Word: koch
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...Koch would argue that he acts toward everybody equally, but as a former aide says, "Ed treats everyone the same? badly." Nor does it help matters when Koch works himself into a state and starts hurling words at his critics like "wacko" and "ideologue...
...Koch's feelings about nonwhites, about blacks especially, are mixed and volatile. In 1979 Journalist Ken Auletta was researching a two-part profile of the mayor for The New Yorker. Koch gave Auletta permission to go through a series of oral memoirs that he had recorded for Columbia University in 1975 and 1976. Among Koch's statements on race was this: "I find the black community very antiSemitic. I don't care what the American Jewish Congress or the B'nai B'rith will issue by way of polls showing that the black community is not. I think that...
...Today Koch is sore at Auletta for printing those remarks because they showed Koch in a bad light, one that his enemies like the Village Voice enjoy switching on. But Koch does not deny having those feelings then, nor does he recant them now. On the other hand, he has frequently spoken out against injustice to blacks. He has appointed a higher percentage of blacks (18%) to top administrative positions than did any one of the three mayors who preceded him. He took the patronage out of the procedure for choosing young people for summer jobs, and raised the percentage...
...Given Koch's reputation on the race issue, it would seem that he has changed a lot since the summer of 1964, when he spent eight days (his vacation) in Laurel, Miss., defending civil rights workers. He likes to talk about that time. The event was a sit-in at Kresge's to win equal service at the luncheonette counter. Black and white protesters were assaulted by people at the counter. Then the assailants brought charges against the protesters. Koch tells the story with helpless humor (the "heh, heh, heh") about the pixilated justice of the peace; the redneck...
...interesting thing about the story, apart from recalling Koch the liberal (as opposed to the "liberal with sanity," as he describes himself now) is that it reveals an essential part of his makeup. Civil rights was not a lost cause in 1964, but in Laurel it could appear like one. During the period Koch spent in Mississippi, the bodies of three murdered civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, were discovered. Koch himself...