Bill Clinton did more than any other human being, of any race, to bring prosperity to Harlem. Does that undisputed fact of history obligate black people to support his wife? No. But it does, I think obligate the people of Harlem to show him some respect. Calling him a plantation owner, as did NY State Senator Bill Perkins in February of 2008, is disgusting and indefensible. We must never forgive or forget.From Time magazine, 1994:
Along Harlem's main thoroughfare, 125th Street, business is booming, a function of indigenous forces mostly but of Clinton's policies as well. The vacancy rate for commercial property is less than 2%, and space is renting for more than $30 per sq. ft., about the same as in midtown Manhattan, an astounding surge. New stores will soon dot the cross streets, and nearby housing units are being rehabilitated. The private investment responsible for most of this growth is following rising incomes and the return of better-off families.
"EZs," as they are known, are the latest incarnation of an old idea formerly called enterprise zones. What Clinton's added to the notion beyond tax incentives for businesses is a panoply of social services (day care and job training being the most prominent) designed to produce a work force capable of staffing the enterprises likely to be attracted by the tax breaks. After the Harlem-South Bronx EZ is formally approved later this year, the Federal Government will pour $100 million into the area, an amount New York City and State will match. Added to the total $300 million will be about $70 million in low-interest loans from Fleet Bank.From the New York Times, 2001:
Mr. Clinton, who spoke with great feeling during his presidency about the needs of the underclass, noted during his Harlem speech that Harlem's ''empowerment zone,'' created during his presidency, had attracted $600 million in private investment.By way of contrast...
Barack Obama directly intervened to make sure that local crime lord Tony Rezko got massive taxpayer subsidies for a tenement housing project. Tony stashed at least $100 million overseas, then pleaded poor as he refused to pay his mortgages or pay the utility bills for his tenements.
Hundreds of extremely poor black people suffered Chicago winters without heat. The neighborhood, already dismal, just got worse and worse.
Although he pretended to be out of cash, Fat Tony somehow found enough $ to contribute a quarter-million to Obama's campaign and to help him buy a mansion that the new Senator could not otherwise afford.
Will black people continue to judge entirely by skin color, by rhetoric, by wishful thinking -- or will they also pay attention to resumes?
When Jeremiah Wright accused Clinton of "riding dirty" -- that is, of screwing over the black community -- he did not cite a single real-world example. He could not come up with one specific illustration to prove his claim. Instead, he relied on puerile name-calling.
Wright lives in a mansion too -- in an upper-class white neighborhood, well away from the kind of people who suffered under Tony Rezko's regime. Just who is "riding dirty"?
10 comments:
Yes, if we had a real press, this would have been reported a long time ago. It would have taken about 5 minutes in Google to get all the particulars. That people don't seem to care just makes me crazy. That they don't seem to care what despicable things have been ignored to get this man elected makes me crazy. Has 8 years of Bush totally infected the integrity of everyone in government and of the populace to even notice what is happening? We're living in scary times.
Clinton's legacy contains many boons to minorities, and many scourges, both of which are underreported and misunderstood.
Part of the problem was his triangulation, and use of Republican type ideas to get the majorities necessary in GOP-majority Congresses, which required a certain tenor of approach.
Joe mentions one economic benefit from the enterprise zone idea (a GOP favored notion, to which Clinton added many improvements). The SCHIP program, extending Medicaid coverage from the poor to the near-poor (households at 120% up to 150% of poverty levels), may have been the greatest contribution to minority welfare of any president since LBJ. Likewise Clinton's doubling of the GOP-preferred EITC (earned income tax credit) levels of benefits. And if the best welfare is a job, his score of millions of new jobs and unemployment BELOW 4% (??!??!), his economic policies were a boon to all, but notably also the poor and working class, all of whom showed income gains in excess of inflation.
However, he continued the war on drugs, and the disparate sentencing arrangements for crack compared to powder cocaine. He massively increased death penalty laws, which invidiously and wrongfully harm minorities. While his welfare reform didn't have the dire consequences predicted at the time because of his great economic performance, we are about to see the immense tragedies it will cause.
It's a mixed bag, and just as Clinton deserves far more credit than he gets, there is ample and justified blame that is often equally overlooked.
...sofla
RIDIN DIRTY: BY DEFINITION
HipHop/Rapp culture regards "ridin dirty" as having drugs/guns in the car.
In Bill Clintons case, although he clearly never screwed the AA community (as you so accuraltey point out) in view of the ingratitude demonstrated by them (AA's) a "dirty" ride is on it's way.
<>_<> HIDE AND SEE
an informative look back at a part of history i had forgotten, and it wasn't even that long ago.
thanks
sof...
It is ridiculous to argue that Bill Clinton "massively increased" death penalty laws. Laws are made by Congress. Federal death penalty cases are still quite rare, and the Federal government (as opposed to the several state governments) has executed exactly three inmates since 1977.
Welfare reform was massively popular. I was not for it, but most people were. If Bill Clinton had not done it, a Republican (probably someone further to the right than Dole) would have won in 1996 -- running on that issue alone -- and would have worked with the Gingrich congress. God only knows what would have happened then.
As I've said several times previously -- Nixon did not get into politics to enact an EPA, and Clinton did not enter politics to enact welfare reform. We all bow to our times.
Federal mandatory drug sentencing laws are made by Congress. It's annoying to hear people blame Clinton for things done (or not done) by Newt and the gang.
Oh, please. You cannot be familiar with New York, Harlem or the real estate market to write this.
Harlem is booming because of the prolonged economic, and especially real estate boom in Manhattan, where the average price of a cruddy studio condo is well over $1 million. That boom has been gathering strength for almost three decades, and Harlem's re-development, while slower than the rest of Manhattan began then. It was inevitable: Harlem is about 10 minutes from midtown on the fastest express train (the famous "A Train") in the city. The people most responsible for the renewed prosperity of Harlem were the faceless engineers who laid out the A Train, and the local politicos and businessmen who decided to revive the Apollo Theater and make it the anchor for 125th Street.
--HamdenRice
I did not write it. Time magazine did, in 1994. I clearly state this. Neither does the piece give Clinton sole credit.
Hamden, like most other messianic Obots, you seem to have lost your ability to read. But you have gained, it would seem, a newfound ability to rationalize the abominable. You ARE still associated with the Disgusting Undemocrats, are you not? If so, then you should be treated with the same contempt with which I would treat anyone associated with (say) the Free Republic back in 2004, or the Spotlight.
Don't ever expect me to apologize for that comparison. History will bear me out. Besides, I have a phobic reaction to all mob movements. I think you would be happier elsewhere.
Please, Joe. We all know that, contrary to the old saw that claims the president proposes, and the Congress disposes, many presidents propose signature programs that they author, prepare in detail for legislative action, and then, push these favorite ideas of theirs through the Congress.
A president enjoys many powers, both as titular head of his party, and with his veto pen. Are we really going to deny Clinton credit for 100,000 cops on the beat, or for his tax increase, or getting NAFTA passed, or passing the Brady Bill? All of these required strenuous presidential involvement to win out against determined opposition.
In fact, Clinton RAN on welfare reform as a New Democrat-- it was one of his several hundred written pledged policy push areas. He VETOED the Gingrich reform legislation TWICE, not liking its more punitive measures. When he asked Dick Morris to poll on the question of signing the bill or vetoing it on the third go-around, Morris told him his polling indicated he'd win re-election without signing it, but more narrowly, while if he signed it, he would cruise to a significantly easier re-election win. Clinton did NOT think he had to sign it on the third go-round or face defeat.
Clinton's Omnibus Crime bill was another such pet policy position, and Clinton bragged about its getting passed some 20 or more new federal death penalty laws for non-murder kinds of offenses.
Beyond that, Clinton let a massive reform of the rules for habeus appeals through as part of his bill. This 'reform' strictly limited the number and timing of any such appeals, with the specific admission that even if the death-row defendant had new DNA evidence proving his innocence, he might not qualify for an appeal if he'd already had his one or two that were allowed, or had passed the time frame in which they were allowed.
As a result, we saw an explosion of executions, just at the time we were discovering 20% rates of false conviction in capital cases (in Illinois, e.g.).
What was the order of magnitude of what I've described as an explosion? Clinton's policies led to a tripling of the rate of executions. According to the New York Times, "While it took 12 years after 1976 to carry out 100 executions, there have been 82 executions in the first 10 months of this year alone, a pace unequaled since the early 1950s."
There is no reason I'm aware of to think Clinton wasn't on board with this effect, and only forced into it by a hostile Congress. For Clinton always campaigned in a get tough on crime mode, to break the public perception of Democrats as coddlers of criminals. He loved the stupid, but seductive, 3 strikes laws, and apparently, thought all but eliminating the application of habeus corpus to convictees was a reasonable policy, given its political benefits.
...sofla
The Obambots clump the Clinton years with the Bush years, meanwhile Chris Matthews is quick to point out that now that the Clintons are out of the way Barack Obama should compare and contrast the Clinton years with the Bush years to his advantage.
It seems like Bill Clinton was an initiator of the growth of Harlem, and Obamabots will continue to deny it.
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