Rosedale: The Way It Is (1976) c/o Bill Moyers Journal
Context
Racial tensions soared as the Spencers, a middle-class black family moved into Rosedale, a Queens white working-class neighborhood. Bill Moyers examines the fear, hatred and courage generated as the have-nots of our society battle for a tiny piece of the good life. January 18, 1976
Key Takeaways
On white anxiety over being in physical proximity to Blackness:
“Since 1960 more than one million whites have left New York City. The black and Hispanic population has grown by almost one million and it’s still growing. This is Rosedale. A community of six thousand families in the far southeastern pocket of the Borough of Queens. To the passing eye, it seems quiet. Modest one- and two-family homes with fenced-in lawns and tree-shaded streets.
The people who live here are almost all white; working-class Americans of Italian, Irish and Jewish roots. They’ve worked all their lives to afford these homes. Many came from the inner-city, refugees from neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn and South Jamaica; neighborhoods they saw changing, and dangerous to live in. These people saved their money and made their escape to what they call “the last frontier” in New York City … to Rosedale, to what they hoped would be a safe and quiet life. In the early 1970s a few middle-class black families with very much the same idea in mind began to move to Rosedale too. The whites saw their coming as a threat: the forerunner of more blacks bringing crime, blight and poor services they had witnessed in other neighborhoods in the city, and the peace of Rosedale was shattered.” —Bill Moyers
On the entertainment value of white supremacy to white culture:
“In 1971, a score of men and teenage boys using axes and picks nearly destroyed a house, reportedly bought by a black man married to a white woman. Two hundred residents stood by and watched. Since then more than 10 acts of violence have been aimed at the few blacks living in Rosedale.” —Bill Moyers
On the anxiety of Black life in white space:
“It has affected them in many ways. They’re very apprehensive now about being children. About going out and, you know, doin’ the things that boys do. You gotta remember they’re three boys and boys always get into things. And its got them now where they look twice at everybody, they’re wondering about the people that they live around. You know, the people lives around in this neighborhood they wonder … could that be the person, why are these people hating us? You know, why are they doin’ the things that they do to us? Especially when my youngest son was beaten up twice in our front garden.” —Tony Spencer
On combating white fear with Black optimism:
“I usually tell them that there are good and bad in every people, every race, regardless. There are prejudices for most things, whether it’s religious, whether it’s race, whether it’s color or what. And we just happen to be amongst a few people whose minds are warped. And therefore we cannot class everyone that we see in this neighborhood as the same. They are only, they are in the minority, the people who are doing these things in this neighborhood. And that’s the only thing I can tell ’em. I don’t want to, you know, teach ’em hate because hate consumes people.
Anyone who allows hate to become an everyday thing in their lives, their object in life and their goals become second … and their hate becomes first. And I’m not gonna teach ’em that regardless of how many bombs they put at this house. I’m not gonna teach my children hate.” —Tony Spencer
On the white community’s interventions to retain their preferred racial makeup of a neighborhood:
“The whites who do live in the suburbs are relatively insulated; safe for the moment from the rapid changes that struck New York. Property values and political policies discourage’ low-income people, white or black, from moving in. They just can’t afford it.
This is why the working and middle-class Blacks who can’t afford the suburbs have their eye on Rosedale, and it’s why the whites who already live here feel hemmed in with nowhere to go. They’re determined to hang on. This is one way they’re doing it, with a home referral service run by an organization known as ROAR. Roar: Return Our American Rights — is dedicated to keeping Rosedale white. Its home referral service was set up to make sure that if whites moved out they would sell their homes to other whites. ROAR keeps a listing of families who are selling, makes contact with prospective white buyers, then shows the homes. This family wants to move to Rosedale. This member of ROAR is showing them a house.” —Bill Moyers
“And the main feature about Rosedale is just about everybody is hard-workin’ people, they have a heck of a lot of pride in their homes, in the community. And we’ve got just about everything over here. We’ve got Chinese, we’ve got Jews, we’ve got Italians, we’ve got Slovaks. You know, a melting pot. This I can honestly say about Rosedale, it is America, period, the melting pot, the great melting pot, and you got it right here in this community and a hell of a great community. I can’t emphasize that enough. I think this neighborhood, with people like yourself coming in, people like Charlie and Ann who are giving their houses to ROAR Home Referral, seeing that we bring the right people in and are gonna help keep Rosedale just the way it is: a beautiful, white, ethnic community. And when I say ethnic, we’ve got it, every majority. And I don’t think it’ll change. They’re tryin’ — they’re tryin’ like hell to knock us out. They over-publicize a heck of a lot of things. Things that happen in Springfield Gardens they call Rosedale; just, you know, to put the spotlight on Rosedale maybe to scare people. But it’s not working. Nobody’s runnin’, nobody is ‘runnin’. And if they have to move they’ll give the home to ROAR. And we’ve been bringin’ in people. I think out of the last 43 homes we’ve gotten 31 have gone to white people through ROAR.” —Joe Soltiz
The full transcript is available here.