Defending the Irish community against racist claims in New York Times — Same old story as Hurricane Sandy relief efforts questioned
Irish Day of Action – Irish community lends a hand after Sandy. It’s called working together, not expecting a Government Handout!
Some weeks back I had calls from several concerned Irish working to restore Breezy Point and other areas in the Rockaways about the attitude of the New York Times reporter Sarah Maslin Nir who was covering the story.
She seemed intent, according to them, on pointing out to everyone that Breezy Point was a whites only community and that the community there had been accused of racism in the past.
The calls were from people who had flown in from Ireland to help with the restoration of Rockaway and some Irish based here were perplexed at the attitude of the reporter who was making her concerns known loudly.
With good reason. The piece that ran in The Times today is laced with innuendo about the allegedly racist Irish, quoting Al Sharpton prominently calling Breezy Point an “apartheid village.”
(No mention of when Al slandered Irish Americans during the Tawana Brawley hoax case absurdly accusing them of IRA involvement.)
Here’s a typical paragraph from the reporter’s piece. “But complicating the current embrace from abroad is the gated community’s extreme insularity. Breezy Point is the whitest neighborhood in the city, a demographic makeup that critics say illustrates the enclave’s entrenched xenophobia, a dark flip side, perhaps, to all that ethnic pride.”
No evidence is given of any xenophobia. Have foreigners been beaten up there? Blacks shot? Has there been massive racist reports from Breezy? Not that I have noticed.Read more:
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