"We can't permit taxpayer dollars for use to fund teams that have interaction in such radical and deplorable rhetoric," Councilman Robert Holden wrote.
Ron Adar / M10s / MEGA
A Queens pol is demanding the Metropolis Council cease funding a progressive advocacy group that’s pocketed thousands and thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds after a convicted intercourse offender representing the nonprofit went right into a racist tirade towards Asians throughout a public listening to.
“VOCAL-NY is a recipient of taxpayer dollars from the Metropolis, and as such, I consider that the Metropolis Council ought to maintain it to a better commonplace,” Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) wrote in a letter Friday to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
“They've obtained almost $3 million since 2014. We can't permit taxpayer dollars for use to fund teams that have interaction in such radical and deplorable rhetoric.”
Douglas Powell, an ex-con affiliated with Vocal-NY, spouted his racist hate whereas testifying for greater than three minutes at a listening to Thursday earlier than the Council’s Committee on Civil Rights in help of a controversial invoice that, if authorized, would bar landlords from conducting prison background checks on tenants.
Nantasha Williams (D-Queens), the committee’s chair, and different pols and Council staffers working the session didn't cease him and even object to the remarks.
Powell, who's black, insisted the invoice is about “race — it’s about black folks”– after which mocked the testimony offered minutes earlier by two Asian girls who spoke out towards the invoice.
“Did you see these Asian people who simply have been speaking?” he mentioned. “I dwell in Rego Park now. That’s essentially the most racist neighborhood I’ve ever been in, and it’s nothing however Asians…
“If you happen to go right into a retailer, they'll observe you round such as you’re on the brink of steal one thing,” added Powell. “They don’t need black folks residing in black folks neighborhoods. As a result of it’s not their neighborhood, as a result of they’re from China, they’re from Hong Kong. We from New York.”
Holden known as on the Council to cease “all funding to VOCAL-NY till they reduce ties with Mr. Powell and different radical racists.” He additionally mentioned members of the group “needs to be required to finish sensitivity and anti-bias coaching earlier than receiving future funding from the Metropolis Council.”
Since 2014, the Council has awarded greater than $2.8 million in discretionary funds to VOCAL-NY to help their drug-treatment packages and different progressive causes that help low-income New Yorkers, information present. The nonprofit was individually awarded almost $1.6 million in metropolis contracts.
Powell, 59, is listed as a Degree 2 intercourse offender with a Rego Park handle after a 2012 conviction for an tried prison intercourse act with a sufferer below the age of 15 in 2008, in response to the state Intercourse Offender Registry. He obtained a 30-month jail sentence for the crime, the registry says.
Asian American activists and leaders have been livid that Council members didn't rebuke the anti-Asian slurs through the listening to.
“I left after my testimony and that man was referring to me and @susanleenyc,” tweeted Asian Wave Alliance president Yiatin Chu, one of many audio system Powell was referring to. “That is the hate speech that fuels anti-Asian hate crimes. And our electeds have been silent.”
Reps for Speaker Adams and VOCAL-NY didn't instantly return messages Saturday.
Nonetheless, Adams, who was not on the listening to when Powell testified, issued a press release Friday calling his remarks “inappropriate and unacceptable in Council Chambers and in every single place.”
Williams issued a belated assertion on Twitter on Friday saying “racism and discrimination harm us all in numerous methods and responding to them with comparable rhetoric is rarely the answer” — with out particularly mentioning Powell or his group by identify.
“As a Black girl, a member of one of the hated and disrespected demographics on the planet, I do know personally how deeply hurtful language could be to our progress as a folks and one’s private security,” she mentioned.
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