A resident of the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn was reportedly banned from Facebook for 30 days for discussing the problem of black-on-Jewish crime in the area.
COLlive, a news site catering to the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community in Crown Heights, alleged that a woman received a 30-day Facebook suspension because of a post she made asking when politicians were going to address the crime problem plaguing the community.
According to COLlive, the woman who wished not to be named out of fear of retaliation, posted her comment in a Facebook group for Lubavitchers.
The text of the post in question, provided by COLlive, asks when politicians will address the problem of violence and allow the Jewish community to walk outside without fear:
When are local politicians going to address the problem of black on Jewish crime here in Crown Heights? You never hear of Jews beating up or attacking blacks. But every few months there is another string of black on Jewish crimes.
Since I have lived in Crown Heights, I have heard of blacks assaulting, pulling knives on and robbing Jewish people in the neighborhood. In latest incident, a Jewish man had his nose broken by a group of blacks kids during Shabbos. When will this end? And when can we start walking the streets at night again without fear?
In the Facebook support message, it provided its usual response to posts that violate the Community Standards and offered the woman the ability to “review the post again.”
The woman told COLlive the ban was “unfair.”
She claimed, “People don't get banned for threats, anti-Semitism or harassment. But they get banned for the truth about crime here in Crown Heights and pro-Israel posts. Seems ridiculous to me.”
Crown Heights has been suffering from racial tension since the riots in 1991. At the time of the riots, The New York Times reported groups of black teenagers went through the streets chanting “Jews! Jews! Jews!” Al Sharpton was responsible organizing and encouraging some of the protests.
While not admitting fault for stirring up racial tensions in the area, Sharpton wrote in a New York Daily News op-ed 20 years after the riots, “Our language and tone sometimes exacerbated tensions and played to the extremists rather than raising the issue of the value of this young man whom we were so concerned about.”
According to NPR, a Jewish teenager was stabbed to death by black teenagers during the riots. In addition, approximately 43 civilians and 152 police officers were injured responding to the riots.
Judging by the comment made by the anonymous Facebook poster, it does not appear that the tensions have gotten any better.
