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- <text id=89TT2049>
- <title>
- Aug. 07, 1989: Dealing With Demography
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 07, 1989 Diane Sawyer:Is She Worth It?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 14
- Dealing with Demography
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By Isaac Abraham
- </p>
- <p> When Isaac Abraham, 38, was growing up in the Williamsburg
- section of Brooklyn, N.Y., it was populated mainly by
- ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews. But by the 1970s, Williamsburg had
- experienced a large influx of blacks and Hispanics. Abraham now
- lives in a subsidized housing project where 49% of the tenants
- are white and 51% black or Hispanic, and race relations are
- often strained.
- </p>
- <p> "When we got in (the housing project), there was a struggle
- to survive. It was the late 1970s, and the vibrations from both
- groups was very hostile, very, very hostile. There was almost
- every day a major crime -- people getting mugged, robbed, chains
- snatched, children beaten. And not people of both groups: the
- victims were always somebody out of the 49%. A kid who was sent
- down to the grocery, an adult would escort him. Forget the
- playground. Only one kind of people used that, and that was the
- people who created the nuisance. My wife was mugged by a team.
- And at that time we decided we were just going to stand up and
- fight. Now if (someone tries a mugging) and we get him, you
- don't know what will happen."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-