Barely Tolerated and Mostly Unwelcome: The Black Lives Matter Movement Inside Rich, White Suburbia

by Charlotte Beisel

Sayville is among many Long Island towns that have taken to the streets to join the Black Lives Matter movement, with two organized marches in the month of June. Thousands of Sayville residents have marched up and down Main Street but turned out in much lower numbers due to pushback from the community in early June.

Long Island is composed of 291 communities, and as a result of zoning regulations, redlining and racial steering, most of the Island’s Black population is centered in just 11 of them. These hard walls in housing patterns have ranked Long Island as one of the most segregated suburbs in the country.

“Growing up on Long Island, especially in Brentwood, a town that’s been slammed by President Trump several times, we’ve been stereotyped, we’ve been called names, we’ve basically been told by every other rich neighborhood that we’re nothing but some, for lack of better words, ghetto hood rats,” said Kat S., referencing a speech that Donald Trump made addressing the presence of MS-13 on Long Island. “That’s not the truth. We’re just like everyone else. We’re kids. We have dreams and hopes and expectations of the world.”

A protester and former student from Brentwood, Kat S., has been demonstrating across Long Island as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement, and is calling out the segregated nature of her hometown and the repercussions that a racist history has on the present generation. “Brentwood is a huge district and very segregated actually, you can tell which is the white school because there is so much funding going in there. These other schools though, it’s not unusual for the rooms to be overcrowded with the doors removed and the teachers being underpaid. And that segregates us even more, it’s just so underfunded,” said Kat S. “I mean I had a textbook my senior year that said Bush was still the president and that 9/11 was a recent event. That was in 2017.”

The recent support for the Black Lives Matter movement in Sayville is reminiscent of the efforts of queer people of color in the same town just 44 years ago. Every Independence Day, drag queens take the Sayville ferry to The Fire Island Pines to celebrate Terry Warren and the LGBT+ community. Warren, dressed in full drag, was denied entry to a bar on a conservative part of Fire Island. When his friends heard of this, they joined him in drag and “invaded” the island. Since that summer in 1976, The Invasion of the Pines continues this tradition in honor of the progress made in the LGBT+ community.

“I think what a lot of people within the queer community need to realize, especially the white people who are queer, is that being queer does not erase white privilege. As a bisexual person of color, pride means a lot to me,” said Kat, “but we take for granted a lot of the work done by Black and brown people in the queer community.”

During the AIDS epidemic, grassroots organizations such as Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) worked in New York City and on Long Island to provide comprehensive education for high risk individuals as well as counseling and medical referrals. “I mean you see free condoms everywhere now. But during the AIDS epidemic, trans sex workers of color protested and fought day and night to get free condoms placed in doctor’s offices and clinics so they could protect themselves,” said Kat. “They were doing survival work.”

While this new generation of empowered activists are carrying on the work done before them, older demonstrators like local business owner Phil Young, are applying what they’ve learned from past movements.

“No matter how we’ve enriched American history, and the sacrifices our ancestors have made, our station stays the same. Our attempts to build a community and a sense of self, has always been met with extreme acts of violence. So here we stand. Uncomfortable neighbors, barely tolerated and mostly unwelcome.”

In the long history of civil rights activism, today's protestors are not alone. “When we marched, you killed us, when we rioted, you imprisoned us, and when we kneeled, you mocked us,” said Young. “Every motion we’ve made to demand equality has been met with empty promises of change never realized. Our dire need to be respected and valued has grown into a collective voice as we chant the names of victims to police brutality. This is a human movement, and goes beyond skin color.”

The police system in America has never been one of neutrality. What started with the purpose to patrol slaves, has grown into an institution embedded with racism and prejudice. And while defunding American institutions like education and healthcare comes rather easily to policy makers in this country, there has been recent support from a third of Americans to defund the police.

Comparison of police badges from the 1700s and present day.

“The continued violence by law enforcement against Black protestors and their allies and the pushback from our government is the last gasp of an archaic system that should have never been,” said Young. “We deserve an end to disproportionate deaths of Black bodies at the hands of a racist culture and a racist social system. We deserve the right to live and thrive.”

Sayville high schooler, Ayla Kaczmarek, said that the Black Lives Matter protest on June 7th, with almost 40 times the number of demonstrators as the 20th, had a lot more spirit and representation. Kaczmarek attributed this to the conservative nature of the town in saying that, “there are a lot of people who support this movement, but they’re afraid to come out and support the cause because of what their parents or friends may think.” 

While the fear of judgement by other community members may contribute to the smaller turnout in Sayville, organizers made a point to address the actions of the Sayville Chamber of Commerce after the first protest. After almost 3,000 community members showed up on June 7th in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Eileen Tyznar, president of the Chamber of Commerce, allegedly reached out to the county police to investigate the protester’s right to protest. Young responded, “What is this? Gestapo tactics. You cannot be afraid of these people because they will use fear to try to keep you quiet.”

The town of Sayville lies in the 2nd Congressional District of New York and has never once had a representative of color since its founding in 1789. The Black population makes up 9.6% of Long Island’s residents, with less than 1% living in the town of Sayville. This demographic poses a threat to people of color finding a community among primarily white neighborhoods.

Germini Williams, a Holbrook resident one town away from Sayville, says that through her experience moving between four states in the U.S. that,  “every different state has been pretty similar. Coming to Long Island, I realized that it’s very segregated, you can be in a very nice neighborhood and then a very bad one the next town over. And you know who lives where. You know how the schools are funded.” 

In regards to the Black Lives Matter Movement, Williams said, “I understand that everyone has to go on this journey on their own. Whether they actually believe that Black lives matter. Everybody is not in that state. And I can’t be upset if people don’t believe that because it’s just how some people are raised and that’s the reality. But education is very important, so I need to take this opportunity to educate people about my experience as a queer Black woman and my history so they can learn and act.”

A lot of attention has been drawn to performative activism in recent times. It’s become less about what you say and post, and more about where you donate to and who you vote for. For Germani, she says, “this movement can’t just be about George Floyd. It’s about all Black lives and how all Black lives are affected. Killings by police, or vigilantes, or medical care and housing, it’s the whole system.”

While people in this country have been fighting for the recognition of the value of Black lives for centuries now, Young, among many other demonstrators, think this time may be different as social media has drawn more attention to the movement than ever. 

“Over the course of decades, we have slowly watched white supremacy, we’ve watched a neo nazi subversive movement happen within our government,” Young said. “I think there was a certain level of comfort that came from having a Black president. And I don’t think people calculated the push back that was on the opposition of that. So this is how we’ve ended up in the situation we’re in now.” 

“So many people are unemployed, so many kids are off school, COVID-19 just happened to happen, but at the same time, civil justice was also deemed extremely necessary. That’s the reason they’re not going away,” Young said in regards to the recent call for attention for Black lives in America.

Young also made a point to acknowledge the progress made since the marches began. He cited the repeal of 50a in New York, the enactment of Breonna’s Law in Louisville, and the arrests of officers involved in the unlawful killings of Black lives. “It’s good that we’re holding cops accountable, but we need the convictions to come through. Right now we have arrests, but I think those are used to appease the people in hopes that things will quiet down, but we’re not going away anytime soon,” said Young. “There’s a long road ahead of us.”