TESTIMONY: Jerome Avenue Scoping Session Bronx Community College September 29, 2016 Harold DeRienzo, President Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc. Testimony Focus: The need, and requirement for, a cumulative impact assessment on potential tenant displacement. A. Basis for a Cumulative Impact Assessment: Under the 1986 Chinese Staff Workers case, when Read more
Acceptance Talk Picture the Homeless “Dancegiving” Gala Event: October 6, 2016 We are living in a time of change. We see it all around us: people rising up to question inequality, institutional racism, and self-righteous, self-sustaining privilege. We see the potential for social progress, but we also see the potential Read more
On Monday, September 26, 2016, over 300 hundred people came to City Hall to rally on the steps to demand passage of Right to Counsel, which would guarantee legal representation in housing court for low income New Yorkers. This day was historic. City Hall security was forced to close access Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: We are delighted to publish the second installment of Harry DeRienzo’s essays on racism. This second of a three-part essay is entitled, “Are we Genetically Wired to be Racists?” It is interesting and thought provoking but like all treatments of such a complicated and emotionally-charged topic, there is Read more
Well, as a matter of fact I do wonder why Bernie Sanders chose not to directly take on Hillary Clinton’s challenge. Let’s expand the philosophical discussion a bit and try to understand what is going on in this round of presidential elections. Politicians of all colors and strips, since the Read more
This election season has been, if nothing else, interesting, particularly for those (like me) who believed that money was fast becoming the sole determinant to political success. This election season will probably go down in history as the season of the outsider. Both Trump and Sanders have defied all odds Read more
By Harold DeRienzo How will 2015 be remembered? Will it be viewed as the Year of ISIS, or the Year of the Beginning of the End of ISIS? Will it be seen as the year that Republican obstructionism and anti-government rhetoric came home to roost, personified in the Presidential run of Read more
By Harry DeRienzo At our Annual Meet & Greet event, held on December 4, 2015, the Reverend Theodora Brooks, pastor of a local church and Vice Chairperson of the Banana Kelly board, was tapped to give the opening invocation. However, given the events of this year, she said it was Read more
Harry DeRienzo’s Keynote Address at the 6th Annual Meet & Greet, December 6, 2015. Organize or Perish. This is our theme for this year. It is a theme that comes straight from our resident leadership. It is a theme that is not simply an act of hyperbole. This theme is Read more
In a recent decision, the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that beyond “race,” color, in and of itself, can raise a bias claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this particular case, a certain waitress and bartender named Esna Etienne was Read more