That’s Crazy to Call Us Lazy!

A few days ago I awoke to a news headline about a city health report that labeled Sunset Park, in the words of a city tabloid, “The lazy-bones nabe.”

In addition to the immediate anger that I felt at this unfair characterization of the neighborhood I grew up in and love, I also found myself getting nostalgic.

I recalled early weekday mornings as a child living on 54th Street. At times I would wake up to the sound of the 1010 WINS news ticker and an announcer promising to give you the world in 22 minutes. It was my father’s alarm.

I rarely stayed up long enough to get the world, but by 3 a.m. my father was already sipping his coffee and getting ready for his hour-long commute to a midtown delicatessen where he would prepare breakfast for workers who wake up at 7 or 8 a.m.

These are perhaps the kind of workers who write reports and new stories about lazy-bones neighborhoods.

After making breakfast and lunch for hundreds of customers, my father was back on the train again at about 4 p.m. Finding a seat in a crowded train was a real treat after standing next to a hot oven all day.

There were no gyms or tennis courts or indoor swimming pools after work. Besides, even if any of these luxuries existed in Sunset Park, he was usually too tired.

After dinner, we would sit and talk about school, my dreams and his reality. By 7 p.m. he was usually back in bed which meant we had to do our best to tip-toe around the house on old, creaky floors.

My story is not unique. In fact, I know there are thousands of men and women in Sunset Park who toil at two maybe even three jobs to make ends meet in a city that is becoming increasingly hostile to the working poor.

Reports like these, that describe Sunset Park residents as lazy, do nothing to make our lives any better, even if that’s their intent.

In fact, given the stereotypes often used to describe the latest wave of immigrants to call Sunset Park home, Mexicans and other Latin Americans, it may very well perpetuate these racist notions.

The report said the residents of Sunset Park “are least likely to exercise of all New Yorkers. In fact, 57% admitted they are sedentary, while residents of Greenwich Village and SoHo hit the gym on a regular basis.”

Sedentary, that quite literally means sitting on your ass. It’s something bureaucrats who write these kinds of report are quite adept at doing – then they got to the gym. It’s too bad these experts don’t take so many other important factors into account before they stigmatize an entire neighborhood.

Can we really be called lazy if we work at several jobs and often for long hours? If we had time to exercise, could we afford childcare or the price of a gym like those in neighborhoods like SoHo or Greenwich Village? If we live in a neighborhood that has the lowest percentage of open space in the city, where can we go to exercise even if we had the time and energy?

Ironically, perhaps in an effort to make the next generation even lazier, Mayor Bloomberg’s Park’s Commissioner Adrian Benepe recently announced that he was shutting down the boxing program in Sunset Park.

In the meantime, Bloomberg is making sure children in elite private schools, like Regis and Dalton in Manhattan, have nearly exclusive access to the playing fields in Randall’s Island, just a stone’s throw away from East Harlem, another poor minority community the report cites as the most obese.

We all know that unemployment, obesity, asthma, diabetes, poverty and immigration issues,
among other daily concerns, are preventing many in our neighborhood from gainful employment, educational opportunities and even leisurely exercise.

But until we can address those concerns with increased funds for sports and athletic programs, additional recreational facilities, and comprehensive immigration, housing, employment, medical, and nutritional services, the city and the tabloids can shove their reports and labels.