Leaving Blacks Behind in Brooklyn

Abstract

The Borough of Brooklyn, New York has evolved over the past half-millennium from a sparsely settled, lush woodland, to a bustling super-diverse, post-industrial city of almost three million residents. This essay looks at the experiences of those who, over that long period of time, have made their homes in this territory. The first Brooklynites, of course were Native Americans such as members of the Canarsie tribe, but since them there has been a virtual Roman Fountain of migrants and immigrants from every corner of the nation and the globe. This enormous population movement can easily be characterized as a series of what classical urban ecologists such called “invasions and successions” (Park, et al., 1925). Unfortunately, as a consequence of conflicts and competitions over Brooklyn spaces and resources, there has been an unequal, and inequitable, distribution of public goods to “winners” and “losers.” Here we will address that, periodically troubled, history from a “distributive social justice” perspective, with a special focus on those of African descent (Rawls & Kelly, 2003). that will also be prefaced by the United Nations “17 Sustainable Development Goals” (United Nations, 2022).