Posted by Susan Roth on December 24, 1998 at 22:00:04:
In Reply to: Follow up:Johnny Reb posted by Gary Glanzman on October 20, 1998 at 02:31:13:
: It was the first warm spring day after a cold winter, and we were all hanging out in full force in the circle, spilling out onto the Wortman sidewalk. It was about 8 in the evening when they came, Johnny, Sandy, Ralphie "Meatball", and the rest of the ENY "hitter face crew". Jimmy Larkin and Clipper added their support. There must have been at least 150-200 of us milling about. It was probably around 1968, the final peak and near end of the white population in ENY. From where I was standing, I could hear loud and angry voices forcing those spilling out of the circle and onto the avenue back into the circle which was surrounded by a fence. It was as if we were cows being forced into a corral. It wasn't very long before there was complete quiet and Sandy began to speak. You could hear a pin drop between pauses. He was raving on in some paranoid frenzy about some Puerto Ricans or Blacks, I can't remember, that we were supposed to get before they got us. The thing was that nobody really knew any of those people he was talking about. I think they lived on the other side of Linden Blvd. where few of us ever went, except maybe to walk to the New Lots train station. But the funny thing was that after he was through speaking, and of course threatening us with our own life if we didn't help out to get them, we had some vague sense for a few moments that soon we had to do the right thing and honor our race by going after these people that no one knew or cared about. For many of us the only people we wanted to pursue were the ones who were selling the best white opiated hashish. I recall the person standing next to me saying, we needed to hear that, we needed to have someone snap us out of our doldrums and activate us to do this honorable deed and smash some black or Puerto Rican over the head with a baseball bat. Some people, perhaps many, were convinced, if only for a few minutes, that we should stop standing around and join them in their quest to defend our integrity, race and territory. If the man had nothing he had charisma.
: I thought about that from time to time, if Sandy reb hadn't been such a bully, filled with anger and hate, he may have accomplished much in his life. Instead he was destined for trouble.
: I have to disagree VERY strongly with the person who says they remember ENY being a multicultrual neighborhood...that is the last thing I would call it. It was quite segregated..Linden Blvd being the dividing line the races didn't cross. The few times we did, we each encountered fear and misunderstandings...there were a few black families in the projects and some were accepted, but for the most part I remember lots of hate on both sides...as said in "South Pacific," "you have to be taught" and i think many of us were taught that but luckily i think most of us unlearned it. I know i did. Another rude awakening for me was learning when I moved out of the projects, and eventually out here to California that most of the world isn't Jewish! I remember all of us growing up in the 95% Jewish populated projects thinking Christians were the minority!