Black small business owners in New York City say they are being hit by aggressive enforcement and fines from NYPD police and other state agencies. A bar in Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, for example, was just large enough to employ a few locals and make a modest living until a NYPD-marked police cruiser started pulling up in front of it.
“When you have days when you have poor sales and people are looking across the street, and you know it’s because that car is parked there with their lights on. I mean, it’s blatant and heartbreaking, ”said owner Mirisa Davis.
And it’s not just this bar, a study from the President’s office in Brooklyn shows what he calls a systematic and integrated bias against African-American businesses in the city’s gentrified neighborhoods. “I think it’s a well-organized plan to shut down black and brown businesses because of the bourgeoisie. We have armed these agencies to, I believe, extradite exclusion, ”Brooklyn President Eric Adams said. Doris Rodney, owner of “The Hills” restaurant who just paid $ 40,000 (USD) in fines for her Brooklyn restaurant said police officers constantly came to ask her customers to stand up and say they must go. And these customers leave, leaving their drinks, their food. “I just paid a fine of $ 40,000. What should I do from here? She asks herself the question.
It was while this observation was being made that work began on one of the three murals on Black Lives Matter Street in Manhattan on Friday. The artists completed the outline of the two-square-long Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard mural from 125th to 127th Street. The main mural will be similar to the one painted in Washington, DC with “Black Lives Matter” in large yellow letters. But the Harlem community will also include its own vision of commemorating the legacy of racism and the past few weeks of historic change for blacks. “It is very important that we can come together around a single cause,” said artist Dianne Smith. Similar murals are planned in every New York neighborhood, as well as two other locations in Manhattan. The next “Black Lives Matter” mural after Harlem will be in front of Donald Trump’s building (Trump Tower) on 5th Avenue.
“Black lives have always mattered and we try to teach you that we have never had a deficit in our self-image,” said Reverend Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network. “We had a deficit in how you would treat us. We always knew we mattered. We are counting now. And we will always count. The Harlem Street mural is presented by Harlem Park to Park in partnership with Got To Stop Social Impact Agency. Representatives from 16 community groups will each send representatives to paint one of the letters.
To be continued !
From New York, Mamadou Diouma Diallo for Guineematin.com
Phone. : 1 646-591-2659
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