Several prominent social justice organizations agree: New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ “blueprint” to end gun violence is a way to “oversee and maintain social control of black bodies,” adding technology to the 2003 version of stop and frisk. With rising crime rates in New York City, Adams released his plan on Jan. 24, introducing artificial intelligence and other advanced technology to the New York City Police Department. The groups pushed back at a press conference on Feb. 3.

Adams’ plan’s details include giving the NYPD facial recognition technology and gunshot detection programs. An overall increase in mass surveillance, causing a whirlwind of disagreement by groups which include the Legal Aid Society, the National Lawyers Guild and Amnesty International.

As mentioned by Jason Williamson, executive director of the NYU Center of Race, Inequality, and the Law, black and brown communities would be affected disproportionately by this new technology as they have with the stop and frisk policy. That policy was ruled unconstitutional and race-based by a federal judge in 2013.

This AI technology has been proven to be faulty and racially biased according to Jerome Greco, supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s Digital Forensics team. “Studies show that it [facial recognition] is less accurate on people of color, women, and young people and transgender people,” he said. 

This tech would be added to programs police use such as bite mark evidence, something that teams at the Innocence Project showed was not unique the same way DNA and fingerprints are. The Innocence Project is a 30-year-old organization that exonerates wrongly convicted people.

“The NYPD’s claims about wanting to establish positive ties with the community they allege to serve are inconsistent with the use of faulty tech on people who live or work there,” Greco said. Just this past year Nijeer Parks, a 30-year-old black carpenter in New Jersey, was wrongfully arrested for assault charges because of the facial recognition software used by police.

Racial biases aside, the new technology would be considered a “violation of the right to privacy,” as said by Matt Mahmoud, Artificial Intelligences for Human Rights advisor at Amnesty International. The field of vision of controlled cameras used by the NYPD is estimated to be about one and a half to two blocks according to Mahmoud.”A protester walking a sample route from Washington Square Park subway to Washington Square Park proper is potentially exposed to facial recognition for 100% of their journey…surveilled by up to four NYPD cameras at a time,” he said. 

This level of surveillance in impoverished communities, a majority made up of minorities, will only increase the level of suspicion between the public and law enforcement.

”Americans love a technological fix and they will take one bit of anecdotal info and run with it because it allows elected officials to avoid responsibility for creating the conditions that are producing violence in our community,” said Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College sociology professor. “It is a set of political slogans designed to appeal to people’s worst fears.”

As an alternative to proposing this advanced technology, three participants at the Conference, Vitale, Christina Swarns of the Innocence Project and Erica Johnson of the National Lawyers Guild all suggested “community policing,” where officers would be working closely with community members to mend relations between damaged communities and the police. It is a proven solution that has been successful across the country. They expressed dissatisfaction that Adams’ plan to rely so much on new software was going in the wrong direction.

The numbers of NYC food pantry volunteers declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, even as food insecurity worsened.

Food pantries around New York City are hungry for help themselves, after losing volunteers and food donors during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

World Care Center, a New York-based non-profit service organization founded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. held a Zoom call with food insecurity provider organizations on Thursday February 3, to share their challenges and lessons learned from providing food during the pandemic. 

One attendee, New York Common Pantry Deputy Executive Director Judith Secon, said, “We never stopped serving. Our bags were always full, but they were some scary times.” She said volunteers stopped coming and corporate and restaurant food rescue donations that they counted on declined, as New York City went into a shutdown. 

“A lot of people couldn’t get out of their house, and that’s why a mobile pantry was helpful,” said Secon, to keep the volunteers safe and the clients with their stomachs full,  The Common  Pantry came up with an alternative that made it easy for people and volunteers to get and deliver fresh food safely. 

It not only offered hot meals and groceries, it also provided education about nutrition. The Common Pantry food programs still offer hot meals and shopping options, where clients can select the food they would like to eat, and a NYCP Mobile Pantry has nutrition education and social services as well. 

Secon said the pantry serves many students. “We want to get rid of the stigma for college students… We know food insecurity is a problem.” said Secon. 

CUNY and Common Pantry are working together to fight students’ food insecurity. “We are putting mobile food pantries, with music outside campuses to attract them,” said Secon. 

 Brooklyn College offers its students a food pantry they can visit monthly by scheduling an appointment online. 

Common Pantry has served 217,109 households and 13,836,786 meals have been distributed during COVID. If you are facing food insecurity or know someone, you can contact Common Pantry though their website nycommonpantry.org. 

After working on a three-day schedule and going from twenty-five to zero volunteers the Common Food Pantry is getting back its help from providers. “It hasn’t gotten away, the need is still here… We now have a lot of funding and help to get through this,” said Secon.

“Whites increasingly see racism as a zero-sum game that they are losing,” said Heather McGhee a newly appointed lecturer at The City University of New York’s (CUNY) School of Labor and Urban Studies.

McGhee was discussing her book “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” on Zoom with Deepak Bhargava as he was welcoming her to the program.

“I quit my job in 2017 and set off across the country. I went from California to Mississippi to Maine and back again multiple times,” McGhee said on her journey to writing this book. Throughout her travels she had one question. She wanted to know why we all can’t have “nice things.”

No, she isn’t talking about self-driving cars or Gucci bags. She is talking about public swimming pools, subsidized higher education, universal childcare, affordable healthcare, and paid family leave.

McGhee refers to zero-sum and how white supremacy deprives people of “nice things.” The people that are deprived include white people as well as people of color. She mentions a story about a pool in Montgomery, Ala. When white Americans were told that they would have to integrate the pool they decided to drain and cement it. Nobody, white or black, has been able to enjoy it since they closed it down in 1959.

McGhee also mentioned wages. She questions why someone should survive on $7.25, where someone else is making 1000 times more. “An average worker would have to work 1,000 years to make what the CEO makes in a year,” McGhee said. She pointed out that when everyone gets together they can demand justice. That happened recently with the Fight for $15 movement when fast-food workers supported each other to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour in the country.

McGhee’s book was released in Feb. 2021 and has spent 10 weeks on The New York Times best seller. It was also long listed for the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for excellence in non-fiction.

McGhee is a lecturer at the School of Labor and Urban Studies in her first semester. The CUNY school has been a leader in adult and worker education for over 30 years. It started with 52 students and now has more than 1,200 adult and traditional aged students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs.

Brooklyn, New York- A 57-year-old driver has been charged with the killing of a 64-year-old female pedestrian on February 1, at the East 17th Street and Foster Avenue intersection a few steps away from Brooklyn College.

The driver, Gale Grey-Lawrence, 57,  who was driving a large Chevrolet SUV, was officially charged on February 2 with failure to yield, running a red light and failure to exercise due care, according to police officials.

On February 1, at 6:55 am, the 64 year old woman was crossing an intersection between 17th street and Foster Avenue. Grey-Lawrence didn’t stop for the pedestrian, struck her with the Chevy and dragged her several yards on the pavement.

The woman was taken to Kings County Hospital and died. Grey-Lawrence remained on the scene.

The investigation is still on-going and the victim’s family are withholding the victim’s information until future notice.

The executive director of Transportation Alternatives Danny Harris expressed outrage about the victim’s death.

“Once again, a driver of a big car has killed a Brooklyn resident as they tried to cross the street. We are heartbroken and outraged. We send our condolences to the loved ones of the deceased.”

So far, there have been at least 18 deaths due to traffic violations in 2022 compared to 85 fatalities in Brooklyn last year, according to Transportation Alternatives. This puts the 2022 traffic fatality rate on track to exceed the deaths from 2021.

Mayor Eric Adams addressed concerns about traffic accidents just weeks ago on January 19 at a Coney Island Avenue press conference to propose new approaches to decrease fatalities.