Gotham Gazette

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Opinion

Why Grassroots Activism Matters to New York City


 

VOCAL activists at Occupy protest

New York City is simply not working for a large percentage of the population. In Manhattan, the top 20 percent of families earn forty times more than the bottom 20 percent of families. The city’s homeless shelter population continues to grow and includes an unacceptable 20,000 children a night.  Poor Black and Latino children are disproportionately likely to attend the most troubled schools with the fewest resources. People on the margins struggle with a fraying social service safety net, and immigrants, homeless people and Black and Latino youth face harsh crackdowns on their basic rights.

The aftermath of Superstorm Sandy brought this reality into stark relief. Firms around Wall Street were up and running in a matter of hours. But just blocks away in Chinatown and the Lower East Side, people had no information or basic essentials for days. And in places like the Rockaways, Coney Island and Midland Beach on Staten Island, residents are still fighting for a return to normalcy. In these and other neighborhoods, local organizations are now coordinating an advocacy campaign to demand proper recovery plans.

To address inequities like these, North Star Fund is launching a $7 million Activism’s Future campaign. Our goal is to build a robust movement to close the chasm between New York City’s richest and poorest citizens. Through Activism’s Future, we are strategically partnering with grassroots activists in communities most affected by injustice. By growing our commitment to these groups, North Star Fund will strengthen the capacity of activist organizations and coalitions, and will fund victories that greatly improve lives in our city. In the process we will put forth a new model of progressive activism for our nation.

Grassroots activists directly affected by injustice are our best hope for creating real change. They know firsthand which policies aren’t working and which programs must be expanded. And with head, heart and bullhorn, they are taking on City Hall every day. Effective grassroots organizers often wield enormous influence in relation to their size and budget.

To expand grassroots leadership and secure activism’s future, North Star Fund will double its funding to activists so that they can use tools of organizing like public demonstrations, coalition building, and meetings with legislators to stand up for their rights. North Star will also expand the training of local leaders to organize their communities and build alliances to broaden their reach, and increase media coverage of social justice issues.

As a great city, we need to keep issues of equality, economic justice and peace on the front page and in the front of peoples’ minds. Finally, North Star Fund will broaden the community of donors who support activism in order to build a bigger and stronger social justice community.

Activism’s Future we will make New York City a place we can all be proud to call home. And it will safeguard one of our most valuable assets, our community of activists.

___

Hugh Hogan is the executive director of the North Star Fund which, since 1979, has awarded approximately $41 million to over 1,750 community groups — from kitchen table activists fighting for better housing to citywide movements to protect civil rights. Images courtesy of the North Star Fund.

Hunger After Superstorm Sandy: Why We Need The Kosher and Halal Food Act


More than one million New Yorkers are in danger of going hungry every year, according to the National Coalition Against Hunger. Even before super storm Sandy hit, our city’s emergency food providers saw a 20 percent increase in the need for their services in 2012  — with the fastest growth in demand from families with children. Since Sandy, the number of people who need food assistance is only increasing.

GG CommentaryObservant Jewish and Muslim families are not immune from this crisis. In fact, an estimated 330,000 Jewish households in New York City and 300,000 Muslim households in the tri-state area live in poverty. Because of the dietary requirements of their faith, many families we serve are unable to rely on the federally funded network of food pantries to feed their families. As social service providers, it is not unusual for us to see dozens of families in a single day who are going hungry because there are no Kosher and Halal options in food pantries. And since the storm, we have had to double our efforts to serve families in the hardest-hit communities while continuing to help those in need outside of Zone A.

The examples are heartbreaking. After Sandy, a Muslim single mother with three young children did not have enough money to go grocery shopping. When she sought help at a public food pantry, none of the food available was Halal. A low-income Jewish family with two children under the age of five lost power during the storm and all of their Kosher food was ruined. Volunteers came to the neighborhood to help out in the only ways they could, but without any kosher food.
 
For these needy New Yorkers, the resources simply are not there and they are faced with an impossible choice -- sacrificing their faith or going hungry. Imagine looking into your child’s eyes and telling him or her that there is no protein for dinner.
 
Thankfully, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressmember Joe Crowley have introduced legislation that would ensure that some of our state’s most vulnerable families will no longer have to go hungry. As part of the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), the Kosher and Halal Food Act of 2013 would increase the supply of food for Kosher and Halal food pantries to address this demand, hopefully decreasing the number of New Yorkers going hungry in 2013 and beyond.
 
The legislation would also require the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to target, label, and track distribution of Kosher and Halal food to ensure that food bank operators can properly identify the protein for those who need it. Providing these types of meals would help so many in need, and would come at no extra cost to the state.
 
We agree with Senator Gillibrand when she says that “we must take steps to help the neediest observant families and children get access to nutritious food during these difficult times.” Now more than ever, as Sandy has devastated our most vulnerable populations and caused even more families to slip into poverty, we must take this simple step to ensure that no one is left behind.

____
William Rapfogel, executive director & CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty
Mohammad Razvi, executive director of the Council of Peoples Organization

Guest Commentary: The Unity Map and City Council Redistricting


NEW YORK — The redistricting battles are here again. Every 10 years, the New York City Council embarks upon a quasi-independent process of redrawing its legislative boundaries to comport with the demographic changes evidenced in the U.S. Census.  

And every 10 years activists, lawyers, elected officials and political pundits weigh in on what is essentially a bare-knuckles political exercise.

Earlier this year, the worst aspects of redistricting made a comeback appearance in Albany.

First, the Legislature completely abdicated its role in redesigning congressional districts, forcing a federal court to usurp a state function at considerable public expense.

Then the three men in the room brokered a late night resolution of state Senate and state Assembly lines that especially flummoxed the liberal activists who were well within striking distance of initiating independent redistricting at the state level, but now have nothing to show for their efforts.

CommentaryNew York City Council redistricting is an entirely different affair. Gone are the partisan battles between D’s and R’s. Instead, political machinations about positioning for mayoral and City Council president runs provide the subtext for who’s on the outside looking in during redistricting.

Term limits clearly add another layer of complexity or, should I say, relief, since it reduces the incumbent protection mantra that characterizes most redistricting wars.  

All of it lands in the lap of the Redistricting Commission appointed by the Council and the mayor that provides, at least in part, a buffer between naked political ambition and revenge and transparency.

The process, however, is also beholden to the principles of racial and language minority equality as embodied in the Voting Rights Act, the federal law that has clearly protected marginalized voters from Black, Asian and Latino communities from the abuses of incumbency protection.

Unity-CC-2012-sm2This is where the Unity Plan comes in as a marker of what a compromise plan that strives to comply with federal and state law can achieve in a complex, multi-racial city. Produced by mappers, activists, and lawyers from the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Center for Law & Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and the National Institute for Latino Policy, the Unity Plan represents months of mapping scenarios, community meetings, legal discussions, and consultation with minority elected officials.

The Voting Rights Act requires the city to demonstrate that the voting strength of protected minorities in three of the city’s boroughs does not retrogress compared to what they possessed at the time of the plan’s submission for federal approval, or preclearance.

The Act also has a general guarantee on non-discrimination that provides blacks, Asians and Latinos an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.

Finally, the constitutional requirement of equality in population, “one person, one vote” and the case law mandate that prohibits the division of communities of interest created additional guide posts for the Unity Map engagement.  

Following these precepts and accounting for the shifts and increases in black, Asian and Latino populations, the overall Unity plan unites communities of interest between Asians in Chinatown and Latinos in the Lower East Side; reduces significantly the fracturing of Asian communities in Richmond Hill and Bensonhurst; creates an additional Latino majority district in upper Manhattan; and solidifies black communities of interest in Jamaica and Canarsie.

The Unity Map is the first citywide proposal received by the Redistricting Commission that attempts to address the multiple requirements under voting rights law.

But it really is an opening salvo in a longer engagement with the public and the commission.  

Earlier this week, the commission issued its own preliminary draft, which itself is the starting point for negotiations. At least it better be because the commission’s plan egregiously splits Asian communities in Bensonhurst, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Elmhurst and Bayside; black communities in Canarsie and Wakefield; and Latino communities in Soundview, Bronx River, Westchester, Mount Eden, and Highbridge in the Bronx.

In short, the commission has yet to fully account for the distribution of racial and language minorities – something that it must do successfully to obtain preclearance, and something that the Unity Plan proponents will monitor vigorously.

___

Juan Cartagena is president and general counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a civil rights and advocacy organization founded in the early 1970s.



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