In the Brooklyn Rail this month, NORMAN KELLEY interviews David Dyson, a veteran social justice activist and pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene. Kelley is the author of The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics.
Kelley: …some of the alliances that you and the church have with ACORN and Reverend [Herbert] Daughtry, who have signed onto this project, are now threatened, which is distressing. Would you say that Ratner is playing the race card?
Dyson: Yes, and it’s very depressing. This project has actually split lifelong partners in the progressive movement. We feel that Reverend Daughtry and ACORN have been brought in by Ratner not as advocates for the community but as private business partners in the deal. We’re trying to prevent the misuse of eminent domain, trying to increase the number of affordable housing units, trying to decrease the number of high-rise luxury office buildings. Those are the kinds of issues that a community group should have, but the Reverend Daughtry—who’s also an old friend—and our friends at ACORN are trying to cut a personal deal so that they can be brokers over whatever little piece or crumb of this pie falls from Ratner’s table. Ratner has been to Brooklyn what Karl Rove was to Ohio and Florida—brilliantly able to play on people’s worst instincts in order to get what he wants in a way that he wants it.”
Thanks to No Land Grab for the find. [PHOTO: Brian Molyneaux.]
