If Assemblyman and 10th Congressional District candidate Hakeem Jeffries had his way every city public school student would have at least one laptop computer in his or her home within the next five years.
Thus, Jeffries rolled out a new “One Child, One Laptop” initiative in delivering his fifth State of the District address given before a packed auditorium at Pratt Institute last week.
“W.E.B. Du Bois, the noted scholar, once observed that the racial divide would likely be the most vexing challenge of the 20th century. I think it’s fair to say that the digital divide may emerge as one of the most vexing challenges of the 21st century,” said Jeffries. “We need to adequately prepare our children and our students for the modern economy and the technology-driven world.”
While Jeffries didn’t explain exactly how the initiative would work in his speech, his spokesperson Lupe Todd said it would involve public and private partnerships.
“He’s still in the planning stages. Whenever he has new initiatives he goes and proposes it to the community. It’s in the skeletal process,” said Todd.
Besides the “One Child, One Laptop” initiative, Jeffries said his legislative focus will be on getting more affordable housing through the creation of a $500 million fund for affordable housing in next year’s state budget by using proceeds from the mortgage recording tax. Currently, proceeds from this tax are used in part to provide mass transportation funding.
Jeffries also pointed out recent victories he has championed including the reauthorization of the millionaires’ tax, strengthening of rent regulations to protect working families and the end of prison-based gerrymandering so that prisoners are counted in their home communities rather than in the districts where they are incarcerated for purposes of drawing district lines.
Prior to his speech, the audience was treated to a performance by a choir of students from Ronald Edmonds Learning Center, J.H.S. 113 as they serenaded the house with several musical selections including the South African National Anthem.
Over 200 residents and community leaders attended the speech, which also showcased some political muscle in Jeffries run for Congress.
The night’s events were hosted by the mistress of ceremonies’ Yvonne Graham who is the current associate commissioner of the New York State Department of Health and the former Brooklyn Deputy Borough President.
Others in attendance were City Council members Letitia James and Al Vann, and Democratic District Leaders Walter Mosley and Lincoln Restler.
Jeffries Proposes a Laptop in The Home of Every Student
Kings County Politics
Parker out of Orthodox Jewish community loopWhile the state senate’s redistricting plan probably won’t pass muster (or is that pass the mustard) in court, the newly created “Jewish District” is likely to stick, which works in Sen. Kevin Parker’s favor.
Parker currently represents a wide swath of Central Brooklyn including the mainly Caribbean and African-American communities of East Flatbush and Flatbush, the mainly white, liberal middle-class of Ditmas Park, a sizable Asian Muslim community in Kensington, and the Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park.
Under the proposed “Jewish District” he would lose Borough Park and a sizable portion of Muslim/Jewish Kensington, and pick up North Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights and Park Slope.
“It (the redistricting) does not affect me in a negative way,” said Parker. “The people in Borough Park would be happier because they are a little more conservative and I’m a little more liberal, but we did a lot of work together on parochial schools and kosher food.”
Parker, who is sharp on policy matters, did call the new senate lines “blatantly racist in breaking up communities of color, particularly in Nassau County, Long Island where Roosevelt and Hempstead were broken up into three or four different districts, and in upstate Rochester.
Some of these districting things will be changed drastically because they won’t hold up constitutionally in court, said Parker.
Jewish District, Simcha Felder and John Liu
Speaking of the “Jewish District,” powerful Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind denied last week a Yiddish World News Report that he would run his son, Yoni, for the newly created “Jewish District” seat in the state senate.
“I wish he (Yoni) would consider it, but I think he’s too busy,” said Hikind, adding that perhaps his old political ally, Noach Dear, would be interested in running.
Another name floating around is Hikind adversary and former City Councilman Simcha Felder, who now works for Comptroller John Liu, whose also gearing up for the mayor race.
When Liu recently had campaign finance issues, it was reported that Felder was jumping ship, but he remains under the comptroller’s charge as both a capable money manager and a maverick political operator, with a very dry sense of humor.
“I’m very happy where I am,” said Felder. “My only comment regarding the senate race is we’re having wonderful 60-degree weather today.”
The Asian District
For readers into Asian culture and urban adventure, it should be noted that Brooklyn’s Chinatown along Eighth Avenue from the East 40’s to the 60s is really booming. I’ve eaten and shopped down there several times and it’s a cool place if you dig that scene like I do.
That said, the redistricting also created an “Asian District” in the state assembly. That seat is currently held by the unflappable Assemblyman Peter Abbate, who’s been in office 26 years.
“So what that Eighth Avenue is now 51 percent of my district. My district was already 38-percent Asian and I’m still keeping Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights,” said Abbate. “I know most of the community leaders there already. I was just there last Sunday at the Chinese New Year’s Parade – the same one I’ve attended for the past 15 years. I’m very active in community events and I’m a full-time assembly member so all my energies goes to the people I represent.”
While Abate is a savvy lawmaker, the thinking here is the Asian community is a sleeping tiger beginning to rouse.
Odds & Ends
State Senator Kevin Parker said endorsing a candidate for the 10th Congressional District Race between incumbent Rep. Ed Towns, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Charles Barron is a very tough call because Towns was his mentor and Jeffries a good colleague in the state legislature. Kudos to Assemblyman Dov Hikind for his progressive stance on the reporting of domestic violence and sexual abuse cases in the closed-off Orthodox and Hassid communities to secular law enforcement authorities, and for his pro-feminism stance on the current woman’s rights issues in Israel.
Sources very close to City Councilman Domenic Recchia said he is still considering the borough president’s race.
The thinking here is Recchia would run surprisingly well in the African-and Caribbean-American communities of Central Brooklyn because he’s shown in his home district of Coney Island that he’s not afraid to engage the community of color.
Recchia is also not afraid to express his viewpoint such as when he recently told this reporter he didn’t think NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and NYPD Communications boss Paul Browne should be fired for NYPD’s recent Islamophob video.
“Crime is down and it was their first big mess up,” said Recchia. “They said they’re sorry. Let’s move on.”
View From Here: On the State of the Union
How African-Americans are being used so far in this election season should be a cause for instruction on the depth of the situation we’re in. The Republicans are using racist themes and buzzwords as a full-throated rallying cry to bring their troops out, while the Democrats share a love that dare not speak its name. There has been no call to attack the 45% unemployment for black men in Milwaukee, or even the 16% national average of black unemployment.
We get to be included in the promise of infrastructure work and with programs that help the 99% and we look forward to that. But with the Republicans lobbing racial grenades, it’s disheartening that the Democrats don’t do any firing back. We don’t even get a shout out in President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address.
The closest he came was when he was comparing the lack of cooperation in the public arena to the regimentation of the military: “When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight.” What’s wrong with this example of course is that the rich won’t be caught dead in the uniform and those in the other categories are probably also poor.
In fact, if it were not for pressure from the Occupy Movement changing the national dialogue, then issues of fairness in taxation and accountability in the foreclosure fiasco, issues that can be helpful to African-Americans and provide resources for the poor, would not be front and center, and that should be instructive.
Everyone knows the African-American community is going to vote for Obama come November, he’s the superior candidate in every way. But that does not mean we should not be making demands, just as every other group is. The Pierce County Herald reports on a study showing that five major American cities have less than 50% of black male residents 16- to 64-years-old working: Detroit – 43.0%, Buffalo – 43.9%, Milwaukee – 44.7% Cleveland – 47.7%, and Chicago – 48.3%. With numbers like that it is not out of line to look for a little special concern. And the fact that it is being sought so quietly, should be a cause for concern itself.