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Last Updated: May 30th, 2008 - 11:49:13 |
One thing is for sure about Rudy Giuliani: no other local politician—not even Philadelphia’s infamous Frank Rizzo— has so boldly illustrated to the African American community the possibilities of an emergent police state.
A recounting of two of the most controversial cases of police-involved brutality and death in the Black community, which occurred while Giuliani was mayor of New York City— the cases of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo—are among the chilling narratives included in “Giuliani Time,” a tour de force documentary that investigates the Brooklyn native, who quickly rose through Republican ranks as a federal prosecutor, appealed to New York voters as an enforcer of law and order and then left public office under a cloud, before having his image resurrected on September 11, 2001.
On February 4, 1999, Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, was shot to death in a hail of police gunfire in a Bronx apartment building in a case that sparked widespread protests. Less than two years before, Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was beaten and sodomized by a New York police officer in a Brooklyn precinct bathroom. A broken broomstick was shoved so far inside of Louima’s rectum that he suffered severe internal injuries and was hospitalized for two months. Police officer Justin A. Volpe ultimately plead guilty before his trial and other officers were convicted on lesser charges.
Though Giuliani condemned the Louima attack, it is the idea that police were more emboldened and bigoted because of his tenure that runs like a thread through this 130-minute movie. There is the rally at City Hall, where Giuliani exhorts an unruly mob of police officers, some of whom yelled racial epithets at the city’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins. There are police carrying out Giuliani’s various plans to rid the city of “nuisances” such as homeless sleeping or begging on the streets, or the ubiquitous “squeegee men” who, for tips, rushed to clean the windows of motorists. Giuliani’s apparent success at removing these people from Manhattan (to the outer boroughs) gave many New Yorkers the confidence that the mayor’s plan was working and that crime was decreasing in the city because of it. And it gave confidence to many that he was being successful by cracking down specifically on Blacks. According to one observer quoted in the film, Giuliani wanted to paint himself as “the guy who tamed the tribe—I’m your man, White America.”
Former New York City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew, one of few high-level Blacks to serve under Giuliani, says in the movie, “There’s something very deeply pathological about Rudy’s humanity. He was barren, completely emotionally barren on the issue of race.”
It is precisely because of Giuliani’s penchant for touting law and order that this film is able to delight in his various wrongdoings and deliver a knockout punch. Filmmaker Kevin Keating relies heavily on reporting by journalist Wayne Barrett whose book, Rudy!—An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, revealed that not only was Giuliani’s father a convicted criminal who did time in Sing-Sing, his cousin was affiliated with the mob and ran the largest car-theft ring in the city.
Rich with such damning narrative, “Giuliani Time” makes an invaluable contribution to the story of right-wing ascendancy that began with the 1980 election of President Ronald Reagan, under whom Giuliani served. It shows clearly how campaign rhetoric about law and order can easily morph into police running amuck and the trampling of the rights of citizens—especially those of citizens of color.
Iverem’s review of “Giuliani Time” also appeared on www.BET.com. Her new book of poems, Living in Babylon, is available through this site at www.Amazon.com.
© Copyright 2006 SeeingBlack.com
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