Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks At Bethel Gospel Assembly

July 10, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everyone.

Audience: Good morning.

Unknown: We love you.

Mayor: I love you too.

[Applause]

Unknown: [Inaudible] mayor.

Mayor: Thank you. First, I want to give honor to God. Without Him, this day would not be possible.

[Applause]

It’s an honor to be back at Bethel, to be back in this good house with this wonderful congregation. [Inaudible] I have to tell you, I was able to take your [inaudible] in a time of crisis. So many of you [inaudible] the painful aftermath of the explosion in this community – the lives lost, the disruption, the confusion. And this church provided a sanctuary in every day. In every way, this church was one of the places where the healing began, and people gave hope even after the most unspeakable tragedy. Literally, in one minute, life was normal [inaudible]. Everything had changed, but no worry whatsoever. But this church started to make people whole again, and we have to thank the Bishop for that. Bishop, thank you so much.

[Applause]

Now, none of us does this work alone. In my life, I am lucky to have such a wonderful partner, who is also the love of my life – our First Lady.

[Applause]

And we have a very good rule in our home. We don’t use the saying [inaudible] – sorry, we don’t use the old fashioned saying [inaudible]. They used to say, behind every great man stands a great woman. We don’t say that anymore. We say, beside every great man stands a great woman.

[Applause]

And in this church, there is a great woman who is your First Lady. Pastor Lorna Brown, thank you.

[Applause]

Chirlane and I wanted to be here with you [inaudible] thank you very much for the way your message, which is so important for everyone to hear. But let me just speak about this country and this city at this moment.

It’s a very painful moment. It’s a very dreadful moment. And you have a choice to make in those moments, and I’ll make the obvious and immediate analogy – the explosion that occurred was a different kind of moment, a different kind of tragedy. People had to figure out what to do. People came together. People supported each other. People saw themselves as one. They sought a positive path, despite their pain. Well, this week is different. This week is harder, because when the pain happens in ways that don’t make sense to us and have to do with our history, and the very basis of our society, that’s harder to navigate. That’s more difficult to make sense of. 

We are at a history problem in this country. We have a history of division, a history of discrimination. And if it started a few a years ago, maybe it would be easier to resolve. It started 400 years ago, and it’s still with us. And that does not negate the fact that we’ve made so much progress. By the way, until 1967 – literally, up to a Supreme Court decision in 1967 in this country, Chirlane and I would not have legally been allowed to be married in the United States. That was in our lifetime. So, we have to acknowledge real progress, but, at the same time, any one who acts like we’ve overcome those 400 years isn’t ready to move us forward. We have to be honest about structural racism. We have to be honest about the biases that absolutely [inaudible] our entire society. They’re in everything we see, and, literally, it surrounds us, and our job in our time is to weed that out, to overcome that, to send that to the past where it belongs, but it isn’t easy. We, therefore, find ourselves in a kind of pain mixed with confusion, and that can lead very easily to cynicism. That can lead to a sense that there is no hope, there is no way forward, but that’s the last thing you should allow to happen. The last thing that you should do is walk away, retreat, fail to believe that we can make the next level [inaudible], because it’s our responsibility – every one of us – everyone. 

And this city plays a particularly important role, because we [inaudible]. For generations, this has been one of the places where everyone did come together – not perfectly, by any stretch, but at least everyone was together in one place – all the faiths, all the backgrounds. And sometimes, harmony was achieved, and our clergy so often lead the way. In times of crisis in this city, you see clergy of all backgrounds instinctively come together. In so many other parts of the world, people of different faiths sadly are opposed to each other and spend so much time creating division, and clergy leaders are part of deepening that anger and frustration. But here, our clergy helps us to come together regularly, and that is part of why year after year in this city [inaudible]. We’ve begun to make the changes we need to make. 

I reference something that I think is important to understand, because if we want to talk about relationships between police and community, we not only have to deal with that [inaudible] history, and how we overcome it; the biases that surround us, and how we overcome it; we also have to understand the very notion of what police want from community, and community want from police, and how it is ultimately the same thing. There’s [inaudible] who want to be safe, they want to be respected, they want to be seen in their full humanity. The police are exactly the same way. They want to do their job. In fact, they put their lives on the line to do their job. They want to be respected. They want to be safe. They want to go home to their families. They want to be able [inaudible]. Why is it so hard for everyone to understand each other? It’s that history keeps coming up, grabbing us, pulling us away. We have to defeat that history.

So, we have begun in this city – we have begun something very fundamental – neighborhood policing. Police officers getting to know the people they serve. Individuals getting to know the folks in their communities, getting to know whatever houses of worship, getting to know their [inaudible]. Communities get to know the police as people who made the choice to serve. Community policing – neighborhood policing – these ideas have been around for decades, but they’ve never really been fully accomplished, and we aim to do that now in this city. Neighborhood policing means policing of, and by, and for the people.

[Applause]

Most of our officers now – I was at a graduation of a new police class – 55 percent of our new officers who graduated live in the five boroughs. 

[Applause]

I looked at that graduating class and it was a rainbow, it was every part of the city represented. It was 20 percent women, and that’s [inaudible].

[Applause]

So, police who come from the community, who get to know the community, who engage from the beginning with the very instruction that if you’re not learning your community, and meeting people, and understanding them, then you’re not yet reaching the fullness of your profession. Neighborhood policing, which has been instituted by Commissioner Bratton and Chief O’Neill, literally involves officers who will work the exact same part of the neighborhood the entire time, who are charged with getting to know people, giving them their cell number so that if anybody has a problem they can call that officer directly. Isn’t that different?

[Applause]

And it begins to build trust and understanding. It begins to build common cause. People see each other shoulder to shoulder, not as from different [inaudible] and possibly distant histories, but, now, in common cause. And in this city, and [inaudible] all over the country, we’re going to have body cameras more and more on our police. Between the camera [inaudible] transparency for everyone – it’s a [inaudible] idea. [Inaudible] front page of the newspaper, a standard we all have to hold ourselves to. 

So, this is the way forward, and I’ll finish with this point – we are trying to do something that in one sense is very, very hard, because that history never left space for an understanding and a respect. Too often, the forces of our governments, and those who represented our government, who weren’t part of the solution – they were part of propagating the status quo that was just rife with discrimination, with haves and have-nots, with barriers that kept people from realizing their goals [inaudible]. So, it’s understandable, when we look at that history, we don’t think there’s much to it that we can borrow from today. But there is one thing, going even farther back to where we all come from – every single one of us in this room – whether it’s a few generations ago, or many generations ago, everyone comes from a village somewhere. It may be in Africa, it may be in Europe – we all come from a village somewhere. We all come from a life centuries ago that was common all over the world. [Inaudible] we all come from something that naturally we had in common. And in every village, and every culture, there are [inaudible] There were people who stood at the village gate and protected everyone else. And it was understood in the community that some people would be chosen as the [inaudible]. [Inaudible] they were appreciated. It was part of a normal life and a culture that the village – everyone in the village had to be protected, and some would be chosen among us to protect. There was no question of division. There was no [inaudible] wall. It was people protecting their fellow human beings. We have to reach back to that [inaudible]. 

In our time, we need to, once again, know that we have [inaudible] in every one of our villages that are called now our neighborhoods. We have people who are there for us, who we look up to, and appreciate because they’re there for us. We know they feel our lives just as they do [inaudible]. That is what we must build in this city. It won’t be easy – I am not here to tell you we’ll snap our fingers and erase all the pain. I’m simply here to tell you that we have no choice but to build something better in our time. 

[Applause]

And let this city be the example. Let’s take on the responsibility – all of us – for being the leaders. Let’s show our nation [inaudible]. Someone once said, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

[Laughter]

I normally quote scripture, but some people quote Sinatra during times [inaudible].

[Laughter]

Let’s make it here. Let’s make the peace here. Let’s spread it everywhere else.

Thank you, and God bless you all.