The pointed opening bars to AZ’s Rather Unique touch upon this racial disparity precisely:
“We was
already moulded into people's minds as mulignanes
Now we more fucked up with a
mayor named Giuliani”
“Mulignane” is a racist epithet for black people, prominent in Italian-American Communities, and a deliberate rhyme pairing alongside Giuliani, an Italian-American himself. It is the corrupted form of the word “melanzane”,
Italian for eggplant/aubergine, and is used to dehumanise black people. Within just two years of his premiership
AZ is able to bring attention to the negative impact Giuliani's policy decisions were having on black and minority ethnic communities - a swift turnaround to say little else.
Giuliani’s 1993 campaign focused on a crackdown on “petty” crimes, the sort of on-going language that continues to see people of colour, such as Eric Garner, cruelly choked to death for allegedly selling cigarettes without a tax stamp. Giuliani wanted a crackdown on offenses such as graffitiing, turnstile jumping, cannabis possession and the notorious “squeegee men”. ‘Offenses’ so minor that one questions whether they even deserve the word. As a cornerstone of the hip-hop community, the attack on graffitiing culture would, of course, have an overwhelming effect on BME communities. This would not be the first time a New York Mayor attempted a crackdown on graffiti culture, dating back all the way back to the 1970s when graffitiing culture began to explode, and once again it existed under the pretence of maintaining order, as though somehow the aggressive policing of an act so minor would have a profound impact.
Giuliani’s 1993 campaign focused on a crackdown on “petty” crimes, the sort of on-going language that continues to see people of colour, such as Eric Garner, cruelly choked to death for allegedly selling cigarettes without a tax stamp. Giuliani wanted a crackdown on offenses such as graffitiing, turnstile jumping, cannabis possession and the notorious “squeegee men”. ‘Offenses’ so minor that one questions whether they even deserve the word. As a cornerstone of the hip-hop community, the attack on graffitiing culture would, of course, have an overwhelming effect on BME communities. This would not be the first time a New York Mayor attempted a crackdown on graffiti culture, dating back all the way back to the 1970s when graffitiing culture began to explode, and once again it existed under the pretence of maintaining order, as though somehow the aggressive policing of an act so minor would have a profound impact.
This
racialised form of policing was the backbone of Giuliani’s time as Mayor, set
in stone by his approval of Crime Commissioner Bill Bratton, who would bring in
sweeping “broken windows” policy reform. “Broken windows” policing has been
well-documented by historians and critics in the decades since its introduction
as an utter failure, designed to do little more than adversely effect Black and
Minority Ethnic Communities, to help facilitate the prison-industrial complex.
It’s introduction, alongside Bill Clinton’s grossly destructive “three-strike”
criminal policy would spell disaster for young BME men across the United
States. Previous misdemeanours, such as possession of small amounts of cannabis,
would now stack up with devastating results. Reagan began the “War on Drugs”,
but it was Clinton who would cement its legacy. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander highlights that “between 1980
and 2000, the number of people incarcerated in our nation’s prisons and jails
soared from roughly 300,000 to more than 2 million.” Alexander exacerbates the
destructiveness of this form of policing when she explains that “marijuana
possession – a drug less harmful than tobacco or alcohol – accounted for nearly
80 percent of the growth in drug arrests in the 1990s”. Throughout the United
States the disproportionate effect of the “War on Drugs” on BME communities
would not lay dormant, and it is no coincidence that hip-hop’s explosion into
the public sphere in the 80s and 90s came alongside a corrupt and racist system
expanding at a gross rate.
In New
York in the mid-to-late 1990s this anger was aimed at none other than one man:
Rudy Giuliani. Biggie raps on Everyday
Struggle, “I’m seeing body after body and our Mayor Giuliani/Ain’t tryna
see no black man turn to John Gotti”; with just a hint of an underlying threat
towards New York’s infamous Mayor. Rumour has it that New York’s crime families
debated placing a hit on Guiliani, with John Gotti the only one to vote in
favour. The lyric seems to reflect Giuliani’s focus on racist predictive
policing, catching black men before
they inevitably turn into the next
John Gotti, where the threat would then
turn on Giuliani himself. Even Nas indulged in pure vitriol, referring to
Giuliani as the “6-6-6”, whilst Big L fantasises about his crew hanging him on
his legendary 7 Minute Freestyle with Jay-Z. Hardcore New York hip-hop crew
Screwball would release the bluntest affront to Giuliani. Titled Who Shot Rudy? the song gleefully
hypothesises Giuliani’s assassination, and whilst it is little more than
fiction, the popular sentiment towards Giuliani in the hip-hop community is
abundantly clear.
Giuliani and his brand of police fascism would not only come
up against the hip-hop world in verse. On January 14th, 1999 two
officers of the Street Crimes Unit would fire eight shots at an unarmed young
black man; thankfully they would miss all eight shots. The officers would claim
they were retaliating to shots fired at them, despite no weapons or shell
casings other than their own at the crime scene. The young man, whose car was
pulled over in Bedford-Stuyvesant, who was acquitted of any crime, and who
narrowly escaped with his own life, was none other than Russell Jones aka Ol’
Dirty Bastard. It’s a scene all too often played out in America. A young black
man is pulled over in his car, a racist police officer mistakes a cell phone
for a gun, and another innocent life is taken by a corrupt racist system. The
sort of system that suggests a broken window, or a broken taillight, can be the
indicator of a potential murderer, rapist or drug pusher.
A little over two weeks later a young man named Amadou
Diallo would fall victim to the Street Crimes Unit. An immigrant from Guinea,
he moved to New York in 1996 with his family, where he would peddle videotapes,
gloves and socks along the sidewalk of 14th Street during the day.
As harmless as a squeegee peddler,
Amadou fit the profile of a ‘dangerous criminal’ Giuliani had marked out six
years earlier. He was unarmed and shot outside of his apartment 41 times by
four plain clothes officers. They would claim to mistake him for a rape suspect
from one year earlier. All four would be acquitted at trial for second-degree
murder. There could be no doubting AZ - “we” [the black and minority ethnic
community of New York] were most definitely “more fucked up with a Mayor named Giuliani”.
