November 6, 2008

Upper West Side Media Types: "Watch what we say, not what we do"

Manhattan's Upper West Side has perhaps the highest concentration of influential news media types in the country. For the last 48 hours, they've engaged in an orgy of self-congratulation over electing Obama. But, now, it's time to get back to what they, personally, are most concerned about: keeping Non-Asian Minority kids away from their kids. From the New York Times:

As Schools Grapple With Crowding, Prospect of Rezoning Angers Manhattan Parents
By JENNIFER MEDINA

At Public School 199 in the heart of the Upper West Side, a music teacher who once had her own classroom now keeps her instruments in a small closet, stacking cymbals and drums onto a cart as she visits more than two dozen classes each week. Students who need tutoring in reading or math sit behind a makeshift wall of metal cabinets in the hallway. There are seven kindergarten classes this year, up from three in 2000.

And on a recent Friday afternoon, it took six staff members 15 minutes to find a room for a training workshop. P.S. 199 has 663 students in kindergarten through fifth grade this year, nearly 200 above its capacity in the West 70th Street building it has long shared with the Center School, a middle school that draws students from the Lincoln Center area north to Harlem. Public School 191, just nine blocks south, draws largely from the nearby housing projects and has more than 107 empty seats available.

It might seem that there are easy solutions to the overcrowding in District 3, which encompasses the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem. The district has neighborhoods facing a burgeoning school-age population, in part because of a high-rise building boom, with pockets where the number of children are in decline. Why not send some of P.S. 199’s overflow to fill the seats at P.S. 191, or move the Center School and let the popular P.S. 199 expand to take up the whole three-story building?

But in New York City, where real estate and access to good schools often lead to Olympics-level competition, even the specter of changing school boundaries can raise the hackles of parents who chose their high-priced homes precisely because of those boundaries. The topic of rezoning is so sensitive that education officials have referred to it as the “third rail” — and no one seems to remember the last time a significant boundary change was enacted.

For months now, officials and members of District 3’s Community Education Council, the elected board that must approve any rezoning plans, have gone back and forth on painstaking negotiations and proposals. At a meeting on Wednesday night, the council is expected to introduce its resolution, which members would vote on later this month.

The heated debate dividing neighbors is likely to repeat itself across town later this month, when city education officials begin discussing the rezoning of parts of District 2, which encompasses the Upper East Side and much of Lower Manhattan. District 2 is plagued by some of the city’s worst overcrowding, particularly in TriBeCa and on the Upper East Side.

In the debate over the fate of P.S. 199 and the Center School, there have been accusations of racism, and a flier calling one school administrator who opposed a move a dictator. Parents — and prospective parents — of P.S. 199 have set up an elaborate campaign against changing the school boundaries, using the Internet and old-fashioned petitions on clipboards to protest.

“You move to a neighborhood in no small part because you are attracted to the school — it’s a core decision you are making,” said Eric Shuffler, who is among the parents of 4-year-olds fighting for kindergarten spots in 2009 at P.S. 199. “Something that you had planned on is now being taken and it’s compounded by the fact that you don’t know what happens to your children once the decision is made.”

It's not like these affluent Upper West Side parents are prejudiced or anything. I mean, they'd love to have Obama's daughters go to P.S. 199. It's just, well, you know ...

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure these upper west sidises just need to be reminded that diversity is our strength, we are the ones we have been waiting for and this is the future they need to embrace if they really want to hope for change.

Anonymous said...

I'm really offended by this! What's the use of working hard to become rich if you have to send your kids to school with the poor? The whole purpose of becoming wealthy, is to get away from undesirables. And as much as the anti-racist-Nazis want to say this is all about "raci$m," they can all go choke on a diversity samich. I would be almost as upset, if my kids were sent to a "working class" white school too.

Anonymous said...

Which public school (or schools) are BHO's daughters going to attend?

Anonymous said...

Here's a quote from a website, apparently set up by concerned parents:

"Our community including parents of incoming/future PS199 students, concerned residents and parents of current PS199 students, is now mobilized to fight for our children's education and safety."

Well, I guess I think like them, except that my view is a bit more long term. I'm concerned about my childrens' safety; and their childrens' safety; and so on.

meep said...

If they're so rich, powerful, and smart, why don't they just homeschool? I understand that private schools in Manhattan may be beyond their means, but with homeschooling, you can be teaching your kids the snootiest, most outrageous stuff: "Oh yes, little Johnny is working on his ancient Greek and Chinese calligraphy today...."

Black Sea said...

“You move to a neighborhood in no small part because you are attracted to the school . . ."

And what is it that attracted you to that school, was it the limestone steps leading to the prominent entrance, the well-executed beaux arts facade, the old fashioned chalk boards and high casement windows in the spacious classrooms?

Come now, comrade, tell us what really drew you to this neighborhood . . .

Anonymous said...

OT -- from Vanity Fair:

Wall Street Lays Another Egg

...Significantly, a disproportionate number of subprime borrowers belonged to ethnic minorities. Indeed, I found myself wondering, as I drove around Detroit, if “subprime” was in fact a new financial euphemism for “black.” This was no idle supposition. According to a joint study by, among others, the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, 55 percent of black and Latino borrowers in Boston who had obtained loans for single-family homes in 2005 had been given subprime mortgages; the figure for white borrowers was just 13 percent. More than three-quarters of black and Latino borrowers from Washington Mutual were classed as subprime, whereas only 17 percent of white borrowers were. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, minority ownership increased by 3.1 million between 2002 and 2007.

Here, surely, was the zenith of the property-owning democracy. It was an achievement that the Bush administration was proud of. “We want everybody in America to own their own home,” President George W. Bush had said in October 2002. Having challenged lenders to create 5.5 million new minority homeowners by the end of the decade, Bush signed the American Dream Downpayment Act in 2003, a measure designed to subsidize first-time house purchases in low-income groups. Between 2000 and 2006, the share of undocumented subprime contracts rose from 17 to 44 percent. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also came under pressure from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to support the subprime market. As Bush put it in December 2003, “It is in our national interest that more people own their own home.” Few people dissented....

Anonymous said...

Obama is the African baby all these hip, young, white, liberal Americans have, metaphorically speaking, adopted. Now they can truly feel part of the whole Angelina/Madonna/Feed the World/Bono/Mandela/rainbow thing. He's cool for America's image.

African-Americans (ie the descendents of slaves) are a different matter; especially when they threaten to lower standards at the schools of their own tiny, white, thrusting offspring.

Unknown said...

Another funny angle on the UWS crowd is architecture. The UWS is a beautiful traditional-city area, full of gorgeous traditional blocks and buildings. The fact that you can have idiosyncratic old spaces and enjoy strolls along streets with character is a big part of its appeal. Yet take a look at the architecture lauded and promoted by the New York Times, the UWS's official organ? Hadad, Gehry -- the usual anti-urban crowd.

An example of "I choose traditional and satisfying for myself, but, in the service of high ideals, I foist bizarre, hard-to-tolerate crap on everyone else."

Anonymous said...

A footnote to my earlier post about Obama as America's latest photogenic black adoptee:-

The Rev Wright's "White folks' greed runs a world in need" perfectly expresses the current fashion for (white) "designer-guilt".

Of course it can't be pointed out that "white folks' greed" actually feeds huge numbers of the world's needy - especially in countries where they have been let down by their own black leadership.

No doubt the coming Black Camelot will be photo-documented in all the right glossies. The little girls playing with their puppy in the Oval Office while their father poses thoughtfully over his papers; an airbrushed Michelle O looking exquisite in designer clothes ...

And finally, what a relief ! Young, white, educated Americans will no longer have to prove they're not "ugly", as they summer in the up-market watering holes of Europe.

Image is all.

Anonymous said...

This sort of corruption is disgusting.

Some conservative should do a Michael Moore type documentary on it.

Anonymous said...

Yes, rezoning would seem to be the obvious answer here. If rich parents want that level of control over who their kids go to school with, they can scrape up the money to send their brats to private school or they can move elsewhere. I can't believe it's even up for debate in a public school system.

Anonymous said...

Mary Pat has a good point, who don't whiteRpeople like home schooling? Seems like it could be a good fit.

Anonymous said...

The reason the false Axion of Equality can be maintained is that Upper West Side types can shield their children from the poor kids.

I hope and pray they will be forced to go to school with the poor kids.

Anonymous said...

You guys like to cluck and look down on these upper west side whites.

They are in fact the future. It's easier to segregate a 10 block area in the city than it is to segregate an entire suburb.

Watch as public housing gets torn down and section 8 expands further into the suburbs.

Inner city whites have more clout than any of blogging pinhead will ever have. If they want a segregated manhattan, they'll get it.

Anonymous said...

These same upper West Side types want diversity for YOUR children - all you racist rednecks in the South, all you Palin voters, all you "white trash." You are expected to breed your race out, pronto. Little Pincus and Perla, however, will continue to live, work, play, and worship in a bubble. As Steven Speilberg pointed out, there is no more racially segregated place in America than Temple on Shabbos. Diversity is their greatest...weapon.

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see what the other side thinks of redistricting. Is this considered a bonus or a burden. An if it is a burden what type.

The poor people-of-color (POC) might resent the added competition of smart well nurtured white kids scraping off the 4% scolarship spots and college reservations. They also might resent their cover getting blown as to the real reasons they are such dismal academic failures and underachievers.

Anonymous said...

Steve:

I figure she'll respond to you quicker than me, so maybe you could e-mail Jennifer Medina and ask her to check her desk for that device that's giving her a petit mal seizure when she tries to type the words "race" or "African-American" or "white."

--Senor Doug

Anonymous said...

Manhattan is the base for the new Jewish Golden Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_in_Spain

"Diversity is their greatest...weapon."

The history of the North American continent and specifically the territory of the United States is playing out in a familiar fashion:

The 500 year era of European expansion and conquest has ended. Now the various non-white, non-Christian rivals are making their advances...advances which might last centuries.

The homogenous American Empire or "kingdom" was erected and girded by a group of related philosophical ideas which came to be known as Manifest Destiny. This philosophy was successfully attacked and discredited...and so the kingdom is now being dismantled.

This is all part of a brutal ethno-racial struggle for power between Christians, Muslims and Jews and it has played out many times before in various parts of the world.

What is happening today in both Europe and North America is a repeat of the battle for control of Iberia. And the Jewish role is not small...it plays a full 1/3 role in the three-way struggle.

Birth of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_in_Spain#Birth_of_the_Golden_Age

"After 589, the Christian Visigoths of Hispania persecuted the Jews severely; therefore, the Jews welcomed the Muslim Arab and mainly Berber conquerors in the 8th century. The conquered cities of Córdoba, Málaga, Granada, Seville, and Toledo were briefly placed under the control of the Jewish inhabitants, who had been armed by the Moorish invaders. The victors removed the Christian Visigoths' oppressive restrictions and granted the Jews full religious liberty, requiring them only to pay the tribute of one golden dinar per capita (Jizya)."

"A period of tolerance thus dawned for the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, whose number was considerably augmented by immigration from Africa in the wake of the Muslim conquest. Especially after 912, during the reign of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his son, Al-Hakam II, the Jews prospered, devoting themselves to the service of the Caliphate of Cordoba, to the study of the sciences, and to commerce and industry, especially to trading in silk and slaves, in this way promoting the prosperity of the country. Jewish economic expansion was unparalleled. In Toledo, Jews were involved in translating Arabic texts to the romance languages, as well as translating Greek and Hebrew texts into Arabic. Jews also contributed to botany, geography, medicine, mathematics, poetry and philosophy."

Anonymous said...

Some conservative should do a Michael Moore type documentary on it.

Why not enlist Michael Moore himself? He could simply walk outside his front door and begin filming, as he lives in the upper west side, unless he's moved in the past couple years.

Anonymous said...

"As Steven Speilberg pointed out, there is no more racially segregated place in America than Temple on Shabbos."

Spielberg has two adopted black kids.

Anonymous said...

"If they want a segregated manhattan, they'll get it."

They've already got it. I'm not kidding either.

Anonymous said...

Jews were treated horribly by the Muslims of Spain. Mamiamodes (spelling?) noted that in his writings.

There is also a Goya painting about a young Jewish woman beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam. Based on an actual brutal case.

Islam was not kind to Jews. It never has been.

Most of the UWS types are old-money folks like Vanderbilts, etc.

Anonymous said...

Steve,
Many other urban neighborhoods in the New York City area are exactly like this: Upper East Side, Tribeca, Soho, the Brooklyn Brownstone Belt (Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, etc.) and Hoboken, NJ. I live in Hoboken, NJ and all of the upscale, white, liberal, yuppie families who live in expensive brownstones either send their children to private schools or move out to the NJ suburbs when their children grow older. Hoboken, NJ is around 75% white (all of the NAMs live in housing projects or subsidized housing). However, go on greatschools.net to look up Hoboken HS and it is 80% NAM, with the district spending $28,000 per pupil. I've said this before...this cognitive dissonance amongst high IQ liberals cannot go on forever.

Anonymous said...

Steve,
You will not believe the article that I just came across in the NY Daily News....

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/11/06/2008-11-06_mortgages_plunge_by_50_in_some_brooklyn_.html

The Brooklym Brownstone neighborhoods (almost entirely white, liberal, yuppies)have actually seen an increase in mortgage lending. Also, Sunset Park (heavily Chinese) has seen a loan increase of 37%. However, the number of mortgages issued fell by 60% in Brownsville, 58% in Bushwick, 57% in East New York and 45% in East Flatbush (heavily black and hispanic). Across Brooklyn, mortgages were down 1.5% among whites, 49% among blacks and 45% among Hispanics. Yet, according to a fellow white, liberal (his picture is in the article): "Lenders are redlining these neighborhoods, are depriving [them] of affordable and fairly priced credit," said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project. Hahahahaha. We are so screwed......

Anonymous said...

I always assumed rich Manhattanites sent their kids to private schools.

Maybe the rich Manhatanites who send their kids to public schools were people who used all their money to pay off their wives' credit cards and college loans (see above)

Anonymous said...

I'm shocked. You mean some of those people are straight?

Anonymous said...

testing99-

"Most of the UWS types are old-money folks like Vanderbilts, etc."

You know nothing about New York. The upper west side is by far the most Jewish neighborhood in Manhattan.

The old money types are the upper east siders.

-Steve Johnson

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of filthy hypocrites. They will happily pay for the advantages of segregation, but refuse them to the poor whites who cannot afford their rich neighborhoods.

Anonymous said...

The topic of rezoning is so sensitive that education officials have referred to it as the “third rail” — and no one seems to remember the last time a significant boundary change was enacted.

In the South, of course, this would be no problemo. An appointed federal judge, raised in New York, educated in Massachusetts, and with a funny accent and/or funny nose, would simply order the boundaries moved. He would do it knowing full well it would make no difference to him and his golfing buddies as their kids all attend private school, or else their communities are far, far removed from the new boundaries. His decision thus would also have the not unimportant side-benefit of raising home prices in his neighborhood (and land prices for his real estate tycoon buddies) for people seeking to get even further away from Diversatopia. He would then go to his (all white) synagogue or temple on shabbos and be hailed a conquering hero for his tolerance and his sticking it to the racists...

In Memphis an alternative played out. The "Jewish Quarter" of town was inside Memphis City boundaries, subjecting them, too, to desegragation policies. The response was to form a magnet program at White Station High that put Jewish kids in the same schools with blacks but effectively divided them in the classroom.

Anonymous said...

The little Obamas are going to Sidwell Friends School in order to embrace diversity. (at 30k each)

Hail Victory! Hail Obama!