Another chillul hashem

marina

Thu, May 14 2015, 1:00 pm

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli......html

These landlords- don't you feel bad for them? WAAAAA

They are paying 10-30K for all the black people to move out of their buildings. Per family. It's totally understandable. They are business men and clearly their financial situation is in jeopardy if they are down to paying tens of thousands of dollars per family. So behaving in this illegal, bigoted, and discriminatory manner is 100% justifiable. Don't you agree?

I mean if these people suddenly started paying chabadnicks to leave, we would all agree that they were also justified, right? http://crownheights.info/chaba.....abad/

Dear Moderators: If you lock this post, I will have no choice but to start posting about gay meshichists at the kotel. Just letting you know.

black sheep

Thu, May 14 2015, 2:26 pm

just to clarify before I even say what I want to say, so that it cannot be taken out of context, I am not in favor of any type of racism at all. I believe that every single human being must be evaluated based on his or her own merit, assumptions should not be made based on race, gender, or religion.

that said, I wonder why you only noticed the racial bias towards blacks in this article and ignored the racial bias towards jews? the article is quite hypocritical, it talks about how jewish landlords are all racist against blacks. isn't that statement in itself racist towards jews? (or call it anti-religious, whatever, you get my point.)

here is an example, a quote from the article, "Some Jewish people, they’re going to come in and they’re going to try to rip off the black tenants — and the tenants know it, there’s word of mouth. So it’s like, “Oh, a Jewish guy again?” There’s a lot of Jewish guys moving around. Like a lot, a lot, a lot of investors who are either Hasidic Jews or a little bit less, but they’re Jewish. They’re holding Bed-Stuy like this — he squeezes at the air in front of him, strangling it. So sometimes it’s like, “Hello, this was our neighborhood. What are you doing here?”"

I smell an agenda here, if you ask me.

5mom

Thu, May 14 2015, 2:47 pm

black sheep wrote:

This was the chassid speaking, not the reporter. You could argue that the article could have featured a non-Jewish slumlord. It would have been nice to know what percentage of slumlords are chassidim, but the way it stands, this guy embarrassed himself big time.

saw50st8

Thu, May 14 2015, 2:53 pm

Marina (and don't take this as excusing any actions),

My (white) grandparents were offered a lot of money for their washington heights apartment. Their landlord wanted them out (they were rent stabilized and paying a lot less than they could get on an open market) and paid them a ton of money to move out. The building is now filled with young hispanics paying a lot more rent - like triple.

This happens all over NYC. It just sounds worse saying black/white vs old/young or anything else.

Barbara

Thu, May 14 2015, 2:58 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

In that case, though, the landlord didn't care what race they were. The landlord wanted them out because of rent stabilization.

Here, the owner made clear that he didn't want any people of color living in his buildings, because his tenants (who probably were not Jewish, btw) didn't want blacks living in the buildings.

Raisin

Thu, May 14 2015, 4:22 pm

gosh, I wish I would be offered that type of money to move!

In this case I am more shocked at the racism of the people moving in. Apparently they object if someone has a black roommate. Really? Why? I can understand not wanting poor or low class neighbours who might somehow bring down the tone of the building by not looking after their house, or engaging in criminal or anti social behaviour. But surely most yuppies are aware that this is not exclusive to any race. And I would think anyone who is prepared to pay the new higher rent is likely a different class of person.

I think this scenario is common in areas undergoing gentrification. I'm sure it happens in areas inhabited by poor white people. (or other ethnic groups)

Also, didn't this process happen in reverse in the 60s? What was known as white flight? This was also encouraged by estate agents.

Quote:

Blockbusting
Main article: Blockbusting
The real estate business practice of "blockbusting" was a for-profit catalyst for white flight and a means to control non-white migration. By subterfuge, real estate agents would facilitate black people buying a house in a white neighborhood, either by buying the house themselves, or via a white proxy buyer, and then re-selling it to the black family. The remaining white inhabitants (alarmed by real estate agents and the local newsmedia),[25] fearing devalued residential property, would quickly sell, usually at a loss. Losses happened when they sold en masse, and would sell the properties to the incoming black families, profiting from price arbitrage and the sales commissions from both the blacks and the whites. By such tactics, the racial composition of a neighborhood population often changed completely in a few years.[26

Jeanette

Thu, May 14 2015, 4:28 pm

Raisin wrote:

have any frum families in crown heights been offered money to move?

Not that I know of, but developers/landlords like him are contributing to make the area unaffordable for the average frum family. Just 2-3 years ago you could still buy a house for under $500k. Now it's a real metziah if you find something under a million.

zaq

Thu, May 14 2015, 6:33 pm

Raisin wrote:

But surely most yuppies are aware that this is not exclusive to any race. And I would think anyone who is prepared to pay the new higher rent is likely a different class of person.

]

Ugh, did you really post this? Do you really believe that just because people have money they are "higher class"? Have you never heard of "trust-fund trash"? Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are shining examples of people rolling in dough who have all the class of alley cats. I would not want them OR their friends as a neighbor, or as a tenant if I owned a building.

Raisin

Thu, May 14 2015, 6:40 pm

zaq wrote:

No, of course I don't believe that. I am just trying to get into the headspace of the obnoxious tenants who seem to object so much to black neighbours. Is it because of race or class?

I am talking about hard working young professionals, not paris hilton. Do you think paris hilton or the like is moving into Bed-stuy? I assume she lives in manhatten and can in any case afford to hire people to clean up after her messes.

zaq

Thu, May 14 2015, 6:58 pm

Raisin wrote:

Also, didn't this process happen in reverse in the 60s? What was known as white flight? This was also encouraged by estate agents.

Landlords did not buy out tenants. Whites fled to the suburbs in a panic. They feared that their property values would plummet as soon as a black family moved into the neighborhood. Idiots. had they stayed put, nothing would have happened. The ones who fled first made money; the ones who fled last often lost their shirts because they were desperate to sell, but values had dropped. Real estate agents encouraged flight on the part of white homeowners because the agents make money on every sale. They care nothing about the stability of a neighborhood, but encourage turnover because more turnover means more money for them.

Landlords, on the other hand, did NOT want their white tenants fleeing. As stable tenants fled to the burbs, properties were left vacant or almost vacant. Crime was on the rise all over the city, and vacant apartment attracted squatters with all the problems they create. As neighborhoods declined, property values declined as well, and many landlords stopped maintaining buildings and ultimately simply abandoned buildings that were costing them more in upkeep than they were worth in terms of income. You could have picked up a good-size apartment building in places like the South Bronx, Harlem and East New York for a song. However, you would have to evict the junkies and drug pushers, repair all the broken windows and plumbing and ripped-out wiring, and would still have to hold on to that property for twenty or thirty years before you could think of doing anything with it. No doubt some canny investors who could afford to tie up money for that long did just that.

zaq

Thu, May 14 2015, 7:06 pm

What do we know about the reporter? is there any chance he is making up whole portions of the interview? If not, how can anyone be so criminally STUPID as that landlord? I understand that many Chassidim are unworldly and don't really understand the secular media, but this is one Chossid who is obviously very canny indeed. A racist, a thief and a liar, but a canny one. So what was he thinking when he gave that interview? That readers would admire his business acumen? He cannot be unaware that he is a racist, a thief, and a liar, and he also cannot have thought that interviewer was from the Chassidish papers and the interview would be posted only among Chassidim. He had to know that everything he said would be posted for the entire world to read. So he had to open his big fat mouth and make Jews look even worse in the media than they already do? Cherem is too good for him.

zaq

Thu, May 14 2015, 7:17 pm

Raisin wrote:

You are an elitist, assuming that people with more money have more "class". Why is a hard-working young professional better than a hard-working middle-aged cleaning lady or mechanic? Working class people also want and deserve a nice clean affordable and safe place to live. And you think hard-working young professionals don't do drugs, drink to excess, or have wild parties?

Dandelion1

Thu, May 14 2015, 8:34 pm

The whole thing is suspect. This guy is willing to publicize his entire system? And give away all his "secrets?" In the newspaper. And by "whispering" the mean parts he is protecting his interests? I don't buy it. This guy sounds like he's never made an uncalculated move in his life. But he just poured it all out to this reporter.... because.... why? Something or someone is fishy here.

And I don't say that because I'm trying to exonerate all Jewish people. I know firsthand, as I'm sure many do, that there are bad people everywhere. But the whole big successful businessman putting it all out there for no reason at all is very odd and sort of unbelievable.

Either way, I don't see it as reflecting badly on all Jews. I see it as reflecting bad on him. I mean, we are supposed to eschew racial stereotypes, but the second the bad guy is a Jew we all start crying chillul Hashem. Why? Because only we Jews are enlightened enough not to stereotype others? Let's give other groups credit for being intelligent and civilized enough not to stereotype us.

marina

Thu, May 14 2015, 8:58 pm

ora_43 wrote:

I don't get the WAAA. Do you think the article sympathizes with him? Or that posters here will?

The article seemed to me to be saying straight out, "Hey, come meet this shady businessman who's also unabashedly racist."

No, sorry! I was discussing this issue on my FB page and I had a couple of commentators who justify this behavior by worrying about this poor man's parnassa. In sum, I was unnecessarily and inappropriately sarcastic in the original post. Sorry!

marina

Thu, May 14 2015, 9:01 pm

black sheep wrote:

yes, there is a lot of tension on both sides and African Americans can certainly be anti-Semitic. But here there is a power difference. If your landlord is a bigot, that's a bigger problem than if the tenant is. Like maybe an employee is a bigot, but if the boss is that's a bigger problem.

The landlord here affects whole neighborhoods of people. It's not one anti-Semite in a dingy apartment.

PinkFridge

Thu, May 14 2015, 9:06 pm

I'm going to confess that I haven't read the article, and just skimmed the posts here. I'm not asking anyone to do my HW for me but have one question for you, Marina: this sounds awful. My goal and life game plan is that all my actions should make the Shem Shamayim beloved among His creations. Bottom line: what do you want any of to do based on this? Write letters? Picket? Concentrate on making an effort to make a Kiddush Hashem in our daily actions? What?