Richard Grayson, author of "Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories for Teens," "I Brake for Delmore Schwartz" and more was none too pleased by Peter Loffredo’s description on OTBKB of ethnic neighborhoods as "a bastion for clannish, homogeneous, xenophobic collections of
ethnic tribes holding onto their frozen identities…"
Whoa that was a mouthful and one I also found offensive (but published anyway). Here’s what Richard Grayson had to say:
Um, so Brooklyn neighborhoods filled with "Jamaicans" and "Russians" and "Polish" are xenophobic?
This is the kind of stuff that makes us native Brooklynites from the
non-brownstone neighborhoods quite annoyed. The writer needs to get out
more. Go to Bensonhurst or Canarsie or Sheepshead Bay or Homecrest or
Marine Park and you will see plenty of diversity and heterogenity.Pete, you have my permission to go on living…but you need to get out more…
Hi Richard – My apologies as well for a very curmudgeonly posting on my part. I think I had gotten a bit too involved, angry and perhaps swept up in the whole Clinton primary rhetoric about “blue collar, white people” rejecting Barack Obama because he’s “other” than they are. I do in fact know that in every neighborhood, there are open minds and open hearts. Thanks for slapping me up a bit.
Peter
Well, I didn’t go on the link and somehow I didn’t associate “Pete” with Dr. Loffredo and didn’t know what his blog title meant, and the last line sounds horrible, and I didn’t mean it come out that way. I apologize profusely like that. Even on the subway today I felt bad about it. I thought, I hope Louise doesn’t print that part.
The other part: I just think we shouldn’t stereotype anyone, be it Park Slope parents or people in recognizably ethnic neighborhoods. I teach at Brooklyn College on weekends in a program for Borough of Manhattan Community College and most of my students come from the same kinds of neighborhoods — not fashionable, not affluent — where my friends and I came from when we went to BC back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A lot of great artists and writers came out of these neighborhoods.
It is kind of insulting to say that Brooklyn was not a melting pot even in the early part of the 19th century, when my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents lived here.
Yesterday I was at the Norwegian Day Parade on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, and I for one miss the recognizably Norwegian character the streets used to have in the old days. I understand the changes and welcome them, but it is condescending to say that the more affluent people in Brooklyn are somehow more enlightened than those who live in the neighborhoods most newer residents wouldn’t know how to get to.
On Saturday on my way to Brooklyn College via the G train (where is that tunnel to the Atlantic Ave. station?) I overheard one woman in a Jamaican accent say to another, “Our neighborhood is changing so much, new people moving in…”
The other woman, also in a Jamaican accent, said, “Well, you know, I like it. I like the changes.”
“Me too,” said the first one.
Amen.