{"id":25627,"date":"2015-08-28T17:09:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T23:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=25627"},"modified":"2015-08-28T17:09:53","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T23:09:53","slug":"talking-racism-and-housing-with-the-writer-behind-hbos-show-me-a-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/talking-racism-and-housing-with-the-writer-behind-hbos-show-me-a-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking racism and housing with the writer behind HBO’s ‘Show Me a Hero’"},"content":{"rendered":"
By ERICA BRODY<\/div>\n
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(JTA<\/a>) \u2014 Good storytelling, like good comedy, often draws from real life. It also relies on timing \u2014 finding the precise moment\u00a0when it won\u2019t just entertain but resonate, provoke, perhaps even shift our national conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d \u2014 the\u00a0six-part HBO miniseries<\/a>\u00a0created by journalist-turned-showrunner par excellence\u00a0David Simon\u00a0<\/a>(\u201cThe Wire,\u201d \u201cTreme\u201d) with William Zorzi (who worked with Simon at the Baltimore Sun and on \u201cThe Wire\u201d) and Paul Haggis (\u201cCrash\u201d) \u2014 combines riveting storytelling with impeccable timing.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Aug. 30, HBO will debut the final two episodes of this miniseries, based on the searing nonfiction narrative of journalist Lisa Belkin\u2019s 1999 book,\u00a0\u201cShow Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race and Redemption.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0It\u2019s being rereleased Sept. 1, with a new foreword by David Simon and epilogue by the author.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d unfolds around the 1985 ruling of U.S. District Judge\u00a0Leonard Sand<\/a>\u00a0(a pitch-perfect Bob Balaban), in a case brought to federal court by the U.S. Justice Department and the NAACP. In his 600-page ruling, Sand finds that Yonkers has intentionally segregated itself over the decades, and orders the city to create first 200 units of low-income housing, then 800 units of affordable housing, in the mainly white, middle-class part of the city.<\/p>\n

What could be a yawning tale of wonkiness is anything but. It\u2019s the story of young Yonkers Mayor Nick Wasicsko (Oscar Isaac), the (white) denizens and politicians who fight the NAACP-sided ruling tooth and nail, and the Yonkers residents (primarily women of color) who live in the projects. These women are the would-be residents of the mandated new housing, designed by the innovative architect and urban planner Oscar Newman, proponent of \u201cdefensible space\u201d and enemy of high-rise housing projects.<\/p>\n

These decades-old events feel particularly timely now, with civil rights activists embracing a vital new tool: this summer\u2019s\u00a0Supreme Court ruling that even unintentional housing discrimination is illegal<\/a>. It\u2019s especially relevant for a Jewish community exploring its own diversity, history of civil rights activism, and, yes, racism.<\/p>\n

Perhaps best known today for writing about work-family balance, Belkin\u2019s narrative breathes grainy life into the Yonkers of the 1980s and 1990s. We read (or watch), riveted, knowing that so many of the tropes are utterly unsustainable: The hair! The thinly veiled racism! The cigars in offices! Mayor Wasicsko\u2019s Maalox habit!<\/p>\n

\u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d isn\u2019t polemic; it leaves its audience to draw its own conclusions. And yet, viewers can\u2019t help but to compare our own times and actions to those depicted here. This week, JTA chatted with Belkin by phone about politics, race, anti-Semitism and what’s\u00a0changed in the years since she wrote the book.<\/p>\n

JTA: Michael Sussman, the NAACP lawyer fighting for the desegregation of public housing, is Jewish.\u00a0The U.S. District judge, Leonard Sand,<\/strong>\u00a0is Jewish. You and David Simon are Jewish. To what extent do you feel that Jews are drawn to civil rights issues as part of a broader pull toward social justice in America?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Belkin<\/strong>: Clearly they are. Civil rights, tikkun olam, is a thread that goes through everything that I learned about my religion. That\u2019s my job \u2013 to leave the world a better place. If you have a cultural history as the person who isn\u2019t wanted, then you have an obligation to help those who aren\u2019t wanted. [As Belkin concurs however,\u00a0not every Jew\u00a0<\/a>speaking out about Yonkers was on the NAACP\u2019s side.]<\/p>\n

\u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d is about politics and race. In recent weeks, we\u2019ve seen Black Lives Matter shift the conversations of some of the candidates running for president \u2014 including Hillary Clinton and\u00a0Bernie Sanders<\/a>. When it comes to national policies around affordable housing in the United States, what do you hope we\u2019ll hear more about this election season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think we\u2019re hearing them. Isn\u2019t it amazing that we made a miniseries about municipal housing? Who makes a miniseries about public housing policies? Now, people are talking about public housing policies. I\u2019ve said before that \u201cthis is more resonant today\u201d \u2013 people weren\u2019t ready to tackle it. They were so bruised, those who were advancing that cause.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Obama administration<\/a>\u00a0just pledged to enforce fair housing with new vigor \u2013 you can\u2019t take federal funds to segregate your city. The Supreme Court has said you don\u2019t have to reach the bar of showing [that segregation is] deliberate, you just have to show that the end effect is segregated.<\/p>\n

People are beginning to understand, with Ferguson and\u00a0Baltimore<\/a>, the idea of two Americas, two Americas that can\u2019t understand each other because they stand on different (literal and metaphorical) sides of the street and look at the same country through different eyes, because we don\u2019t need to be near each other because of the way we constructed society. I think we are hearing more of the conversation, I hope, that we should be hearing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this moment in the second episode,\u00a0<\/strong>when a protester says, \u201cHe\u2019s a Jew\u2026. They all are. That\u2019s why this is happening.\u201d How prevalent has this sentiment been \u2013 when the book came out and now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was struck by how virulent the streak of anti-Semitism is; there are several scenes, in both the book and the series. The fact that it was a Jewish judge and lawyer that was doing it \u2013 it became a lightning rod. David and I were both aware of that.<\/p>\n

It was definitely part of the reaction \u2013 not the main part. The people who protested this, I have always believed, thought that they were not prejudiced, not racist, that this wasn\u2019t a question of race, that it was protecting their investment. It was about fear. That fear was about people and lifestyles different from theirs.<\/p>\n

This story seems like the ultimate precursor to the dialogue now being had around white privilege, including in the Jewish community. When you wrote \u201cShow Me a Hero,\u201d did you imagine this conversation would take hold?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

White privilege wasn\u2019t a concept then. It\u00a0existed<\/em>, but it wasn\u2019t part of the conversation. There\u2019s one story I wish had made it into the miniseries. One of the women who was protesting this was leading a pretty much parallel life, with a daughter about the age of one of the tenants in the story. This mother\u2019s daughter came to her and said she was pregnant. The point was that this woman was looking at these people on the \u201cwrong\u201d side of town \u2014\u00a0why are they having trouble? why are they running amok? \u2014\u00a0yet she was dealing with exactly the same thing. Yet it didn\u2019t destroy her daughter\u2019s life in the same way. There were different supports and privileges on the other side of town.<\/p>\n

How do you see \u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d differently now, after all these years?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This has been a reunion. [The people I originally interviewed for the book] were there for the filming. It\u2019s been amazing to see what they\u2019ve made of their lives. This [low-income housing] was supposed to be a stepping stone. Not in every case, but in a gratifying percentage of cases it really worked that way. Their kids are now grown. You don\u2019t usually get that as a writer.<\/p>\n

Also, I understood that it\u2019s far more complicated than I\u2019d realized. I don\u2019t think that I went in with a view. I went into it with a lot of questions about whether this would work \u2014 a personal reflection. For the most part, it did work, and I feel I\u2019m not sure how I\u2019d respond if it were my neighborhood. I understand how it was terrifying. Yet I like to think that if it were done properly, if it were done with care, it\u2019s a good way for people to live with each other.<\/p>\n

What do you hope viewers and readers of \u201cShow Me a Hero\u201d will take away?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope it\u00a0gets them thinking<\/a>, How would this feel if this were us? That\u2019s what all the people who made this, and me, who wrote this, want.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by Lisa Belkin<\/em>\u00a0is being rereleased Sept. 1\u00a0by Little, Brown and Company.\u00a0<\/em>The final two segments of the six-part miniseries will debut on Sunday<\/em>, Aug. 30 from\u00a08-10 p.m. ET on HBO.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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