Disaffirmative Action

 

I have a little time today, and need a break.  So, what to blog about?

 

The guilty plea of William Rapfogel, former CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, to stealing about $5 million from widows and orphans?  A religious Jewish boy misbehaving.  Notwithstanding my contentious issues many years ago with the Met Council, back during my college days, I'll pass on this one (for now at least), other than to thank Willie and his co-codefendants for giving me some belated vindication.

 

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer's latest Report on "The Growing Gap:  New York City’s Housing Affordability Challenge," which whines about how the cost of rental housing is rising faster than income?  Hey, Scotty, for many years, you and your liberal ilk before you took pains to make sure that New York City provided top dollar welfare payouts, and you continue to give all kinds of entitlements and lagniappes to illegal aliens, criminals, those who refuse to hold down jobs, and everyone else.  So the resulting population increase (notwithstanding the city's abortion rate) increases the demand for housing relative to the supply, thereby driving up the cost relative to income.  This is Econ 101, nothing to blog about.

 

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration's latest report that the IRS has given monetary rewards to employees who have disciplinary problems and tax filing issues?  Hey, when I was with the IRS I had neither disciplinary issues nor tax filing issues.  Howcum I didn't get anything in addition to my salary?  This story already has legs; I have nothing to add other than to state the obvious:  The policy of administering cookies for bad behavior and electric shocks for good behavior goes a long way towards explaining the IRS's dysfunctionality.

 

So what to blog about?  I'll blog about Kareem Potomont.  He's the gangster thug who fired a weapon at one of his rivals, but in the process, one of the fired bullets struck and seriously injured Gama Droiville, a 13-year-old innocent bystander.   I note the quote from Potomont's lawyer, Audrey Thomas, who said that Potomont "said was forced to leave high school in the eleventh grade due to gang pressure."

 

THAT is the problem.  Those social groups commonly associated with success in America have long pressured their youth to STAY in school.  Back during my adolescence years, I had certain behavioral issues in school.  One evening, my father came to me to express his displeasure at one particular incident, noting that he had heard about it from a neighbor.  I said something to the effect of "Why is it any of her business how I behave in school?"

 

An uncle of mine, who ended up doing much to prod me onward towards the straight path of success, chimed in, "When you disrupt the educational process, then it is everybody's business!"  I wouldn't say that my behavior immediately reformed over night, but Uncle's words did stick with me, have remained to this day, and did positively influence me.

 

Gangs pressuring people to drop out of high school?  That is the antithesis of affirmative action!  It is DISAFFIRMATIVE ACTION!

 

Bloods on Their Hands

Like many other areas of the country and the world, Long Island has its share of gang problems. If rival gangs only killed one another, then that would be one thing. But violence between rival gangs is seldom confined to members of the rival gangs.

One such rivalry up here involves two separate factions of the Bloods gang. There is a certain geographic territory which is contested turf between the Braveheart Bloods and the Wyandanch Bloods. Richard Dormer, the Suffolk County Police Commissioner, is now attempting to obtain a civil injunction which would prohibit 37 particular members of the Bloods gangs from congregating in that defined geographic territory.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (which, as the name implies, is the ACLU's New York franchise), now seeks to intervene with an amicus brief in the case. But because each of the 37 gangsters is, at this time, going pro se (i.e., without an attorney), the NYCLU is effectively their attorney.

I understand where the NYCLU/ACLU is coming from on this one. I really do. It is, after all, a significant imposition on one's freedom if one is restricted from associating with one's associates.

But I also understand that the gang members such as the Bloods have zero respect for the law and for the Constitution which the NYCLU/ACLU invokes to protect the so-called "rights" of the Bloods. It was that very disconnect which, many moons ago, caused me sufficient agita and disgust to allow my ACLU membership to lapse, never to be re-upped again, when the ACLU evinced a greater concern for the Nazis in Skokie than for the integrity of American values.

The NYCLU doesn't seem to get it that the Bloods and similar gangs are, in fact, actually dangerous, not only to one another, but to the public at large. Law-abiding citizens cannot safely walk down the street when the Bloods congregate together. The drugs the Bloods purvey corrupt the neighborhoods, and induce formerly law-abiding youngsters to enter into a pattern of crime, violence, and, in too many cases, death. That great abstract notion of individual rights is all well and good, but when the Bloods congregate in Wyandanch, then nobody, least of all the law-abiding citizenry, has any individual rights.

It is ironic that the NYCLU officials are so quick to carry signs reading "Safe Schools," but are doing everything in their power to prevent Commissioner Dormer from making the streets of Wyandanch safe (if such is possible anymore).

And it is certainly not lost on this observer that the lead defendant (because he leads in the alphabetical order if not the pecking order) in the case, Dormer v. Alexander, is a Blood named Jihad Alexander. That given name tells me about 85% of what I need to know about the type of thugs the Suffolk County Police are dealing with.

And so, I'm with Commissioner Dormer 100% on this one. My only misgiving is that the relief sought from the court is to enjoin Jihad Alexander and his fellow Blood thugs from congregating in a particular area of the Town of Babylon. In my own mind, they should be excluded from the entire State of New York (with the possible exceptions of Dannemora, Attica, Rikers Island or Sing-Sing).

White Christmas

To all of my friends out there who celebrated Christmas, I hope that you had a merry one. The weather forecasters inform us that the next 48 hours will make lots of the Eastern Seaboard, from Washington to New England, very white indeed, albeit after the holiday.


As is making the newsrounds, John White and his family received a very nice Xmas present from Governor David Paterson. White was convicted of manslaughter in the killing of Daniel Cicciaro Jr., as Cicciaro and his friends converged on White's home in Miller Place, NY. Governor Paterson, the lame duck Chief Executive of the State of New York, commuted White's sentence to time served, and White was home for the holiday.

Cicciaro and his friends were white, and White is black, and the whole matter has lots of racial overtones and undertones. One mitigating factor in White's original sentence was that White said, with some degree of credibility, that he feared a lynch mob. Cicciaro & company did, after all, converge on White's house to send a message to White's son, who had been alleged (apparently falsely) to have issued a rape threat against a white girl.

I have mixed feelings on this one. First of all, Paterson's failure to alert Cicciaro's family that he was issuing the commutation belies a severe disregard for the rights of victims. And as blogged previously in connection with this case, any matter in which Fat Al Sharpton issues a commendatory statement is always, always suspect unless demonstrated otherwise.

But one test I apply to determine my objectivity is to inquire what the stance would be if the religious, ethnic and/or social groups were to be switched or shifted. And so, I now inquire of myself what my position would be if John White were Jewish. I have had some occasions in my formative years to face gangs of Gentile kids (their specific ethnicities are not particularly relevant) with violent intentions against me and/or my companions. And I know a number of Jewish people who have actually been on the receiving end of violence by gangs of Caucasian non-Jewish gangs coming up to their homes.

[While I make no claims to being totally free of biases, I do not automatically side with Jewish criminals. This Blog's past postings regarding the recent Florida execution of cop-killer Martin Grossman should bear that out.].

If John White had been a Jewish man whose family was threatened by a mob of white Gentile teenagers who came to his house, then, under the circumstances, I would have some empathy for John White. Yes, Mr. White did overreact in trying to protect his family from what he believed was lethal danger, and so, he certainly deserves some sort of punishment. There also was a settlement for an undisclosed sum in a civil lawsuit by Cicciaro's parents against White. But what Cicciaro and his mob did was wrong!

On Long Island, law enforcement agencies and community activists are always talking about the problem of criminal gangs of youths. And almost all of those gangs are Black and/or Latino. Why do white gangs pose less of a threat to society?

Were I the Governor, I likely would have let John White's sentence of 2 - 4 years stand. In that regard, Paterson commuted White's sentence to time served; he did not pardon White. John White can go right back to the slammer to resume his original sentence if he commits any further crimes.

But Paterson's commutation states what Cicciaro's family and friends have yet to acknowledge: Cicciaro's mob behavior was wrong and unacceptable!

There is plenty of blame to go around on this one, and no ideal resolution to the tragedy. But Paterson, with only days to go before leaving the Governor's Mansion, sent out a message that does need to be sent.