March 6, 2000
Dear Mayor,
As a resident just outside of the great world city of New York, I must say that I am thankful to that you are not my mayor. In that I am a fair minded person I acknowledge your accomplishments in facilitating the economic and social renaissance of New York, but it seems that in your zeal to accomplish this end you have forgotten the sacred trust between you and all (not some) of the citizens in your city. It seems that you have forgotten or chose to ignore that you represent all of New York City, and that all of your citizens should be able to look to you for guidance in times of crisis. It seems that you have forgotten, or maybe you never knew that in our constitutional democracy underpinned by the Bill of Rights it is a leader’s responsibility to balance the need for law and order with the individual’s God given, inalienable rights that are recognized by our form of government.
Your actions lead me to believe that you may have no idea what I am talking about, so let me be more specific. In the wake of the four police officers being acquitted of all charges of criminal responsibility for the death of Amadou Diallo, a mayor who cared about or understood the imperative need for public confidences in a government that is for the people and by the people, would have espoused words of healing to at least give the impression of concern for all citizens no matter their view on the jury’s decisions.
You could have positioned yourself squarely in the middle of the thousands of people who felt alienated from the judicial system by the verdict and those in who saw justice in the acquittals by at least acknowledging there is a problem between the community and law enforcement that must be addressed. Your defense to parry any charges of unfairness leveled at you would have been your willingness to sit down with all concerned in an effort to develop a process that would genuinely help heal the wounds caused by the events in the Abner Louima incident and the tragic death of Mr. Diallo. With such a large number of people on both sides of this issue feeling anxiety, frustration, and alienation you could have easily acted as a point of unity.
Instead you chose to take an aggressive stance by verbally assaulting resident’s who were exercising their First Amendment Rights to freedom of speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances by calling the protestors “troublemakers.” Yes the officers were found not guilty by a court of law. But time has shown that even the United States Supreme Court has been wrong before; the
Dred Scott Case, Plessy v. Ferguson, and many in your party say that the jury is still out on
Roe v. Wade. Whether you agree or not with the verdicts you must agree that the constitution protects the people’s right to protest when they disagree with their government. If we were both alive in 1857 I hope I could at least count on you to support my decision to protest the injustice visited upon my person due to the pigmentation in my skin.
In many ways I am afraid of you Mayor Gulliani. You have a tendency to vest your authority in the rule of law rather than in the rule of self-government. This is autocratic and authoritarian. I do not expect you to compromise the rule of law, but it must always be tested against the grievances of the people. The afore mentioned Supreme Court decisions where over turned not by enlightened justices, but by civil activists pushing for unjust laws to be righted.
Our history is replete with such instances. Our political founding fathers’ grievances against the crown dominated the document that established our independence. This is the basis for the beginning of our democracy and acts as the engine for the ever-continuing expansion of the definition of individual–freedom for all people. Your unwillingness to facilitate dialogue and constant maneuvering to side with authority enforcing apparatus in times of acute social crisis leads me to ask the question, what kind of leader would you be if we did not live in a constitutional democracy augmented by a Bill of Rights? This is a question all of New York should ask itself while contemplating sending you to Washington D.C. Admittedly you would be less dangerous as a legislator with no executive authority over the government’s agents of sanctioned violence, but a senate seat is a stepping-stone to the presidency. That is a nightmare I pray I only dream and never see.
May we learn from our mistakes and find peace in our hearts.
March 6, 2000
Dear Mayor,
As a resident just outside of the great world city of New York, I must say that I am thankful to that you are not my mayor. In that I am a fair minded person I acknowledge your accomplishments in facilitating the economic and social renaissance of New York, but it seems that in your zeal to accomplish this end you have forgotten the sacred trust between you and all (not some) of the citizens in your city. It seems that you have forgotten or chose to ignore that you represent all of New York City, and that all of your citizens should be able to look to you for guidance in times of crisis. It seems that you have forgotten, or maybe you never knew that in our constitutional democracy underpinned by the Bill of Rights it is a leader’s responsibility to balance the need for law and order with the individual’s God given, inalienable rights that are recognized by our form of government.
Your actions lead me to believe that you may have no idea what I am talking about, so let me be more specific. In the wake of the four police officers being acquitted of all charges of criminal responsibility for the death of Amadou Diallo, a mayor who cared about or understood the imperative need for public confidences in a government that is for the people and by the people, would have espoused words of healing to at least give the impression of concern for all citizens no matter their view on the jury’s decisions.
You could have positioned yourself squarely in the middle of the thousands of people who felt alienated from the judicial system by the verdict and those in who saw justice in the acquittals by at least acknowledging there is a problem between the community and law enforcement that must be addressed. Your defense to parry any charges of unfairness leveled at you would have been your willingness to sit down with all concerned in an effort to develop a process that would genuinely help heal the wounds caused by the events in the Abner Louima incident and the tragic death of Mr. Diallo. With such a large number of people on both sides of this issue feeling anxiety, frustration, and alienation you could have easily acted as a point of unity.
Instead you chose to take an aggressive stance by verbally assaulting resident’s who were exercising their First Amendment Rights to freedom of speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances by calling the protestors “troublemakers.” Yes the officers were found not guilty by a court of law. But time has shown that even the United States Supreme Court has been wrong before; the Dred Scott Case, Plessy v. Ferguson, and many in your party say that the jury is still out on Roe v. Wade. Whether you agree or not with the verdicts you must agree that the constitution protects the people’s right to protest when they disagree with their government. If we were both alive in 1857 I hope I could at least count on you to support my decision to protest the injustice visited upon my person due to the pigmentation in my skin.
In many ways I am afraid of you Mayor Gulliani. You have a tendency to vest your authority in the rule of law rather than in the rule of self-government. This is autocratic and authoritarian. I do not expect you to compromise the rule of law, but it must always be tested against the grievances of the people. The afore mentioned Supreme Court decisions where over turned not by enlightened justices, but by civil activists pushing for unjust laws to be righted.
Our history is replete with such instances. Our political founding fathers’ grievances against the crown dominated the document that established our independence. This is the basis for the beginning of our democracy and acts as the engine for the ever-continuing expansion of the definition of individual–freedom for all people. Your unwillingness to facilitate dialogue and constant maneuvering to side with authority enforcing apparatus in times of acute social crisis leads me to ask the question, what kind of leader would you be if we did not live in a constitutional democracy augmented by a Bill of Rights? This is a question all of New York should ask itself while contemplating sending you to Washington D.C. Admittedly you would be less dangerous as a legislator with no executive authority over the government’s agents of sanctioned violence, but a senate seat is a stepping-stone to the presidency. That is a nightmare I pray I only dream and never see.
May we learn from our mistakes and find peace in our hearts.
