Mayor David Dinkins encouraged voters to embrace a state Senate candidate because he looks "more like us."
"It's important, it is so very important, particularly for the people of this district who vote on Tuesday to recognize how important it is to understand that the city is changing," Dinkins said in his endorsement of state Senate candidate Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat on Thursday.
"Most people in the city are going to look more like us than others and that's just a fact," Dinkins said.
Espaillat opponent Mark Levine, who is white, yesterday called on Espaillat, who is Hispanic, to denounce the divisive comment.
Espaillat did not repudiate Dinkins' words.
"Mayor Dinkins is one of New York's finest public servants, and he's built his career around the principle that communities of different ethnic and economic backgrounds must work together if we want to bring about long-term change," Espaillat said in a statement.
Levine, who called Dinkins' comment "insulting to the district and electorate," also took issue with its timing.
"The fact that they were delivered on the first day of Rosh Hashana added to their inappropriateness," Levine said.
Espaillat and Levine are both frontrunners in the race to fill Attorney General hopeful state Senator Eric Schneiderman's seat. The district includes the diverse population of the Upper West Side, Washington Heights, and Inwood, in Manhattan and Riverdale, in the Bronx.
For those of you who did not live through the horror of the period when Dinkins served as Mayor of NYC, I urge you to look up the history. He was a racialist then as he is now. He let the Crown Heights riots run the course and Yankel Rosenbaum was murdered.
Here is some info from Wikipedia:
...About three hours after the riots began, a group of approximately 20 young black men surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-oldUniversity of Melbourne student in the United States conducting research for his doctorate. They stabbed him several times in the back and beat him severely, fracturing his skull. Before being taken to the hospital, Rosenbaum was able to identify 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson, Jr. as his assailant in a line-up shown to him by the police.[2] Rosenbaum died later that night. Nelson was charged with murder and acquitted, but later convicted of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights; he eventually admitted that he had indeed stabbed Rosenbaum.[16][17]
For three days following the accident, numerous African Americans and Caribbean Americans of the neighborhood, joined by growing numbers of non-residents, rioted in Crown Heights. In the rioting of the ensuing three days, many of the rioters "did not even live in Crown Heights."[3]
During the riots, Jews were injured, stores were looted, and cars and homes were damaged. The rioters identified Jewish homes by themezuzot affixed to the front doors.[12] Rioters marched through Crown Heights carrying anti-Semitic signs and an Israeli flag was burned. Rioters threw bricks and bottles at police; shots were fired at police and police cars were pelted and overturned, including the Police Commissioner’s car.[3][12]
An additional 350 police officers were added to the regular duty roster on August 20 and were assigned to Crown Heights in an attempt to quell the rioting. After episodes of rock- and bottle-throwing involving hundreds of blacks and Jews, and after groups of blacks marched through Crown Heights chanting "No Justice, No Peace!", "Death to the Jews!", and "Whose streets? Our streets!", an additional 1,200 police officers were sent to confront rioters in Crown Heights.[3] Riots escalated to the extent that a detachment of 200 police officers was overwhelmed and had to retreat for their safety. On August 22, over 1,800 police officers, including mounted and motorcycle units, had been dispatched to stop the attacks on people and property.[3]
By the time the three days of rioting ended, 152 police officers and 38 civilians were injured, 27 vehicles were destroyed, seven stores were looted or burned,[18] and 225 cases of robbery and burglary were committed.[3] At least 129 arrests were made during the riots,[18] including 122 blacks and seven whites.[19][20] Property damage was estimated at one million dollars.[3]
[edit]Shooting in Crown Heights
On September 5, two weeks after the riot had been controlled, Anthony Graziosi, an Italian sales representative with a white beard dressed in dark business attire, was driving in the neighborhood. As he stopped at a traffic light at 11 p.m., six blocks away from where Yankel Rosenbaum had been murdered, a group of four black men surrounded his car and one of them shot and killed him. It was alleged by Graziosi's family and their attorney, as well as Senator Al D'Amato, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, State Attorney General Robert Abrams, former Mayor Ed Koch, and a number of advocacy organizations, that Graziosi's resemblance to a hasidic Jew precipitated his murder. The New York police department, Mayor Dinkins, newspaper columnist Mike McAlary, and the U.S. Justice Department did not agree. The murder was not treated as a bias crime.[21]
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