City announces 'Day Against Hate'

By Ryan Chatelain, amNewYork Associate Editor | ryan.chatelain@am-ny.com

12:02 PM EDT, November 1, 2007

NEW YORK - New York City has long celebrated its diversity, holding itself up as the model of a global community. But the recent spate of bias incidents across the boroughs have left community leaders, elected officials and a cross section of New Yorkers alike wondering whether the city's reputation for tolerance is waning and whether racial tensions are on the rise.

Some have even agreed to take action.

On Thursday, a group of city religious, community and political leaders declared that a "day of tolerance" would be held on Nov. 29 to protest the rash of bias crimes, including two at Columbia University involving a noose and a swastika.

"The best way to fight hate is to have decent people of good will to stand up and say 'no'," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn at a news conference on the steps of City Hall to announced the "Day Against Hate."

Events will be planned in each borough, beginning with an interfaith prayer breakfast in the Bronx and including activities at Columbia and at youth centers, such as discussion groups between Holocaust survivors and teenagers, officials said.

"When you have this kind of thing, it is best to address it immediately," said the Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, in a telephone interview. There is no denying that bias incidents in the city have risen - police estimate an increase of some 10 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year.

"Just the other night I heard about the swastika on the teacher's door, and before that there was the noose, and before that there was something else. There are lots of little signs you see that racial tensions are getting worse," said Dorrian Ollivierre, 22, a sales associate from the Bronx. "On the other hand, the individuals that would do that have something seriously wrong with them."

Besides Columbia, nooses have been discovered in recent weeks at a post office in lower Manhattan. Several homes and synagogues also have been defaced with swastikas.

While Mayor Michael Bloomberg acknowledged the "worrisome" nature of the bias incidents, he attributed some of them to cases of copycat crime. "I hope it's not changing -- the compassion, the tolerance and mutual respect that this city has built up over a long period of time for each other," he said.

While most New Yorkers do not believe that the city is headed towards the likes of the Crown Heights riots during the summer of 1991, there is agreement that the problem needs to be addressed through discussion and education.

"A day to focus on hate, it's good because all of a sudden you stop for an hour or two or three and you say, 'You know what? If somebody gets a noose or somebody receives a swastika on the door, it's not only an offense against the individual, it's an offense against the community,'" said Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League.

"Mothers and fathers, for God's sakes talk to your kids and tell them what a swastika means and what a noose means," echoed Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Kristen Brown, Newsday staff writers Karla Schuster and Rocco Parascandola and the Associated Press contributed to this story.