The New Yorker --- By Miriam Markowitz
At Brooklyn’s predawn Jouvert celebration, pictured here, the shooting of an aide to Governor Cuomo brought the tradition into the national spotlight and kindled yet another debate about gun violence. Credit PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE KEITH / GETTY
Last April, on a trip to Kingston, I asked a friend from Trinidad if he would accompany me to Jamaican Carnival. He begged off. Carnival in Jamaica wasn’t anything special, and it was prohibitively expensive for all but the very wealthy to play mas. The drunken revelries of the costumed élites, he said, were protected from the crowds by dividers and police patrols. Regular people could only watch from the sidelines.
Brooklyn Carnival is still democratic, and with democracy comes chaos. On Labor Day, the annual West Indian Day Parade transformed Eastern Parkway into a bright and beautiful pageant that has become one of Brooklyn’s most beloved traditions. But in Brooklyn, as in the islands, pretty mas is preceded by the dutty mas of Jouvert, a celebration that begins at 4 A.M. and ends at sunrise. Shortly after dawn, the streets still belonged to celebrants anointed with motor oil, paint, mud, and baby powder. Hours earlier, a man I might have known danced me away from my friends and into the faerie pull of the masquerade.
Then morning came, dissipating some of the collective fog. People began to pick themselves up off the sidewalks and head home for a brief respite before the big parade. I realized that I was drenched in grease, like a pelican casualty of Exxon Valdez, and was missing my wallet, keys, and cell phone. But I was only a few blocks from my apartment and had emerged from the night unscathed.
Others were not so lucky. Over the course of Sunday and Monday, in the precincts where people gather for West Indian Carnival, three people were shot and two were stabbed; two of the victims were fatally wounded. The total arrests included thirteen for gun possession, four felony assaults, fourteen misdemeanors, one robbery, three for the possession of deadly weapons (two knives and a machete), and one for disorderly conduct.
One of the men shot was Carey Gabay, the forty-three-year-old son of Jamaican immigrants, and a lawyer in Governor Cuomo’s administration. Gabay died from his injuries on Wednesday evening, more than a week after he was injured. His shooting, which authorities said occurred when an unknown gunman shot into a crowd of revelers, brought the obscure tradition of Jouvert into the national spotlight and kindled yet another debate about gun violence. Cuomo appeared on the news lamenting his aide’s bad fortune. A chorus of commentators called for the banning of Jouvert. Crain’s published an online poll asking, “Should the city end the West Indian American Day festivities to curb violence?” Fifty-six per cent of respondents said yes.
Last Thursday, the leaders of J’Ouvert City International, a community group that has organized the event since the nineteen-eighties, and the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, which oversees the parade itself, had a closed-door meeting with Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, the N.Y.P.D., and city council members. Afterward, Adams announced the creation of a task force that would address violence not just at Jouvert but at New York City events in general. Jouvert was not in jeopardy. “We don’t stop celebrating the Fourth of July because some crazy breaks out a gun,” Adams said. The shooting of Gabay, who at that point was still hospitalized, in critical condition, was discussed at length. The death of the other, unnamed young man was mentioned in passing.
The next day, I spoke to Adams. “Statistically, if you look at what happened over the weekend, those are not high numbers compared to a central Brooklyn standard,” he said, about the crime at Jouvert. I asked him about the Crain’s poll. The people who read Crain’s, he said, are not among the million who go out each year to the Parkway. “Brooklyn is ground zero for gentrification. There are a small number of newcomers who want to know why they have to deal with this. Then why did you come here?”
Replies
This quote regarding WIADCA is astounding in light of the steelbands' current and ongoing struggles: "It’s also, in Howard’s words, “New York City’s biggest babysitter”—under its auspices, thousands of kids spend their summers learning to play the steel drums, or building costumes and learning choreography and storylines for the intricate theatrics of prettymas."
So the steelbands aren't good enough to seriously lobby for so they can enjoy a continued existence in Brooklyn, but they're good enough to take credit for their deeds and use them as a way to legitimize WIADCA in the national spotlight amidst this public relations disaster? I wonder when last that individual visited a panyard - if he could find one, that is.
On the other hand, big kudos to Eric Adams for that not particularly politician-like quote re: gentrifiers/newcomers. He's damn right!
Noah -- WIACDA has gotten away with this abuse for so long they have lost all sense of reality.
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