Prejudice by any other name is still prejudice

Since I first came to the Collar City about 18 months ago, my wife and I have frequently discussed the possibility of moving here, as well, especially as we have grown more and more to love the community.

The talking has even gotten to the point where we have discussed specific neighborhoods and looked at homes that are either for sale or for rent. After the debacle that was the consideration — and ultimate rejection — of a proposal to tear down the eyesore formerly known as Leonard Hospital, though, I think it will be a long time before we have any more such discussions.

After hearing more than two dozen people speak in opposition to the plan at that infamous community meeting a couple weeks ago, I was shocked and deeply offended to discover that in the minds of those opponents — most of whom are residents of the area around the old hospital near the Schaghticoke town line — my wife and I are not good enough to live in their neighborhood.

Neither are most city police officers and firefighters, many of our teachers and probably most city officials. What shut down this project was nothing more than bigotry on the part of those opponents that was at least acknowledged, if not encouraged, by council members who provided the “no” votes that rejected the plan by a nonprofit developer, The Community Developers, to demolish the abandoned hospital and replace it with as many as 120 so-called “mixed-income” apartments, with a small number of units to be set aside for people who need support services that would have been provided by Unity House.

I’m still trying to find where in the proposal anything was

mentioned about it being anything but a project that would help working people struggling to make ends meet find an affordable place to live in the city. And yet, person after person stepped up to the microphone at the Lansingburgh Boys & Girls Club and either misrepresented or out-and-out lied about who would live in the complex and what it would mean to the neighborhood.

In their minds, this was going to be just like the Corliss Park Apartments that overlook the neighborhood along New Turnpike Road, bringing more of “those people” into their neighborhood. And who exactly are “those people?” Why, “those people” are the ones responsible — at least in neighbors’ minds — for all of society’s ills. “They” are the poor, “they” are minorities, “they” are anybody who is not like the people who already live in that neighborhood — I don’t seem to recall a single person of color speaking out against the plan.

It was actually funny to me the first time I heard that term used in discussing the project because it is the identical term I have heard in countless other cities to describe who is “responsible” for that community’s ills. From Amsterdam to Utica, Schenectady to Waterbury, Connecticut, “those people” are responsible for everything from crime to blight, but the minute you try to challenge those who use that expression, they loudly dispute any insinuation that they are racist or in any other way prejudiced.

When I pointed out to a few of those opponents that night that I must be one of “those people” because I would have been one of the target audiences for these apartments, they quickly disputed that. The funny thing is, however, that when I asked them why I wasn’t, they couldn’t come up with a single reason that didn’t reek of prejudice to me.

I’m not one of them because I have a job, they said, but would I still be OK if I could no longer work because of ongoing health problems? I’m not one of them because I’m not a criminal, they told me, but would it have made a difference if they knew I have a 25-year-old drunken-driving conviction on my record?

The fact of the matter is, dirtbags come in all shapes and sizes, and so do ordinary, hard-working people, but, if you follow opponents’ logic, if you cannot afford to buy your own home or rent one of the outrageously expensive apartments in downtown Troy, you don’t deserve to live in anything but the poorest city neighborhoods.

Sure, it’s OK for you to pick up their trash, protect their homes or otherwise serve them, but don’t aspire to live like them or among them.

As angry as that kind of hatred makes me, though, it doesn’t upset me nearly as much as those city officials who bought into it and decided that instead of trying to stand up against them — as a few council members on either side of the political aisle did — they rolled right over and pandered to them simply to try to get their votes in November, when all council seats are up for re-elections. I at least have some respect for those who opposed the project right from the start because they took a stand before they knew which way the wind blew.

I’ve said it before in these pages, but I’ll say it again: The worst kind of politician is the kind who shapes their views on issues based not on what’s right or wrong, but instead on what the loudest voices are saying. I want to see what those officials do this week, when the council’s Finance Committee is scheduled to discuss borrowing the $2.5 million needed to clean all the asbestos out of the 45-year-old building and knock it to the ground. Will those same people now whine and moan about having to put this cost on the already-overloaded backs of the city taxpayer, the same thing many of them did last fall when confronted with a choice between a sharp increase in property taxes or deep cuts in city services — and the same pledge they seemingly went back on when confronted by a group of residents who opposed the shuttering of city pools.

This type of politician is a primary reason for the city being in the fiscal shape it is. They don’t want to be seen as the bad guys (or gals) who raised people’s taxes, but they also don’t want to be the villains who take away the services those taxes are needed to pay for. Residents saw how that worked out for the city in 1994 and again in 2016, but instead of truly changing the way the city does business, they want to keep doing the same things but pretend they want ot change the city’s ways, as well.

I don’t know about you, but after seeing this city nearly flush itself down the toilet twice in a lifetime, I think I might be less inclined to believe them again. I’m a firm believer in the adage “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” but I wonder what that says about those of us who are willing to follow these people down the rabbit hole yet again?

Between the Lines, the winner of two New York State Associated Press Association awards, appears Tuesdays in The Record.