TESTIMONY
Testimony: Rizette Diaz Advocates for Red Hook Children in Light of Historical Exploitation
2:14:34
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168 sec
Rizette Diaz delivers a poignant testimony, spotlighting the historical exploitation and present challenges faced by the Red Hook community, particularly the children of PS 15. Diaz narrates a century-long history of neglect, from the economic decline due to shipping industry shifts to Hurricane Sandy's impact. She emphasizes the current issue of toxic emissions from cruise ships, underscoring the persistent systemic injustices and the community's resolve to fight for the health and well-being of its youngest residents.
Speaker 13
2:14:34
My name is Rizette Diaz, and I'm here to lend a voice to the 430 children ranging in age from 2 to eleven who attend PS 15 in Red Hat.
Speaker 1
2:14:41
Sorry.
2:14:41
Can you just pause one second?
2:14:43
Can the surgeon set the clock?
2:14:49
You were ready, but we were not ready.
2:14:51
Sorry.
2:14:51
No.
2:14:51
It's okay.
2:14:52
Okay.
2:14:53
Go ahead.
Speaker 13
2:14:54
PS 15 is the only fully public elementary school in the neighborhood, and the majority of our students reside in the Redhook House is the largest niger development in all of Brooklyn.
2:15:03
Many of my amazing community members can speak better about the community's current needs and issues, but I'm actually gonna take a little history to her for the past 100 years.
2:15:12
The 19 twenties, rhetoric was one of the busiest shipping ports in the country, and it was mostly poor immigrant dock workers living in the neighborhood.
2:15:20
Sorry.
2:15:21
Sorry.
2:15:21
Okay.
2:15:22
In the 19 thirties, Robert Moses came to power and he changed the neighborhood in two key ways.
2:15:27
Number 1, his slum clearances were he pushed to the city's poorest to the coastlines indirectly leading to the building of the Red Hook Houses in 1939 and number 2, building the BQE in 1946.
2:15:38
And the reason why these are both important is because they were about segregating and about keeping poor people poor and keeping them over there.
2:15:44
Then in the fifties, shipping methods changed, and suddenly 7000 shipping jobs are gone, and they removed the trolley service, and there's just very little economic opportunity rhetoric residents who are already considered low income to begin with.
2:15:56
Then the persistent neglect and severe lack of infrastructure continued into the eighties where life magazine called Redhook, the Craft Capital of America, and even our school's own former principal, Patrick F Daily, for whom our school was now named after, was shot and killed.
2:16:10
Due to gun violence and a drug epidemic that were the consequences of the neighborhood's mistreatment.
2:16:15
Then came hurricane Sandy, which by design disproportionately hit our poorest people, the hardest.
2:16:21
The Redhook Houses were underwater for weeks.
2:16:24
No heat, no electricity.
2:16:26
Then 3 huge Amazon warehouses came with another UPS one on the way.
2:16:29
And here we are now with the MSC Merriviglia, the 6th largest cruise ship in the world, spewing toxic emissions every week.
2:16:36
Now, why is any of this relevant?
2:16:38
Why am I taking my 3 minutes to talk about the history?
2:16:40
Because this issue is just another example in a long history of abuse and exploitation in Redhook.
2:16:46
It is absolutely relevant that Redhook is still a mostly poor, black, and brown neighborhood because that is not by accident.
2:16:54
And the city hopes that the community is too tired and too burdened by the systemic racist and socioeconomic historical injustices to fight back.
2:17:02
But we will keep fighting because as I said at the very beginning, I'm here for the kids.
2:17:06
These kids who go to school every day, three blocks from the entrance of the BCT.
2:17:10
And they cannot, according to the EDC's cruise ship agreements, wait until 2035 or even 2028 for full shore power usage.
2:17:18
The kids deserve better and we should do better for them.
2:17:21
Thank you.