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Razzle Dazzle: Standing Up After It Counts Razzle Dazzle
If there were any doubts as to why they hadn't spoken out until long after it might have made a difference, they were cleared up by Mr. Jackson's frank admission and the sudden unavailability of the usually unavoidable-for-comment Mr. Markowitz, who left the press conference immediately after his own remarks and remained incommunicado for the next several days. Tripped Over His Ambition
Mr. Jackson, asked why he hadn't spoken up before Ms. Almontaser six weeks earlier resigned her post heading the school she had founded, replied, "I am term-limited out, and I am looking to run for higher office in 2009." As a result, he continued, he had been worried that standing up for Ms. Almontaser might lead to media coverage that would damage his election chances (he is believed to have his eye on becoming Manhattan Borough President). In making this admission, he acknowledged that he shared the same less-than-admirable trait he had ascribed to Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein a few minutes earlier: that they "do not take well to negative press." "The bottom line," Councilman Jackson stated, "is I decided to stand up now ... because I cannot stand silent any longer." The only problem was, it wasn't going to do Ms. Almontaser much good at this point. Mr. Markowitz's delay in speaking out was even more glaring, given that Ms. Almontaser came under fire for not initially condemning t-shirts that had been created by Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media that read "NYC Intifada" when she was asked about them by reporters for the New York Post. A prominent Jewish elected official speaking out on her behalf at the time might have served as enough of a counterweight for Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein to stand by her after Ms. Almontaser tried to repair the damage by calling the use of the word "intifada" on the t-shirt "completely inappropriate." Six weeks after he might have done her some good, Mr. Markowitz stated, "Debbie's [initial] comments were no excuse for the treatment she received from some media outlets. I believe there is an apology owed to Debbie Almontaser. She is worthy of our respect and gratitude." What was particularly interesting about the Brooklyn Borough President's remarks was that reference to "some media outlets." It was as if he and other elected officials who spoke feared mentioning the Post by name unless they had a silver crucifix in hand. This is not to suggest that Ms. Almontaser doesn't shoulder a large portion of the blame for her demise. Her defenders have said that her tepid initial response when asked about the t-shirts came because she was determined not to condemn the young women from AWAAM who created them. A Pre-Emptive Attack But Ms. Almontaser knew the question placed her in a dicey situation. She had actually tried to avoid doing the interview with the Post, which had editorialized against the school, siding with those who charged in advance of its actually opening its doors that it would foster support for terrorism. The AWAAM t-shirts almost surely signify nothing more ominous than the tendency of politically active young people to be blowhards who take pleasure in raising the blood pressure of their elders. Ms. Almontaser may not have been, in Mr. Bloomberg's words at the time, "media savvy," but someone with the smarts and drive to start a school should have been able to formulate a response to the Post reporters' question that made clear she disapproved of the message on the t-shirts without tying AWAAM members to the hitching post for a verbal flogging. Perhaps that's why Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein didn't look to marshal their forces in defense of Ms. Almontaser, even though the DOE got her into the mess by insisting that she do the interview. Or, they themselves might have shared Mr. Markowitz's apparent reluctance to take on the Post, the one newspaper in town willing and able to wage a journalistic jihad against those who incur its wrath. It is why longtime Post targets like Mario Cuomo and Hillary Clinton eventually made their peace with the paper, even knowing it was likely to oppose them politically more often than not. The late Murray Kempton, who during his second go-round as a Post columnist likened working for Rupert Murdoch to boarding the Staten Island Ferry and discovering that your captain for the day would be Long John Silver, memorably remarked that once the paper's publisher drew his sword on a politician's behalf, he threw away the scabbard. A Kind of Counterpoint To a degree, the paper's editorial belligerence, which as Mr. Cuomo long ago noted often crept into its news coverage as well, serves as a counterpoint to other militant currents that have blown elected officials about for the past four decades. While I was working at the Post in the early 1990s, a black colleague at the Daily News decried the paper's crusade against Leonard Jeffries, who was then the Chairman of the Black Studies Department at City College. Mr. Jeffries, when not making anti-Semitic remarks, liked to discourse on how greater exposure to the sun made blacks superior to whites, whom he called "Ice People." The Post dubbed him "The Nutty Professor" and reported in detail on each new outrageous utterance he made. My colleague maintained that Mr. Jeffries was a clown whom everyone with any sense knew enough not to take seriously, and said the Post's repeated bashing of him just added to the racial polarization in the city. I reminded him that Mr. Jeffries was the head of a department at a public college that was funded by taxpayers, and that somehow the people running the City University system took him seriously enough that he hadn't been yanked out of there. That would happen later, but first he was actually reappointed that fall - although for a shorter term than customary, as if maybe that would be enough to make him take the hint. Burying the News As the reappointment battle came to a head, New York Newsday did a profile of Mr. Jeffries that examined him in a much more serious light than the Post. Those who made it to the continuation page of the profile discovered an accompanying story in which it was reported that Eliot Morgan, a young black man who was editor of the Harvard Crimson, had his life threatened by Professor Jeffries, who apparently objected to his line of questioning. If Newsday believed Mr. Morgan's claim - and there was no reason not to - that piece should have been at the front of the paper, rather than on page 96. Its placement just north of the sports section was less a consequence of poor news judgment by Newsday's editors than it was their uneasiness about stirring the racial pot by giving the story more prominent play. It demonstrated why the then-editor of the Post, Jerry Nachman, had dubbed Newsday a "tabloid in a tutu," but it also reflected the tendency of the news media as well as public officials to keep their heads low when it comes to volatile racial and ethnic issues. Dinkins Stepped Up The problem is, that stance often cedes the playing field to the loudest voices in the arena, which are rarely raised in the name of moderation. And few public officials are willing to take the political risks inherent in arguing that the noise is drowning out the reality of the situation - which is how we wound up invading Iraq. Twenty-two years ago, then-City Clerk David Dinkins showed such courage when he denounced Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for referring to Judaism as a "gutter religion." Minister Farrakhan responded during a speech in Madison Square Garden by telling his audience, "He should pay a price ... do you think the leader should sell out and then live?" Mr. Dinkins's decision to be heard when many other black officials were reluctant to criticize Mr. Farrakhan for fear of prompting such threats helped elect him Manhattan Borough President a month later and made him a viable candidate for Mayor four years later. It gave resonance to his 1989 campaign slogan: "You don't have to be loud to be strong." But it also opened the door for the likes of the Rev. Al Sharpton to castigate him later for selling out his own people to cultivate white support. And when Mr. Dinkins as Mayor was too slow to take action against racial arsonist Sonny Carson for his roles in both the Korean grocery boycott and the Crown Heights riots, he lost much of that white support, even as the black community did not turn out as strongly during his unsuccessful re-election run in 1993 as it had when he captured the mayoralty. Calculated Candor Mr. Dinkins's experience offers insight into why few politicians seeking high office are willing to put themselves on the line in what would be perceived as somebody else's fight, even when they believe the cause is just. Even those like Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani who developed reputations for candor tend to look both ways before wading into heavy traffic, and their controversial statements are usually reserved for cases where they believe they'll please more voters than they'll alienate. Mr. Bloomberg, by virtue of his financial independence as well as his personality, has been willing to take unpopular stands when he believed strongly enough in the cause. In this instance, though, he seems to have concluded that launching a school devoted to Arabic culture was the priority, not ensuring that the person who founded it should be there to guide it through its growing pains. The lack of an outcry from the rest of the political establishment - most notably including Ms. Almontaser's union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators - reflected a consensus on that matter. Even last week, CSA issued a statement decrying the "media frenzy" but saying, "We need to focus our energy on educating those students and creating a safe learning environment." Not, it should be emphasized, returning Ms. Almontaser to the school. If Mr. Markowitz, who plans to run for Public Advocate - an office that requires its holder to raise worthwhile issues that no one else has focused on - was not speaking up when it might have made a difference, why would anybody else if they believed they had something to lose? Such vacuums sometimes make casualties of good people and good ideas, and allow the Farrakhans and the neocons of the world to carry the day. Editor's "Razzle Dazzle" Column RSS feed |
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