Simon Adler’s Late to the Party – Is Khader El-Yateem Stuck in the Past?
Yesterday, RadioLab posted Simon Adler’s podcast about Khader El-Yateem and the Bay Ridge election. Adler wrote the the story for another website, WNYC over a month ago, so why is he publishing a podcast that isn’t relevant?
The late delivery says that this isn’t an important topic, yet Khader El-Yateem still tweeted it out. Did he listen to the whole thing?
The podcast begins with Simon Adler talking about a debate that took place at Xaverian High School two months ago.
Alder was mesmorized by Bob Capano going off on a rift during the debate. Adler’s profile shows he is from Brooklyn, so it’s strange that he would think Capano was interesting.
Adler seems amazed that Bay Ridge has stores and restaurants from people of all different cultures, but it’s just something we have known all our lives. Maybe he doesn’t get out much?
Then it’s blah blah, Trump, blah blah, gentrification, blah blah.
The podcast has some background about El-Yateem, but at no time does Adler explain that El-Yateem supported BDS and wanted to use the Bay Ridge city council seat to work on advancing BDS. This is a reason people in Bay Ridge did not support him.
Then Adler talked to and about Linda Sarsour. Sarsour described how Muslim men who weren’t citizens were questioned and deported several years ago. Linda went with the men and provided translation services. Linda said they looked at the men’s papers and passports and sent some to the 10th floor. Sarsour said that ten percent that didn’t register were deported. Sarsour spoke about surveillance in the community. Did Adler add so much information about Linda Sarsour because he wanted to get attention to his story? She wasn’t as vibrant in El-Yateem’s election run as Adler made her to be. Sarsour didn’t say anything when there was a question about El-Yateem and money for a drug center.
What Adler doesn’t explain is that Bay Ridge residents didn’t hear about the mistreatment or surveillance of other residents until it was long over (in fact, we still don’t know who was deported and we listen closely to the interviews given). Adler mentioned the mosque crawlers and that the police were finding out which Muslim families were at the park together. The surveillance program did not turn up any terrorists. Linda Sarsour wanted to have an Arab person speak up for the community. Sarsour told Adler that no elected representatives would stand up for people. She said that leaders told her to run for City Council, but that since the politics changed, she wanted to do national work since Trump became President.
In November 2016, Linda Sarsour ran for a seat on the Democratic County Committee, but lost.
The podcast continued with a chat with Sarsour and Kayla Santosuosso. They thought that El-Yateem had a “complex identity” and he would make a good candidate. Neither wanted to tell the Simon Adler that Khader El-Yateem failed to speak up for Bay Ridge. Or that some things El-Yateem said just didn’t add up – like the Bay Ridge Unity Task Force. While the group started out with good intentions, meeting once a year to eat breakfast and take a picture does nothing for community relations. In fact, I would say it hurt community relations as people in the community thought this was an ‘exclusive’ group that met monthly and ‘handled things.’ The group hasn’t met since February 2016 and it meets during working hours so most people wouldn’t be able to attend.
Adler was looking for a dichotomy to make the narrative interesting. Santosuosso offered him the dichotomy of North Bay Ridge and South Bay Ridge. Adler switches it up and says that the reason that El-Yateem lost was he tried to appeal to many groups. This simply isn’t true. El-Yateem appealed to many people, sometimes for who he was and sometimes because his team was telling people what they wanted to hear. There were residents who voted him for El-Yateem and they didn’t know he was a socialist because Team El-Yateem said that their candidate was focused on getting low-cost housing for the elderly.
I know it’s a more interesting story when a journalist uses a buzz word like “identity politics.” It’s not as interesting of a story to hear that the other candidate, Justin Brannan was more involved with the community. It’s just not as exciting, but it’s the truth. Brannan’s been backing unions and even walked picket lines just because he supports workers. It was likely for him to receive backing from unions. Adler used the same M.O. for the September story on WNYC about El-Yateem. He referred to El-Yateem being an outsider of the Democratic Party. when infact, there is evidence online that El-Yateem was invited and included in community events by Councilman Gentile. Gentile also appointed El-Yateem to Community Board 10 because of Gentile. (more)
Simon Adler was with Khader El-Yateem when he found out that he lost the election.
In the podcast. Adler features Khader El-Yateem being bitter. At the end of the podcast, Adler captures El-Yateem after the election and El-Yateem started talking about: If an elected official wants to talk to someone in his community, they can go through Khader El-Yateem. It’s strange to hear that a priest is putting divisions up in our community. El-Yateem knows politicians aren’t actually running out to speak to anyone.
Simon Adler, El-Yateem lost. You had a story over a month ago and you didn’t run it – because you weren’t motivated to run it. Move on! We believed that El-Yateem had moved on as well as he was recently photographed with Justin Brannan and the smiles look legit.
Hugs,
marlene
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