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Both my sons live in New York City. Actually, if they knew I said that they would correct me. One lives in Lower Manhattan, and the other lives in Williamsburg, a section of Brooklyn. I grew up in a small city in Massachusetts about 21/2 hours from New York. Irish, Italian and Jewish families lived in our neat little neighborhood. Every family had a lot of children, and some families had more than others. The number of kids in each family fell along ethnic lines, too. It was our lives. We knew which families had the most kids and who had the least. It was a reality, not an ethnic stereotype. Sometimes reality and ethnic stereotyping become confused.
Barbara, my wife of more than 25 years, happens to be half Italian and half Sicilian. To the Sicilians out there, you know what it means to differentiate between the two. That's not stereotyping. That's reality.
Last week while we were away in New York City having Thanksgiving dinner with our sons in Little Italy at a wonderful Italian restaurant, this newspaper ran a cartoon by the much debated and celebrated cartoonist Steven DeCinzo. It portrayed the PSOA as thugs--not the officers themselves who serve so well--but the lobbying arm of the Public Safely Officers Association. Remember, it's a cartoon.
The cartoon went on to portray Sunnyvale's newly elected city councilman Tony Spitaleri as a dandy, but in my opinion, too similar-looking to the thuggish characters depicted in the cartoon. Accompanying the image were words describing Spitaleri as less than a model citizen.
Yes, our cartoonist has portrayed the PSOA as thuggish lobbyists for years now. Due to its tough tactics, I've let that stand. Spitaleri has had his problems as well. But when the characters' images are juxtaposed to the Italian name of Spitaleri, and then with Spitaleri dressed in such similar garb as the thugs, I need to say fuggedaboudid. Don't run that thing! (Oops! I'm not in New York City anymore.)
The connotation that could be construed is that Italians are all Mafiosa. That is just unfair and hurtful.
Despite DeCinzo's intentions, the cartoon takes on more possible meanings than were intended. And for that I offer an apology to Spitaleri and all Italians. That simply was not the intention of the cartoon. Had I been here, it would not have run. That's a reality too. Capish?
David Cohen is the publisher of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers.
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