Who Is A New Yorker?

On Monday, the observance of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's. birthday, the Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams gave a speech that was widely perceived to be divisive, when he said of people who have transplanted themselves from other parts of the country to live in any of the five boroughs, "You go back to Ohio. New York City belongs to the people that was here and made New York City what it is."

Whew! This is saying all kinds of things, such as "stay where you are." "Go back to where you came from." It is also saying that New York City has already been made what it is, and we don't need anyone else to come here and make it any different.

Oh boy. The comments were critically descended on by many, including his friend the mayor himself, Bill de Blasio. As you might imagine, the comments were quickly "walked back" to be phrased that all people of good will are welcome.

The story surrounding the comments became New York news today in the NYT when the City Hall Bureau Chief, Emma Fitzsimmons, wrote an article that was headlined: "A Leading Candidate for Mayor Suggests Newcomers Should 'Go Back to Iowa.'" Perhaps not the best of campaign slogans.

Totally aside from the speech and the comments about the speech, Ms. Fitzsimmons extracts a bigger question from the speech: "When does a transplant become a true New Yorker?" She suggests some answers.

Is it, "after a decade or two?"
"Once you kick a subway rat or stop toasting your bagels?"

Perhaps unwittingly, Ms. Fitzsimmons (who in her Twitter profile, @emmagf, tells the world she's from Texas) has again help create a New York parlor game to play with loved ones in the setting of your choice (preferably near alcohol), "Who is a true New Yorker?"

Emma just recently set off a Twitter storm by re-Tweeting someone's question asking which of the 5 empty subways on the D train are preferable to sit in? The Tweet had a sharp photo of the empty seats labeled 1-5, asking for your vote. It made TV news. A story evolved out of that one, and a story has evolved out of this one.

Ever since I was a schoolboy in Flushing in the '50s I remember kids always telling some other kids, "why don't you go back where you came from?" Sometimes this meant that their immigrant parents shouldn't have bothered to come here; the kids shouldn't have bothered to come here; they should go back to where they came from, even if it was only just Whitestone.

Emma's two answers are just as good as any two answers to the question. A decade or two is obviously time related, with the waiting period being of your own choice. Kicking a subway rat is a good criteria because if it means actually kicking the rat, and not just kicking at the rat—making all important contact—then you are a psycho and are fast tacked into the club. Of all the people who I consider true New Yorkers (more on that later) I daresay no one has ever told me a story of kicking a rat. They've seen a rat. Yeah so?

The toasted bagel or eating your pizza with a knife and fork or just folding it and jamming it in your mouth without aid of cutlery are just criteria being currently used to show that, Bill de Blasio, despite being in his second and last term as NYC mayor, is NOT a New Yorker. We all know this just by watching what or how the guy eats.

And if you happen to eat the toasted or untoasted bagel, or the folded slice of pizza in the subway, then there's a good reason there might be a rat to even try and kick at. You're feeding them, stupid.

For years my own answer to the question of who is a true New Yorker is to consider if you are the product of a New York City education, K- through high school, public or private, or, if going back to where you where born just means going to someplace in New York.

And when it comes to that, you can have it both ways. Without kicking a rat.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com