OK. Take a deep breath. Here ya go:
Yep. This gargantuan project, which will be the tallest building in New York City (and, indeed, the entire western hemisphere) is specifically slated to be built strictly by black people (oh, and women) and whose tenants will only be “minority entrepreneurs.”
Of course, you can imagine the swooning happening in some quarters. Architectural Digest notes, “The boxes are clad in floor-to-ceiling glass windows that sit within a milky white terrazzo façade whose shape mimics afro picks, a subtle tribute to Black culture.“
Afro picks.; Got it.
In any case, here’s the concept of the building, which is pretty damned cool looking. Its design is upside-down, which is quite brilliant, since obviously there will be a lot more space overall.
But this whole race division thing really bothers me. It would be equally offended is an organization proudly touted that such-and-such an engineering project would only be built by white construction workers and that its tenants would strictly be white (I’m being facetious, of course, since no such press release would ever be submitted, not even if it was the year 1952). As for the race, it could just as easily be Japanese. Or Chinese. Or Indonesian yak farmers.
I mean, I have to confront this thing every time I want to use Yelp. Bang, right there on the home page, one of the very few search parameters instantly available is if I want to make damned sure I’m not giving my business to the white devil. They might as well have a checkbox that says No Crackers.
If humanity wants to keep racism alive and well, they’re doing exactly the right thing. Keep dividing. Keep excluding. And keep talking about it. That way, we can all sleep well at night knowing that we’ll never all get along.
