It is a fact is that the community served by WestView is one of the most racially segregated in America.
All of Community Board 2, which stretches from 4th Avenue/Bowery to 14th Street to Canal Street, is less than 2% Black.
While the West Village used to be a center of gay residential life, it no longer is. While young gay and lesbian folks, mostly Black and Hispanic, have adopted Christopher Street as a place to socialize, they don’t live here.
It is easy for us to treat the killing of Trayvon Martin as a problem for Black people to address, and the killing of Mark Carson, the gay man gunned down in June on West 8th Street, as concerns only for the Black and gay community. However, we can’t take that attitude. Both were young men, in the prime of their lives, killed because of their color or sexual orientation. Both were killed as a result of a culture which makes it too easy to own a gun, and where there is too little reverence for human life. Each was killed because of prejudice and hatred, and that prejudice and hatred could be turned on any one of us, or on our children.
In our community, we must reach out and be part of efforts to oppose those believe that race discrimination is a resolved problem in America because we elected a Black President, and that anti-gay discrimination is resolved because the Supreme Court gave its stamp of approval to gay marriage. Next time there is a vigil, or a community meeting about the issue, think about joining in. Your voice and your participation are very important.
