The leopard frog and eastern perch are not alone

What do the Atlantic leopard frog and the eastern pirate perch have in common with optimistic New Yorkers? All are endangered. So is the slimy eel, which is surprising, since legacy politicians are not a threatened species. 

The middle class hardly even has a footing on the slippery slope anymore and the slope itself is barely structurally sound. But there is vestigial hope to cling onto. Were it not for labor unions and their genius for creating traction, the slope would have crumbled away all together.

The Department of Treasury released a report last year that clearly illustrated that fact. Data irrefutably shows that gender and race-blind union membership and income are joined at the hip. Prosperity, at least relative to abject poverty, is within reach. 

Still, though, a formidable stretch.

Yet since the 1970s, "income has become more volatile, the amount of time spent on vacation has fallen, and middle-class Americans are less prepared for retirement. Intergenerational mobility has declined — 90 percent of children born in the 1940s earned more than their parents did at age 30, while only half of children born in the mid-1980s did the same,” a Treasury Department story noted last year. 

Statistics lend themselves to special effects more spectacular than can any fireworks display or Hollywood film. But it is indisputable that the up-and-coming generation is down and retreating when it comes to disposable assets and purchasing power. 

It is generally conceded that people who identify as "conservative" tend to be hostile to unions, while self-styled "progressives" are friendlier, though specious reasoning might conclude that the difference is over the means to economic self-determination, not the goal. Maybe we should abandon labels altogether, since their reference points are seismically unstable. 

Democrats are almost always more sympathetic to labor than are Republicans. But there are surprises. I'm no fan of Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley, but his deliciously merciless interrogation of Boeing's CEO was not a grilling, it was a skewering. From reading a transcript without knowing its author, he sounds like a staunch unionist. Of course he's not, despite taking pro-labor positions on Big Pharma, limiting bank executive pay and capping credit card interest rates.

We should neither give up on even our most intractable foes. Nor be taken for granted even by serial allies. Doesn't happen often, but it does occur.

Labor unions must be prominent actors in the big picture of national politics, but shop stewards and chapter leaders, while still prioritizing broader issues, must be primarily focused on fierce advocacy on the local level.

If a constituent were to shove their union representative onto subway tracks as a train enters the station, and the victim's boss jumps down at grave risk to themselves and rescues the representative from certain death in the nick of time, and should thereafter there be a work-related grievance between that same cowardly member and heroic boss, the representative must no less advocate with tenacity to prevail on behalf of their member.

The labor movement, professional sports and the military are closer to the ideal of bigotry-avoidance than are most other areas. 

But is it possible to be color-blind and culture-inclusive while embedding consciousness of these differences in providing business contracts and economic opportunities? State legislation awaiting Governor Hochul's signature would create a separate racial classification for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) people who have historically been classified as white. 

"I think this is going to be a game-changer for so many Arab American business owners,” said Debbie Almontaser, a former public-school principal, cofounder of the Yemeni American Merchants Association and CEO of Bridging Cultures Group. She feels that Middle Eastern and North African people have received "zero privilege" and have suffered discrimination in housing and have been foreclosed from lucrative entrepreneurial bids because of their identity. 

All because they were viewed as white. The solution is to be a beneficiary of an injustice, no longer a victim of it. 

If they eventually achieve certification as minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE), it will give them a leg up on procurement contracts and expedite, in the words of Mayor Eric Adams, "a more equitable business landscape.”

According to the U.S. Census, Arabs are white/Caucasian, because they "have origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.” That has been the conventional scientific designation. 

Are the criteria for that determination legitimately rooted or arbitrarily contrived and driven by hostile intellectual proclivities with ulterior motives? In any case, should people be free to self-identify as with gender? Should any race be more or less eligible for economic opportunity? What limits, if any, should be imposed upon tracking race?  

What of those on the flip side of the protected divide?

Is anthropology an academic or a political subject? Is scholarship wherever it may lead in pursuit of objective knowledge even possible in this explosive climate? I wish that whatever the settlement is, it does no collateral damage to worthy folks who fail the means test of being in a favored class and are themselves innocent of any past unjust exclusions.

Such issues are complex. Youth will need to think critically about fair and nondiscriminatory solutions. Are high schools and colleges reliable laboratories for inquiry?      

The City Council is trying to revive the proliferation of school newspapers. According to a study by a professor at Baruch College, as of two years ago, only around one-quarter of city high schools had a student newspaper. If "best practices" are modeled on the chicanery of contemporary on-air journalism, it would be better not to bother. The same is true of debating societies. 

Unless it is on a higher level than bare-knuckle brawling, it might as well be lumped with journalism as voodoo electives. 

Journalism and debating clubs thrived even during the turbulent civil rights and Vietnam war era,  but are now like the Broadway and 91st IRT subway station that was closed down a half-century ago and is now a relic you can spot as a will-o-the wisp looking out a 1 train, not taking time to blink or you'll miss it. 

Maybe not. 

Perhaps Columbia University and other campuses will rise to the occasion of spirited debate and balanced point of view. Will there be encampments to protest China's genocide of the Uyghurs or other grievous persecutions  on several continents?

On a lighter note, why are New York's concert halls named uber-rich donors, like David Geffen, Alice Tully and formerly Avery Fischer? Shouldn’t they instead be named in honor of great New York composers, like George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein? And stadiums should not be named after the wealthiest donor, but rather after a person who gloriously distinguished themselves and inspired New Yorkers there.

But it'll always be The Chief. Not "Isaac's Vanity Foul."

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