Billionaire Michael Rubens Bloomberg was not on the Democratic Debate stage last Wednesday evening and for that, I’m so grateful. I didn’t have to get a new TV. And so as to save myself the trouble and money of replacing a television set, I thought I’d use this forum to release the pent-up anger before the next debate rolls around.
Michael Bloomberg served three terms as Mayor of New York City from 2001-2013. A life-long Democrat, Bloomberg won his first two terms as a Republican, then, so as to circumvent laws and norms, he became an Independent for his third term. Like his predecessor before him, Rudolph Giuliani, Mr. Bloomberg would make his mark by showing that he was tough on crime and on criminals. And like Giuliani before him, Mike Bloomberg knew the criminals...on sight. As far as the former mayors of New York were concerned, one need only look at an individual’s melanin quotient to determine their propensity for criminality, and so, ably assisted by the odious Ray Kelly, Bloomberg and his NYPD enthusiastically embraced and aggressively expanded the campaign started by Giuliani of terrorizing, humiliating, and disenfranchising black and brown New Yorkers.
In response to allegations that the program unfairly targets African-American and Hispanic-American individuals, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg has stated that it is because African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are more likely to be violent criminals and victims of violent crime.[11]
Not content with getting three terms as the head of the most diverse city in the nation, Bloomberg now wants to call 1600 Pennsylvania Ave his home. He cleverly used the Republican Party to achieve his goal of becoming Mayor of New York; he used Independents when he needed them, and he thinks he can use black and brown folks to help him on his journey to becoming the President of the United States. I have news for you, bruh, it ain’t gonna happen.
“Over time, I’ve come to understand something that I long struggled to admit to myself: I got something important wrong. I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand that back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I was totally focused on saving lives, but as we know, good intentions aren’t good enough. Now, hindsight is 20/20. But, as crime continued to come down as we reduced stops, and as it continued to come down during the next administration, to its credit, I now see that we could and should have acted sooner and acted faster to cut the stops. I wish we had. I’m sorry that we didn’t. But, I can’t change history. However today, I want you to know that I realize back then I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Translation:
I’ve come to understand something: My billions alone cannot get me into the WH. We all know that I didn’t give a flying fu...well, we all know that I cared not one whit about the impact my racist, discriminatory policies were having on the black and Latinx communities. We all know that I was totally focused on saving white lives, white properties, and building a name for myself. Today I come a-crawling because there’s no way in hell I’m going to make it the White House without your votes. I need you...or rather, I need your support...well, not really your support; I just need your votes on election day. So forget about what I did to your sons, fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers, uncles, nephews, and cousins back in the day. Forget about the shame, the violations, the emasculation of your menfolk in front of your womenfolk; forget about the financial hardships they suffered as a direct result of oppressive overpolicing. Just forgive me and vote for me. I know you are good at forgiving.
I tell you, his sincere apology broke my heart. Really, it did. (Excuse me while I grab some tissues.) His grand apology, issued at a black church no less, was delivered on Nov.17, 2019. Here he is in March earlier this year:
“It’s just not going to happen on a national level for somebody like me starting where I am unless I was willing to change all my views and go on what CNN called an apology tour,”
In March, he had no intention of apologizing because, in his mind, he’d done nothing wrong. What changed between March and November, I wonder?
But let’s take a look at what Bloomberg is now conveniently apologizing for. What is it that he did?
From the New York Civil Liberties Union:
The number of street stops had grown to 685,724 in 2011 from about 97,000 in 2002, the year Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office. On Friday, the Police Department released data showing that the stops have occurred at an even higher pace for the first three months of this year.
There should be asterisks beside those numbers. Those were the numbers that cops volunteered to report. During the heydays of Stop&Frisk, YouTube and Twitter were not around, and we had yet to discover the value of smartphones. Police actions went unreported, underreported, and misreported.
New York Civil Liberties Union:
An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 5 million times since 2002, and that Black and Latinx communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent.
Stop and Frisk was the enforcing arm of white supremacy.
One evening in August of 2006, I was celebrating my 18th birthday with my cousin and a friend. We were staying at my sister’s house on 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan and decided to walk to a nearby place and get some burgers. It was closed so we sat on benches in the median strip that runs down the middle of Broadway. We were talking, watching the night go by, enjoying the evening when suddenly, and out of nowhere, squad cars surrounded us. A policeman yelled from the window, “Get on the ground!”
I was stunned. And I was scared. Then I was on the ground — with a gun pointed at me. I couldn’t see what was happening but I could feel a policeman’s hand reach into my pocket and remove my wallet. Apparently he looked through and found the ID I kept there. “Happy Birthday,” he said sarcastically. The officers questioned my cousin and friend, asked what they were doing in town, and then said goodnight and left us on the sidewalk.
Stop and Frisk was meant to keep black and brown folks in their place. When civil rights organizations protested against the over-policing and pointed out that black men and boys were stopped at an alarming rate, Michael Bloomberg complained that too many white people were being stopped.
Mayor Bloomberg went full troll during his weekly radio appearance on Friday, offering his opinion that too many white people are being stopped-and-frisked...but the NYPD has really been lax when it comes to stop-and-frisking minorities! "I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It's exactly the reverse of what they say," Bloomberg said, referring to the City Council passing two NYPD oversight bills intended to check the NYPD's allegedly unconstitutional enforcement policies (bills he's already vowed to veto).
In 2013, courageous Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that Stop & Frisk was unconstitutional.
The judge found that for much of the last decade, patrol officers had stopped innocent people without any objective reason to suspect them of wrongdoing. But her criticism went beyond the conduct of police officers.
“I also conclude that the city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” she wrote, citing statements that Mr. Bloomberg and the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, have made in defending the policy.
How did Bloomberg respond to that ruling? Do you think he took one nanosecond to reflect on the harm done to innocent people? Any compassion for the lasting damage done to young children who were traumatized by armed cops manhandling them at will? Any shred of concern for the physical, emotional or financial welfare of those who were being impacted by his racist policy? Any remorse at all? Nah, son. Instead, he was incensed! Incensed that his bloodthirsty, racist cops would be deprived of their daily fix of humiliating minority communities. He attacked the judge and vowed to appeal the ruling.
Now, 77-year-old Bloomberg wants us to believe that he’s had an epiphany. He wants us to believe that he’s sorry for the pain he caused. He stood at that podium and delivered his carefully written apology and he really thinks that he’ll have people convinced that he’s a changed man. Haha!
It is probable that we were bamboozled in the past It is possible that we will be bamboozled in the future But one thing I know for sure We will not be bamboozled by Michael R. Bloomberg
Not today, and certainly not tomorrow
Bye Felicia!