Racists Attack Children in Queens NYC 1976

[Troy]

This video is sad and resonates because in 1978 or '79 I experienced something very similar in the same borough of NYC.  My girlfriend, at the time, and I were walking, not too far from her neighborhood, just like these kids were doing on their bicycles.  It is something we did as kids—explored our surroundings.

 

We were not surrounded by a mob but white kids started throwing rocks at us and made it clear we were not welcome and would not be allowed to walk on their streets.

 

When you get a mob involved things can really escalate quickly.  If the camera's were not around things could have been much worse for these kids. 

 

If they were living in home in Queens during this time, I'm sure they were good middle class kids -- of a much higher social standing and rearing than the white people who where hurling racial epithets, rocks, and blows.

 

Those white racist kids go on to become the cops, teachers, nurses who would work in Black neighborhoods....

 

 

[KENNETH]

 

Thanks for posting this. It made me sad and angry for those black children to see face that abuse. But the whites who did it were just misguided children emulating their racist parents. We need to think differently about racism and history. Too often we only focus on the South. Slavery, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights protests. This creates a false image that distorts the narrative. The events in this film took place in New York City a decade after the Civil Rights Era.  

[Troy]

Absolutely. Slavery and the effect of racism would be impossible without the North. 

 

NYC is as racist as any place I've been in the United States.  They are just far more sophisticated about it -- but not always as these and many other videos show.

 

The schools I attended were FAR more segregated that the ones my Black cousins attended in the south.  I did not go to a school with a white person until I was in High School and that was because I went to a magnet high school.  If I went to my "zoned," neighborhood, school it would have been just as segregated.

 

Now schools with only Black students don't have to me bad, but our schools had virtually all white teachers -- none of whom lived in Black communities -- some lived in communities like the one pictured above.  The schools were also lacking in resources for the students. 

[Pioneer1]

Powerful video.

Who was that little girl threatening to throw the rock back at that boy's face; little @Mel Hopkins..lol...?????

Ofcourse most of them have grown up and have spawn another generation or two of racists.
I don't remember it but I heard it was the same way in sections of Detroit and other cities that are now pretty much Black or Latino.  The Black kids would get harassed and have rocks thrown at them.

Probably the only good thing that came out of those days was more Black unity.

Right around the late 60s and early 70s different neighborhoods around the city started forming "neighborhood committees" to find out who was moving into which house or building and find out what kind of work they did, where they went to school, what religion they were, ect....but what they REALLY wanted to know was if they were Black or not.   And if they were Black they would harass them and threaten them not to move in, or harass them once they moved in. 

[Mel Hopkins]

18 hours ago, Pioneer1 said:

Who was that little girl threatening to throw the rock back at that boy's face; little @Mel Hopkins..lol...?????

OMG!  It’s so rare to see my face in another person! And we even wore our hair the same!  

 

Aside: Funny thing  is I kicked Italian Victor’s azz when he called me a n-er.  We were rolling around in the school yard until Mr. Weintraub with the awful toupee finally pulled us apart.  Then Mr. Weintraub whispered to me “Your mouth finally got you in trouble” My 4th grade teacher hating on me! lol… But I digress.

 

This video made me cry.  When you grow up in certain neighborhoods, like those children you’re so innocent, so sheltered. You  think the whole world is beautiful. You think every black kid lives the same life you’re living - and you think every white, brown, beige, person is loving you too.  

 

Then one day, you ride your bike smack into hate.  You’re never the same.  

 

My Afghani friend calls it the “full stomach syndrome.”  Those black kids had full stomachs until that day. Those white kids were filled with even more hate. That was they day they leaned their parents were liars.  

 

Thank you for calling me out @Pioneer1 -I didn’t know this happened in Rosedale.  My college sweetheart grew up in Rosedale right around this time. His father was an engineer.  He never talked about this time period, although he lived through it.  Now, I understand a little more about his life before we met. wow. just wow. 

[Pioneer1]

Mel

 

 Funny thin  is I kicked Italian Victor’s azz when he called me a n-er.  We were rolling around in the school yard until Mr. Weintraub with the awful toupee finally pulled us apart. 

 

Lol @ "Italian Victor"

I would think if you went to school in New York there would be SO MANY Italians named Victor in your school it would be next to useless to give him that name.

It probably wouldn't be too much better than saying "Italian Tony" or "Puerto Rican Hector"...lol.

But your story brought up an interesting memory of a Nigerian girl I used to pick on in the 4th grade.  I think we even fought eachother once.  I didn't pick on her because she was Nigerian because I didn't know about that at the time;  I picked on her out of ignorance because she was dark skinned with African features.  
It's shameful looking back on it now and I regret doing it.  She actually turned out to be a very beautiful girl....cheerleader...in high school.

I didn't experience much racism as a kid.  My neighborhood was ALREADY Black when I was born into it.  It was almost all White about 10 years earlier but by the time the late 60s and early 70s rolled around it was pretty much mostly Black.  There were only a handful of White people left.  Usually those too poor to leave.
  
I still remember some HIPPIES who used to sit on the porch with their shirts off with long hair, playing on their guitars and waving at everybody who passed...lol

 

 

"Down on the corner...
Out in the street....."

 

[Pioneer1]

When I was a kid there still were a few neighborhoods around the city that was nearly all White...but just a few.

One was called WARRENDALE.

Right on the edge of the city.

 

It was notoriously racist.

I had an uncle who for some reason choose to move there and we would go visit him and saw Confederate flags flying on people's porches and dummies of people with nooses around their necks.

We all knew to be out of that neighborhood before it got dark as no telling what might happen.

 

His house eventually got burned down.

 

Eventually some of the old die-hards died off and more Black folks forced themselves into the neighborhood and there was a lot of back and forth.

Between the fighting...Arabs started sneaking into the neighborhood, and now guess who dominates it??

 

Arab Americans...lol.