Human rights elsewhere, public relations here

Madison Avenue is quiet tonight. The mosque around the corner where 5,000 people came to mourn a street vendor is silent. Two grieving people from halfway round the world carry home their eldest son in a plain, pine box.

The mayor of New York City is sorry. He is sorry Saikou and Kadiadou Diallo must take their son back to Guinea in a box. He waited an hour in the lobby of their hotel to tell them so. They would not see him. He still pays the men who killed their son.

He is not a likable man, this mayor. He is smug and intolerant, but he cleaned up the city, people say. Muggings once swept through here like the flu. Times Square was a sewer. Then Mr. Guiliani came in and cracked down on crime. He beefed up police departments. He gave them more power. Results were swift. Subways became safe again. People returned to Central Park. Tourists swarmed Times Square and spent millions. People were grateful. They could walk down the street without fear.

The mayor brought order to New York City. Order is vital. More than 2.2 million people from every nation and every social caste imaginable live in Manhattan alone. Homeless people beg for change in front of French bistros where a bowl of onion soup costs $12. Such disparity breeds resentment. Resentment breeds crime.

Crime has a face in New York City. It is a young black man. He has no job. He is angry and sometimes hungry. He shows up on the evening news in handcuffs. He's the rape suspect on the cover of the neighborhood newspaper. He's caught on camera during a convenience store robbery.

Mayor Guiliani stopped much of the crime. He did it by unleashing an attack on those most likely to be culprits. Young, black men are targeted. They are stopped and searched by police for the least provocation. The disparity and resentment grow, stifled and festering. The mayor's solution is volatile. It explodes, not in the barrage of gunfire that killed the son of Saikou and Kadiadou Diallo, but in their very presence here.

They are not like bereaved black family members typically shown on the news. They do not wail and cry, nor do they seethe with indignity. They are soft-spoken and composed. They want to know why the four white police officers who shot their unarmed son are still on the city payroll. The question becomes a beam of light. If an American citizen was killed in a hail of police bullets in West Africa, the hue and cry would be deafening. If anyone was killed in this kind of police action anywhere in the world, Amnesty International would hold a press conference. Why are the men who shot Amadou Diallo still being paid by the City of New York? Why are they still free? Why aren't the rest of the nations of the world demanding to know? The answer is under investigation. There will be numerous press conferences. The mayor will issue a statement. He will use the word "tragedy" many times.

Madison Avenue is quiet tonight. Most of the time, the city growls. Trains rumble through its churling guts. Cars bleat and honk. Bus brakes screech. Sirens yowl. Buildings grunt and belch and groan with the babble of a million television sets. Every once in a while, late at night, a voice booms above the din, caterwauling in the gentile, no-shout zone of the Upper East Side. It's one young black man or another, reminding us that he is still right outside, and he is still angry.

Monday, February 15, 1999

Copyright 2010 by Deborah McAdams. All Rights Reserved. For Reprint Rights, click here.