Racism and The New York Post
By Pedro Antonio Garcia (January 19, 2014)
Recently, The New York Post used its front page to support a racist story against New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. The basis for this article was a lawsuit filed by a disgruntled political opponent alleging that a mural commissioned by the then candidate for Speaker was a form of Santeria used to hex her, contributing to her losing the primary elections. The mural depicts a bird ornately enveloped and adorned with wooden planks, a motif the artist, Don Rimx, aka David Sepulveda, uses in most of his work. The claim is that the nefarious purpose of the mural was to bewitch and cause her to lose the election.
To dismiss this article as simple reporting would negate the numerous incidents throughout The Post's history of racist, negative, and inflammatory drivel. The story reinforces a stereotype it wants to perpetuate based on racism and, ultimately, power. If the story's writer had actually done, you know, reporting, the writer would have called the artist to determine the meaning of the mural. The artist, Don Rimx, would have said the following:
"[The work is ] representing the street of the beautiful people who work to support their families and are far away from their countries by things in life, and they are going to fly like migratory birds to follow building their dreams of giving to theirs that which they never had."
No bird-head chopping here.
However, it is easier to confirm a stereotype than to decipher the hysteria, so the writer simply evoked tired images of general Satanic worshipping, spells, and institutionalized racist associations with African Traditional Religions, lumped them into a pile and reaffirmed, without question, the validity of the allegations made. Does the reporter know the tenets of Santeria? Does the reporter know that Santeria does not believe in Satan, which is, incidentally, an Eastern European construct? Does the reporter know that Santeria does NOT use ornate drawn symbols to call the orishas as are done in Voduu?
Historically, African Traditional Religions are depicted as primitive and demonic. The only way Europeans could condone Slavery was to cast Africans as barbaric and, therefore, not entitled to equal human rights, by which reasoning they could then conveniently justify their horrific treatment of Africans. It is how racism started. By associating Melissa Mark-Viverito with a mural it alleges is based on an African Traditional Religion, The Post is linking her to institutional racist depictions of barbarism, thus dehumanizing her. That is racism as its core.
Of course, a reasonable person would ask why a sitting councilwoman who crushed her opponent handily in three consecutive primaries would need to resort to alleged spell casting. But reason was not the motive of The Post. The driving purpose of this article was to continue the racist meme The Post flagrantly pursues against the Speaker and, for that matter, any politician, race, or religion it objects to, and if it means using any base, degenerate, negative racist stereotype to perpetuate this meme, then so be it.
It is why The Post depicted President Obama as a monkey being gunned down by White Police Officers, which prompted the firing of its editor Sandra Guzman once she complained about the offensive caricature. It is why it depicts Muslims as Terrorists in its cartoons. It is why it prints an article portraying the Brooklyn Nets as stereotypical street thugs. The list goes on and on, but the message is clear: The Post will use its power to attack you and destroy you, even if it means resorting to racism.
The community can no longer be the enabler of this newspaper, not in our diverse, rich, beautiful city. To do so would go against the atmosphere of hope and change bursting in this new de Blasio Administration.
We need to stop buying The Post. We need to get its advertisers to stop using the paper to push its products, including its major enabler, Macy's. The Post, like every other paper, must perform its journalistic duty and report the news, without bias, without an agenda, and without malice. The people of New York deserve better.
Pedro Antonio Garcia is a writer, award-winning playwright and criminal defense lawyer in The Bronx. He can be reached at pedrogarciawriter@gmail.com