Barron at meetings of the Public Safety Committee, which oversees police matters and which Vallone chairs.
New York is one of the most diverse urban areas in the country. As City Council members representing the many different communities come together, racial issues can become a flash-point for conflict.
Brooklyn Council Member Albert Vann (D-Brooklyn), who is African-American, claims that these apparent divisions are no different from other political disagreements.
“Just because one person has a strong opinion on something and he happens to be black, and another person has a strong opinion and is white, doesn’t mean it is racial tension,” he said. “That’s the least of our concerns. We are concerned about institutional racism that impacts people on a large scale, not interpersonal interactions.”
But for many Council members, the issue of race goes deeper. They say it influences who is selected for leadership positions, who chairs the most powerful committees, which organizations are favored in the budget and even who is hired, fired, or promoted within the Council staff.
The Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, co-chaired by Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan) and Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx), addresses many of these issues.
“We advocate for the people we represent, and the majority of the people we represent are black, Latino and Asian,” Jackson said. “The majority of people we represent are people like ourselves.”
Recently, the Caucus has called for Council hearings on police training. Several members spoke during the Dec. 6 stated meeting of the Council, urging their colleagues to come to their upcoming press conference on the shooting, and participate in a Dec. 16 protest march. While the Caucus does not have the same jurisdiction to hold hearings as Council committees, Jackson said the group has influence because of its size—25 of the 51 Council members are in the Caucus.
“If you are a smart leader, you are going to listen to what the majority of the people are saying. That’s how the Caucus would have weight or political sway,” Jackson said.
The speaker’s race and reassignment of committee chairs in January illustrated this influence, he says. Caucus members spoke to each Council member running for speaker to share their concerns.
They wanted at least four out of the eight or nine most influential committee chairs to
be people of color. They gained three: Jackson as Education Committee chair, Joel Rivera as head of the Health Committee and Erik Martin Dilan as Housing and Buildings chair. John Liu kept his position as chair of the Transportation Committee.
“That’s better than it was before,” Jackson said. “Was that progress, as far as we were concerned? Yes.”
Bill de Blasio (D-Brooklyn), who is white, gained significant support from black and Latino Council members from both inside and outside the Brooklyn delegation. He ultimately came in second to Quinn.
Vann told City Hall in June that there was still tension among the Brooklyn Council members between those that supported de Blasio and those that switched to support Quinn.
When asked recently to reflect, de Blasio stopped short of saying that there were lasting effects from the leadership election, but said there are still unresolved conflicts in the borough.
“I wish we could have had a unified Brooklyn,” he said. “I think there’s more work to be done.”
The last budget process in June also raised questions of which communities the Council supports, with several members charging that black organizations and other minority groups are not getting enough funding.
“Racism is something that permeates every institution. I think it starts right with the budget – whose community gets what,” Barron said. “Race always matters, race rules. Some people don’t have enough independence and courage to speak out on these matters.”
The issue was especially contentious for the Brooklyn delegation. No specifically black organizations received a share of the Brooklyn delegation’s budget allocation, according to an internal memo obtained by City Hall in June.
Brooklyn also weathered an intense, racially charged primary race for the seat held by retiring Rep. Major Owens (D-Manhattan) this summer.
Two Brooklyn City Council members – Yvette Clarke and David Yassky – were competing for the seat. Other Brooklyn Council members were split over endorsements. Many said that Yassky, who is white, should not run for Congress in a historically black district.
Like every borough besides Staten Island, Queens has a racially mixed council delegation—38 percent are people of color—but Vallone said there has not been much conflict in his delegation, which is evident in the response to the Bell shooting from Queens’ elected officials.
But compared to the racially charged years under Mayor David Dinkins (D), de Blasio said current Council members deal with these issues much more effectively.
“The moments of flare-up we see in the Council from time to time are pretty pale by comparison,” he said. “When the cameras go off, I think there are very few tensions running through this Council in terms of the day-to-day work. I think most people get along very well.”