A Culture Of Racism: The Staten Island PD And The Tea Party Congressman

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Rep Grimm and NYPD Captain Peter DeBlasio

"I grew up in New York in a neighborhoodthat was largely Italian. New York, likeAnytown, USA, has its own version ofracism.  It is not the kind you hear in thepost-Jim Crow South; it is more “ethnic.”  Conversation amongst high school friendsincluded racial epithets in Italian, veryoffensive to African Americans, thrownaround casually.   It almost seemed normalto hear the word “ moolignan,” Italian foreggplant (technically Mulignane; could becombination of Moolie and hooligan) or“spic” for a Hispanic person."

I grew up in this racist culture,  experienced the racial epphitetsbon on a daily basis and suffered the violence that came along with this brutish behavior. I was the only Black kid in my class from the third to the 12th grades.