{"id":11651,"date":"2013-11-11T12:30:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T12:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11651"},"modified":"2013-11-11T12:30:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T12:30:54","slug":"the-man-with-the-black-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11651","title":{"rendered":"‘The man with the black wife’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Biracial<\/a>
Biracial means black in NYC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A black janitor in Brooklyn almost shouted out the name when asked about his vote in the mayoral race. Bill de Blasio<\/span><\/span>, he said, \u201cknows my struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe knows what the average person\u2019s going through, because he\u2019s been experiencing what they\u2019re going through.\u201d – Veronica Sibblies, a Jamaican immigrant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the Bronx, some African-American voters defaulted to a shorthand: \u201cthe man with the black wife.\u201d Nobody thought it necessary to explain whom they meant.<\/p>\n

And in a Brooklyn housing project, a lifelong resident said he was tired of mayors who, in his mind, had pitted blacks against whites. Mr. de Blasio, he declared, \u201cis black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the records shattered by Mr. de Blasio\u2019s landslide victory, perhaps the most remarkable is that virtually every vote cast by black New Yorkers \u2014 96 percent \u2014 went his way. He captured a bigger portion of the black vote than David N. Dinkins in 1989 when he was elected New York City\u2019s first black mayor with 91 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls.<\/p>\n

After the divisive tenor of the Giuliani years, and the deep grievances engendered by the stop-and-frisk police tactics of the Bloomberg era, black New Yorkers are now claiming Mr. de Blasio\u2019s victory as their own. In postelection interviews, dozens of black New Yorkers said that Mr. de Blasio\u2019s personal touch, his biracial family and his pledge to help the working-class and poor had affected them deeply. His victory, they said, was a chance to gain a voice in City Hall after two decades of leadership they viewed as inattentive, distant and, at times, even callous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a sense of not being included, not being cared about,\u201d said Charlene Curry, as she walked along Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, last week. She said she had never met Mr. de Blasio, but felt as if he were a neighbor. The mayor-elect, she said, has \u201ca more humane approach, a more inclusive approach.\u201d She added, \u201cThat reaches home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The excitement about Mr. de Blasio \u2014 tinged, in some quarters, by a dose of wait-and-see skepticism \u2014 was diligently cultivated by the candidate. Mr. de Blasio, who is of Italian and German heritage, kept up a brisk schedule of visits to predominantly black churches, frequently spoke of the effect of stop-and-frisk tactics on young black men, and put his wife and children at the forefront of his campaign, making a celebrity of his son, Dante, who sports a large Afro.<\/p>\n

But it was also a result of Mr. de Blasio\u2019s comfort and fluency with black culture, borne of an interracial marriage and personal experience, that offered a credibility voters said could not be bought by consultants or simulated in sound bites.<\/p>\n

A prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Bill Lynch, an African-American political operative, and a veteran of the Dinkins administration and the congressional campaign of Charles B. Rangel, Mr. de Blasio is steeped in the history of New York\u2019s black politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cA woman would say, \u2018Do you understand, young man?\u2019 And Bill said, \u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u2019\u00a0\u201d a black woman recalled. \u201cDo you know what that little, tiny cultural thing meant?\u201d<\/p>\n

That adroitness was frequently apparent on this year\u2019s campaign trail, where Mr. de Blasio received electric receptions when visiting traditionally black neighborhoods, like Harlem and Crown Heights.<\/p>\n

With his self-assured mien and casual tendency to call people \u201cbrother,\u201d Mr. de Blasio often seemed to play the political preacher, even at run-of-the-mill news conferences. At a rally in late October in Brooklyn, he opened his remarks by intoning, \u201cBrothers and sisters, we are gathered again,\u201d earning appreciative nods and murmurs from supporters. On the Sunday before the election, Mr. de Blasio delivered a 16-minute sermon at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, a mainstay of his campaign schedule. At one point, he launched into a seemingly earnest soliloquy about the responsibilities of public servants, before pivoting to a jest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my obligation to stand up and act when there\u2019s a problem, when there\u2019s a danger,\u201d Mr. de Blasio said. \u201cAnd I realized in the earlier part of the service \u2014 I realized that the choir was on fire! And I needed to rush out and call the Fire Department!\u201d He was drowned out for nearly 15 seconds as the congregation laughed and cheered.<\/p>\n

In Brooklyn on Thursday, Bonita Anderson-Watson, 50, smiled as she recounted a recent visit from Mr. de Blasio and his family to her church. \u201cWhen I spoke with him and shook his hand, it was something different,\u201d she said, adding that in conversations with friends afterward, comparisons to Bill Clinton, who was enthusiastically embraced by African-Americans in his presidential campaigns, quickly came up.<\/p>\n

With all that good will, of course, comes high expectations. \u201cNinety-six percent of the African-American vote went to him,\u201d said the Rev. Johnnie M. Green Jr., senior pastor at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem. \u201cHe should feel some sense of being beholden to the black community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of those interviewed said they would have voted for him even without his biracial family, citing his staunch Democratic politics and pledge to address economic inequality. Many said they never considered the Republican nominee, Joseph J. Lhota<\/span><\/span>, and some said they did not know his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis biracial family represents so many things and possibilities, too many to even get into,\u201d said Leon Ellis, a Harlem restaurateur. \u201cWhen people saw his family, they felt, \u2018Here is someone who understands and relates to me on a level on which I can be comfortable.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a black woman sitting there who can say, \u2018My side of the family is hurting over here, now.\u2019 He\u2019s going to hear that direct,\u201d said Walter Edwards, a real estate developer in Harlem. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to get it from somebody off the street he has no relationship with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veronica Sibblies, 66, a Jamaican immigrant who came to New York more than 50 years ago, said she believed Mr. de Blasio\u2019s interracial family could serve as a model for better relations between blacks and whites in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what I like? I like when he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to move into Gracie Mansion,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Ms. Sibblies said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t impress him. Material things don\u2019t mean that much to him. He knows what the average person\u2019s going through, because he\u2019s been experiencing what they\u2019re going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSome black people probably are breathing a sigh of relief, that finally we have someone that is going to at least represent our concerns, and try and make life better for us,\u201d Mr. Worrell said. \u201cBut we all have to sit back and wait to see what happens.\u201d\u00a0 – NYT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A black janitor in Brooklyn almost shouted out the name when asked about his vote in the mayoral race. Bill de Blasio, he said, \u201cknows my struggle.\u201d \u201cHe knows what the average person\u2019s going through, because he\u2019s been experiencing what they\u2019re going through.\u201d – Veronica Sibblies, a Jamaican immigrant. In the Bronx, some African-American voters … Continue reading “‘The man with the black wife’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[7361,7321,7360,7322,2020,1853],"class_list":["post-11651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-african-american-voters","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-biracial-family","tag-mayor","tag-nyc","tag-racial-politics"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/deblasio2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11654,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11651\/revisions\/11654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}