A New Yorker writes:
Continuing on my "Thoughts on the Obama Unintended Consequences Wrecking Ball Effect" riff, I wonder if we can't compare Obama to NYC's erstwhile hilariously and calamitously bad black Mayor, David Dinkins.
I remember the era well. Dinkins was supposed to herald a black power era in NYC. Dinkins was supposed to only the first of a permanent black power structure in the city. In fact quite apart from the fact that he was a "failed upwards" dumbass, this just wasn't in the cards. The demographic presence of African-Americans has plummeted in NYC as the number of foreign-born blacks (and browns and yellows and of course Hispanics of all colors) has skyrocketed.
This left the power bag in the hands of (who else?) rich whites. Giuliani came after Dinkins because of the remnants of working class whites (in Staten Island and Bklyn), but white power in NYC was cemented by the Bloomberg ascendancy.
Whites are now a demographic minority in NYC but they are firmly in power. It's almost amazing to someone who saw the black-white racial struggles of the 1965-1990 era. But it is fact. It used to be taboo to speak of a white school chancellor. It's now taken for granted. Sure, what they say is PC bullshit, but everyone simply assumes that a white guy or gal will be schools chancellor.
I make no predictions for the future. I expect we will have Asian pols - maybe. They strike me as so politically meek. I just don't know. I no longer even try to predict the future. But I can see what is going on around me now, and I see that predictions of black power ascendancy in NYC were completely off the mark.
It is true that NYC's demographics aren't applicable to the rest of the country but I think that the lesson about black political ascendancy may hold even so. I truly do think that Obama is the last of a breed and not the harbinger of future black political power. What power? They have no money, and they are losing demographic ground to "Hispanics", and two white guys [Pitt and Clooney] are our biggest movie stars.
The latter is a reference to the writer's hunch that the recent decline in buzzworthiness of Will Smith and Denzel Washington is related to Obama's ascent, that for so long the public had been play-acting with the notion of a black President via the movies, that the reality has turned out to be less awesome than expected, which has, in turn, somehow deflated the appreciation for black stars. It's not exactly a theory, but more of a finger to the wind sense.
Ack, mobile format change!
ReplyDeleteSteve, I agree with you, and the end of the Dinkins era made Manhattan so much more livable that real estate prices are up 4X
ReplyDeleteCompare that to Chicago, where the prices aren't up nearly as much.
In fact, as a New Yorker I am constantly amazed on my trips to Chicago how inexpensive homes are, even in the really nice parts of town. Apples to apples the Gold Coast greystones cost half of what their counterparts in Manhattan cost, and the apartments in Lincoln Park are perhaps one third the cost of their Manhattan equivalent. Do people in Chicago realize the bargain they are getting?
That last observation, about the disillusionment with the Obama presidency reducing the appeal of blacks portraying strong leaders in films, applies especially to Morgan Freeman. When he is going to get another offer to play the president? Perhaps that motivated his recent bitter remarks about white racism. (Anyway, no way Freeman would be cast as Obama in any upcoming film. Maybe Dave Chappelle?)
ReplyDeletePopular NY radio talk show host Bob Grant got in trouble for a nickname he gave David Dinkins during his mayoralty. After he saw David Dinkins make a public appearance wearing a white dinner jacket, Grant dubbed him "The Men's Room Attendant."
NYC is now demographically majority white, for the first time since the 1960s!
ReplyDeleteSo of course whites would be firmly in power in NYC.
If there is a major economic disaster up ahead (I'm thinking of hyperinflation, mass unemployment), then the usual suspects will go out looting and burning. 'Cause they always do. Hurricane - looting, electric blackout - looting. They'll definitely loot for this. What happens next will depend on the police response. Giuliani would have handled the situation correctly. Bloomberg will not. We'll have another London or worse here in NY if it's up to Bloomberg. Right now his most likely replacement is thought to be a fat lesbian named Christine Quinn. She will not respond to this correctly either. If Giuliani could be persuaded to come out of retirement, the city could still be saved.
ReplyDeleteThis left the power bag in the hands of (who else?) rich whites.
ReplyDeleteRich Jews, for the most part. Staten Island does not have a lot pf political power.
Compare that to Chicago, where the prices aren't up nearly as much.
Chicago does not have the extreme income inequality of New York either, and that and housing prices are linked.
Yglesias on Chicago vs New York real estate prices. In a follow-up he said it's basically average and the coastal cities are really expensive. Dirt-gap!
ReplyDeleteSteve, what's your take on Herman Cain? He's getting a lot of support from republicans who want to show that they aren't racist.
ReplyDeleteHow much does Obama owe to 24 for popularizing a very strong, cool black president.
ReplyDeleteumm I have lived in NYC all my life.. all i can say is no, and no and no.. what has happened is the ascendancy of JEWISH power, not white power. . the Jewish elite has been working like mad to eliminate the last vestiges of any white ethnic (irish, italian, and umm wasp) power that's why Bloomberg was gung ho to make the police department white minority and fire department - which comically had a Rabii as head chaplain on sept 11 - despite the fact there were statistically no jewish fire fighters) and he has been seizing middle class white business and land and turning it over to exclusively Jewish developers (one comically named 'Thor Equities".
ReplyDeleteTrue blacks have lost power (remember the crown heights riots btw stared because a hasidic jew hit a black girl with his car than the hasdic ambulance treated the driver for scratches and left the black girl who died before a goy ambulance got there) but the idea that 'whites' as a group are gaining it is comical.
The Beastie Boys and Q Tip of A Tribe Called Quest rapped "..Can I kick it? To my Tribe that flows in layers
ReplyDeleteRight now, Phife is a poem sayer
At times, I'm a studio conveyor
Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor?..."
I have not heard much from Mssrs Horowitz,Yauch and Diamond regarding their heartfelt endorsement of Mayor Dinkins
Do people in Chicago realize the bargain they are getting?
ReplyDeletechicago doesn't have rent control and spatablizaiton which helped jack up ny's rent and RE prices.
Barack Obama is our first and last black president.
ReplyDeleteThis is how Giuliani became valuable for Jews. He did the dirty work cleaning up NYC after the threat to NYC posed by:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Andrew-Giuliani
"While Dinkins had frequently and eloquently voiced his affection for New York City diversity while in office, his tenure bore witness to anti-Semitic rioting in Crown Heights and an Al Sharpton-led black boycott of Korean businesses in Brooklyn."
Now Bloomberg can play good cop to Giuliani’s bad cop and downtown Manhattan is experiencing a “white” baby boom.
Agreed with the whole fantasy Black President. See also the failure of "the Event" on NBC and "Undercovers."
ReplyDeleteHowever the basic idea is that Black + Hispanic = White subservience and tax farming (of Whites). That seems to be paying off. In California Whites are a minority and run nothing other than aging, failed Jerry Brown doing whatever the Latino Caucus tells him to do. Whites exist to pay for Mexican/Latino families, basically.
So the national thinking behind Obama is still there. Plus Obama can always gin up a bunch of riots, and intimidate Whites into another term.
I think in the coming decades, elite whites will end up as the preferred choice in highly diverse environments of which Blacks/Hispanics make up (collectively) a majority -- they're the natural compromise choice. Asians can't serve in that role because we're perceived as "clannish" and inclined to serve Asian interests over the interests of others. In contrast, everyone knows that elite whites have basically no emotional attachment whatsoever to middle class or lower class whites, who are the "white" competitors for power/resources/opportunities to the middle and lower class Blacks/Hispanics who make up the majority of the electorate. And elite whites aren't really competitors to Blacks/Hispanics themselves, because as everyone knows, the rich are different from you and me.
ReplyDeleteNYC is now demographically majority white, for the first time since the 1960s!
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get that from?
According to Wikipedia: "The city's population in 2010 was 33% white (non-Hispanic), 23% black (non-Hispanic), and 13% Asian. Hispanics of any race represented 29% of the population, while Asians constituted the fastest growing segment of the city's population between 2000 and 2010; the non-Hispanic white population declined 3 percent"
I agree that it is oxymoronic to say that white power in New York has been cemented by the rise of Jewish power. The rise of jewish power has been the single biggest factor behind the decline of white power the world over, so to equate the two is ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 4:56 is exaggerating, IMHO. Jews tend to dominate wherever their numbers allow it, not just here in in NYC. Sure, Bloomberg is good to his Jewish buds, but, for example he fought as hard as he could behind the scenes to prevent AA from ruining the NYFD,which is dominated by Irish and Italians - who are unusuallly good at being firemen. A lefty federal judge just rebuked
ReplyDeleteBloomberg for "discrimination," took the power to hire firemen away from him and gave it to a monitor who will surely be an Al Sharpton type.
I dislike Bloomberg for lots of reasons, but I think he's no more biased against the goyim than the average Jewish politician.
Anonydroid at 4:55 said:
ReplyDeleteHow much does Obama owe to 24 for popularizing a very strong, cool black president.
Hunsdon replies: Lots. Not everything, but lots. "Save us, David Palmer, you're our only hope." (Like so much "right wing" television, I thought "24" was a left winger's vision of right wing television. The Serbs, the Serbs!)
Anonydroid at 4:55 said:
ReplyDeleteHow much does Obama owe to 24 for popularizing a very strong, cool black president.
Hunsdon replies: Lots. Not everything, but lots. "Save us, David Palmer, you're our only hope." (Like so much "right wing" television, I thought "24" was a left winger's vision of right wing television. The Serbs, the Serbs!)
What ever happened to Dinkins btw?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the NYT, he was supposed to be future of the city. The turnaround of the city was pretty amazing under Giuliani, I don't think anyone in the MSM saw that one coming. When you think about it though it had to register with them on some level though, because they haven't come close to electing anyone like Dinkins since. Same goes with Chicago after Richard II took over, Chicago like New York elected a Jewish mayor to follow the no-nonsense white gentile. I'm guessing Emanuel will turn out to be a better mayor than Barry would have been, bad deal for the country, good deal for Chicago.
Whoever won the 2008 election was screwed. Probably the same can be said of 2012. Obama could easily have waited till 2016 to stand, but it looks like what matters more in presidential politics is getting in early amd riding the buzz than keeping your powder dry- rather be a one-termer, than a no termer.
ReplyDeleteThe President seems to be morphing into a "stage presence" that appears to be more suited to TV commercials than to TV news. The image honeymoon is over.
ReplyDeleteDon't anyone speak too soon... Cory Booker is on his way
ReplyDelete"The latter is a reference to the writer's hunch that the recent decline in buzzworthiness of Will Smith and Denzel Washington is related to Obama's ascent, that for so long the public had been play-acting with the notion of a black President via the movies, that the reality has turned out to be less awesome than expected, which has, in turn, somehow deflated the appreciation for black stars."
ReplyDeleteYeah, that makes a ton of sense. Since 2008 Will Smith has released two movies, Hancock, and Seven pounds, and Washington three; The Book of Eli, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, and Unstopable. All 5 movies have taken in over 150 million dollars world wide.
"Barack Obama is our first and last black president...."
ReplyDelete...Until Herman Cain, hahahahaha.
"Don't anyone speak too soon... Cory Booker is on his way"
ReplyDeleteCorey Booker would have made an ideal 1st black president in ten years. But Obama is Dinkins writ large -- not just for the reasons Steve's commenter mentioned up top, but because the premise (that there's something socially transforming about electing a black guy) has been proved false. That raises the bar for the next black hopeful to white levels.
NYC hasn't had a black mayor since Dinkins. Has LA had one since Bradley? Has Virginia had a black governor since Wilder? Now everyone knows there's no magic, so everyone will move on.
I've heard it claimed that the decline in the NYC crime rate actually began in the last year of the Dinkins administration. Is this true, false, or technically-true-but-misleading?
ReplyDelete"NYC hasn't had a black mayor since Dinkins."
ReplyDeleteYeah, and there have been a whole TWO of them!!!!
Obama could easily have waited till 2016 to stand
ReplyDeleteI think he was just getting his name out there in 2008, and surprised himself. Plus, so many people had this inordinate fear of Hillary.
Herman Cain used to do quite a bit of talk radio in Atlanta, and he always came off as a neo-con who spent quite a bit of time supporting G.W. Bush and Israel. I haven't paid any attention to the candidates, but I would guess that Cain isn't talking as much about Islamo-fascists as he used to. He always seemed like a token to me, even when he was filling in on talk radio. My guess is that he's another lightweight, and the so-called conservatives who support him are dumb enough to do so in order to refute claims from the left that they are racists. Sad!
ReplyDeletespatablizaiton
ReplyDelete'Kay I'm going to have to call the ref on that one 'cause I have no idea WTF that means.
"...Obama can always gin up a bunch of riots, and intimidate Whites into another term."
ReplyDeleteI think you're overestimating the number of whites who would be intimidated by the prospect of blacks rioting.
i really see no connection between obama and black americans in starring roles in US produced movies. they seemed to be in decline even before obama was elected. i wrote about this before, how the action hero was starting to disappear, if they were african, and that guys who are only part african like vin diesel and the rock barely count.
ReplyDeletethe exact opposite is happening on television, in the commercials anyway. it's almost guaranteed now that a commercial has an african extra somewhere. it is startling how many africans there are in advertisements now. i would say without exaggeration that they appear in 50% of paid television programming. it really picked up in 2010 or 2011. now i just say to myself "How do I know I am watching a commercial? Because some african is talking to me."
I don't think that Morgan Freeman's star has dimmed much.
ReplyDeleteAFA Will Smith is concerned, he's had some lousy projects, and the more I hear of him (and learn of him), the less I appreciate him.
This may happen to Mr. Freeman, with the rumors of him marrying his step-granddaughter (no I don't take this claim seriously).
The current New York schools chancellor is black.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_M._Walcott
"I've heard it claimed that the decline in the NYC crime rate actually began in the last year of the Dinkins administration. Is this true, false, or technically-true-but-misleading?"
ReplyDeleteThe Wikipedia has a chart. Dinkins was mayor during all of 1990 (the peak year), 1991, 1992 and 1993. In his first year the number of murders shot up substantially, to its all-time peak. In his 2nd, 3rd and 4th years it registered small declines, but it was still higher in his last year than in Koch's (his predecessor's) last year. Right after Dinkins left the crime rate fell off a cliff. There were enormous declines in Giuliani's first 2 years, moderate declines in his next 3, followed by a slower decrease that is still going on.
It should be noted that the murder rate has declined more than the number of murders (the subject of the chart), since NYC has added more than a million people after it became safe.
Here are NYPD's official statistics.
Thanks, anonymous. I see the Koch administration saw a steep decline followed (while he was still in office, before Dinkins) by an equally sharp rise. Any theories as to why?
ReplyDelete@jamekThanks, anonymous. I see the Koch administration saw a steep decline followed
ReplyDeleteKoch came AFTER the most disastorous crime experiment in american history the 'blame the victim (criminal)" theory - which led to skyrocketing crime in the 60s and 70s- it was such a failure (but a forgotten one ) that liberals have airbrushed it out of history.. go to city journal's website, particularly heather macdonald and you find lots of info.
Here are NYPD's official statistics.
ReplyDeleteread niclous styx (who often posts on vdare) he's pretty good and disecting the BS.. some people think murder rates dropped because of better medical care.
"I see the Koch administration saw a steep decline followed (while he was still in office, before Dinkins) by an equally sharp rise. Any theories as to why?"
ReplyDeleteI don't know why crime fell early during the Koch administration. The most common explanation of why it rose again in the late 80s is the spread of crack. 1986 - 1992 were the crack years.
"some people think murder rates dropped because of better medical care."
ReplyDeleteI suspect that this can only partly explain the recent declines. Why? Because, as you can see in that NYPD table, reported crime has gone down across all categories. Property crime is down, rape is down. Granted, a much smaller proportion of property and sexual crime is reported compared to murders. I've been mugged a couple of times, but I never thought of reporting it. But why would the reporting rate of all crime go down by 80% in 20 years?
Attempted murders where the victim was saved by medical personnel would go into the Fel. Assault category, right? Well, in NYC that category went down by 61.3% in 20 years. Not as much as murders (-76.3%), but still huge, especially considering that the city's population has grown substantially during that period.
"I don't think Morgan Freeman's star has dimmed much.
ReplyDelete"
Don't know. Don't follow MSM films much; but he is playing (supposedly paid to be in the film), not one but TWO, white scientists who invented a prosthetic for a dolphins.
There's something pathetic about a man insisting on white racism and the greatness of blacks, who has to pretend to be a white man to somehow give kids the message that a black man could do it too.
if there are so many great black inventors then make movies about them and leave whites alone. When it comes to "human interest" stories, race may be interchangable. When it comes to real achievement, no substitutions should exist, even in tinseltown.