If the census numbers are accurate, how is this "hateful"? Should we just shrug? Should we not care? Or should we ask ourselves why people are leaving and try to come up with ways to ensure that it doesn't happen?

Do you think it won't? Come on! Enjoy it while it lasts (if it even makes it through the summer) .

The home is gone. The park is getting a facelift. People's Beach's days are most likely numbered.

It's one thing to argue that a particular economic system (e.g. Communism) or a particular ethical system (e.g.relativism/situationalism) is evil. It's quite another to suggest that economics itself, or that ethics itself, is evil.

And if it's "all political/arbitrary", then the seminar itself is bullshit. Thanks for making my point.

Don't look now, but it's being torn down. There was a big crane there last week.

I will always think less of Chick Schumer for not pressuring the NPS to fix Riis Park sooner. Here's the one of the most powerful leaders in the US Senate and a Federal Beach in NYC- the heart of his district; the region or his disgraced acolyte Congressman Anthony (Carlos Danger) Weiner that has been a dilapidated shambles for years. A Federal park in the Nation's biggest city, a city that pays more to the fed than it gets back...and it's crumbling!

Anyway..Let's see how long "The People's Beach" lasts in the shadows of gentrification. Once there's money and families worrying about "the children" it gets ugly.

"Economics is a social construct. Ethics are a social construct. Business is a social construct. If all of these justify seminars, then why shouldn't the construct of whiteness? How else shall it be deconstructed? I'm going to leave it out that kissing your sister or mother- is almost universally prohibited, as is cannibalism. We can argue about small isolated communities in remote places practicing them, but in the overwhelming majority of the world, it's prohibited; taboo in fact. One could say that it's not a just social construct, but a universal truth.

Are there seminars on the evils of economics? The evils of ethics? The evils of Business? (maybe at the risible Young Socialists Club, but nowhere else).

Setting aside that I doubt that any French speaking Canadians (including Quebecois, who are different from Acadians or Metis) identify as "Latino"...If Quebecois are in fact "Latino", there are a lot of people in Upstate New York and New England of Quebecois ancestry who should be getting "diversity points" or at least changing their census designation.

And while we're at it...since I agree with you that "Hispanic" is an ethnolinguistic designation, why are there diversity points being added to a purely *Gallego (*pure European ancestry) person from Mexico, Argentina or Cuba? Turn on Univision and see- these people are not mestizo, Indio, or anything. They might be of a fairer complexion than a Greek/Latino such as yourself.

Why does language qualify? What has historically been done to the Brazilian community in the US? Why make a designation of "Latino" at all?

You're really going out on a limb. Let's get back in our lanes. The UFT seminar was ill advised. It should not have been offered. If race is a social construct as you say, then having a seminar on a racial construct ("whiteness") is absurd; having a woman of hispanic heritage (which in itself defies racial categorization, as Mark Texiera,A/Rod and Big Papa Ortiz are all "Latin") is an even bigger absurdity. Suggesting that "whiteness" is somehow pernicious is an absurdity.

The whole thing is a black eye on the Union (which I happen to generally support btw).

You haven't explained anything. The answer to your question is No. I'm really not understanding you. That was a confusing explanation.

Moreover, a casual study of the history of the North African Barbary Pirates and their enslavement of Europeans (which prompted a fledging US Naval response by Thomas Jefferson) shows that if religion is justification for enslavement, people will use it. If race is, they'll use it. People will make up justifications.

Moreover, even with a 99.8% similarity, there are subtle differences between races. That's a scientific fact. For example, there are hereditary conditions (e.g Tay-Sachs, Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic Fibrosis) that exist in some races but not others.

You didn't answer my question. What are the "harmful effects" of a culture whose ties are at best tenuous? Why does it have "harmful effects" and not other ethnicities' cultures? Why is something that came to being as you put it in the 19th century (in the means of enslavement, which was banned and eliminated by 1865) and improved upon through the Civil rights SCOTUS cases, Civil Rights movement and Civil rights laws over 60 yeas ago, still so harmful as to need seminars to overcome it? I'm not being obtuse. I simply can't get my head around this.

1. But there are "right wing" union members. The Rockaway Republican club has or had several union members as its leaders.

2. Why are police unions bad? Either one supports unions (as I do) or not. Are there any other unions that are "Objectionable"?

3. Only internationalists care what "The Working Classes" of the world like. Why should I care about what Peruvian metal lathers or Polish mill workers like? I don't even care what many Americans like.

4. Most working class people don't identify as "Working Class" because they don't romanticize their socio-economic position and aspire to "move up".

5. If you don't see the irony of someone from one of the toniest areas in your borough playing Socialist, you should check the mirror. East Tremont to West Farms, maybe, but Riverdale isn't exactly "the hood. Just saying.

Is calling something "nonsensical bullshit" the same as "hate"? If so, guilty as charged!! /s

I don't care what you call me. I don't identify as white. I'm an American first, Roman Catholic second, New Yorker third.

That being said...if I was or did identify as white , what exactly are harmful effects of whiteness? Can you explain that to me? Are there harmful effects of being Mexican? Asian? Jewish? Or is it just "whiteness" that has "harmful effects"?

I don't even know what "whiteness" is. I've never seen myself as "white". I don't feel any affinity to people just because we have the same color. In fact, if anything, I probably would have to say that I'm the least familiar with and least comfortable around "White Progressive" transplants, who are completely foreign to me. I'm more familiar with other native New Yorkers, regardless of their background- Jewish, Puerto Rican or black, It doesn't matter.

And I can tell you being from Brooklyn...Greeks and Italians don't have much in common with Irish people. No one defines themselves as "white", and if they did, no one has demonstrated what "whiteness" means or how it's harmful.

I would in so far as until Biden, we went 60 years in between a Catholic (roughly 25% of the population) was elected. But that's not the issue here. You're saying that the "mainstream culture" is white Evangelical and I'd argue that it isn't; that White Protestants are divided (Episcopalians are disproportionately influential and represented, for example) between mainline and more Evangelical groups. That said, if one were to lump in Catholics (not quite accepted, as you put it) with mainline Protestants, the Evangelical influence is diminished. Throw in Jews and Moslems (3% each -or 6%), some Buddhists and the unaffiliated. and White Evangelicals aren't that much of a force. For instance, New England has a very WASPY and disproportionately influential influence on America. It's definitely not Evangelical. Sorry

There are more Roman Catholics in this country than any single Protestant denomination. And some of the "mainstream" Protestant groups are pretty Progressive- with rainbow flags, lesbian pastors, etc. Get real...

Anyone from any group who spews hate -towards any group- should be a matter of concern.

??? The non Jewish population of NYC is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. I'm a native and with the exception of a few Scandinavians in Bay Ridge, have never met a native born WASP New Yorker. Since this is the UFT, and since it's about educators in the NYC public school system, whatever the "Dominant" history in America may be (and we disagree), it's not "White Protestant" here.

How is it not an attack? What else am I supposed to conclude? If it wasn't a problem, we wouldn't need a seminar in how to deal with it, no?

I don't hear Latin people using it. And my friend is dating a Quebecoise. Note the feminine "E". Masculine is Quebecois. We don't get to change other peoples' languages to suit our sensibilities. Sorry.

I'm not an educator, Social Worker or UFT member, so I won't profess mastery or even familiarity with the syllabus. That said... If one were to hold a seminar about the harmful effects of "Jewishness/Blackness/Femininity" etc. It would be rightfully panned. I don't see how this topic is even considered appropriate. Bashing an entire race is wrong, is it not?

What? Ambulance chasers? Frivolous lawsuits? A policy of settling quietly rather than litigating? A jury pool that has bias against police and/or sees lawsuits as a type of lottery? Not here! Never! /s

CNN is becoming akin to Fox- a narrative spinner. That said, those dudes quit right after the disastrous laughingstock Kyle Rittenhouse trial, where the prosecutors became internationally synonymous with ineptness and failed prosecutorial over-reach (because the were pressured to bring a weak case). Anyway, let's see how the case plays out.

I respect the fact that an investigation takes time and that a case must be thoroughly investigated, but this is a long time coming. The fact that members of Bragg's staff who were assigned to the case resigned from their jobs during the investigation is like rats leaving a ship- not a good sign that it's a strong case. The star witnesses (a crooked lawyer and a porn star) aren't exactly pillars of the community, which doesn't help. The fact that Tish James didn't do anything either is also a sign that this is no slam dunk.

If it fails, at a certain point, it's going to seem like a witch hunt if they don't get something to stick.

The problem is, that in our system, crimes must be proven in a court of law. They can't seem to get that part down.