NYC NOW - February 26, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and local supporters of Ukraine are urging the House of Representatives to sign off on an aid package that would send $61 billion to Ukraine's military. Plus, New York City’s housing agency says landlords are holding fewer rent-stabilized apartments off the market during a dire shortage of affordable units. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with motivational speaker Hashim Garrett and Dr. Nazsa Baker about a recent study on perceptions of manhood among disabled Black men who were violently injured through gun violence.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Jenae Pierre. President Zelensky told us, if Ukraine gets the aid, they'll win the war against Russia. But if they don't get the aid, they will lose that war. It is that crucial. Senator Chuck Schumer and local supporters of Ukraine are urging the House of Representatives to sign off on an aid package that would send $61 billion to Ukraine's military. Members of the Ukrainian American Bar Association in Astoria pointed to the Republican-controlled House for stalling the aid money.

Andrew Padubney is president of the group and says the money is needed now more than ever. I urge you all, and especially the members of the House of Representatives, to consider the gravity of the situation. The Ukrainian people have faced unimaginable hardships and sacrifices in the face of Russian aggression and tyranny. The Senate passed the aid package earlier this month. but it has since been held up in the house. Speaker Mike Johnson allowed the chamber to go on a two-week recess without moving on the package. New York City's housing agency says landlords are holding fewer rent-stabilized apartments off the market during a dire shortage of affordable units.

WMYC's David Brand has more on the agency's analysis. Some landlords are keeping rent-stabilized apartments vacant because they say they can't legally charge enough in rent to cover the cost of needed renovations. Tenant groups call it warehousing. Property owners say it just makes economic sense. But the Department of Housing Preservation and Development says it's actually not that significant of a problem. The agency says the city has fewer than 2,500 rent-stabilized apartments with rents under $1,000 being held vacant for more than a year, far less in industry estimates. Officials say the growing shortage of housing stock is the real crisis. A recent study examines black men and their feelings around their own match. masculinity after surviving gun violence.

Stay with us for that conversation after the break. Protector, provider, self-reliant. Those are just a few core values of manhood identified by the participants in a study of black men who were seriously injured through gun violence. The recent study examined how men's feelings about their own masculinity changed after they were shot. men like Hashem Garrett, who was shot six times in the spine as a teenager and is now partially paralyzed.

Dr. Naja Baker authored the study as a postdoctoral fellow with the Rutgers University Gun Violence Research Center. WMYC's Michael Hill talked with the two for a deeper dive into the study and its findings. Dr. Baker, would you lay out what you found in your research? I didn't initially go into this study trying to understand or research. Black manhood and masculinities. It was something that I stumbled upon, but the main themes that came out of my study were Black men's perceptions of manhood and masculinity, their loss of independence and burden on others, and mobility, having to depend on either mobility devices or physical therapy sessions to be able to go from immobile to mobile again.

What about the masculinity? What did you find about that? So I found that manhood and masculinity is very, very complex when we're talking about black men. And I asked them, so what does it mean to be a man? And the 10 participants said, you know, for me, being a man is being able to protect, being able to provide. And by provider, they're specifically talking about financially providing and also being able to just uphold white patriots. patriarchal standards of masculinity, being self-aware, being able to do things on your own. And for them being able to embody these typical, what we define as masculine traits, was important because it's what society has constructed for men. And what does it have to do with any of them being survivors of gun violence?

I think overall, when we think about marginalized masculinities, we think about men who are oppressed, which equates to them being invisible or overlooked. And black men in general fall into that category. But when you have an intersecting identity of being disabled, you're hyper-invisible because your identities don't fall in alignment with what society wants you to do. So when you are a black man with not just any old disability, but a firearm acquired disability, you have to renegotiate certain things. So you may not be able to be the financial provider because your disability hinders you from being able to work. Also, the social expectations of being able to protect, your understanding of how you may have protected yourself or the ways in which you keep yourself safe

may alter. And I think that's important for people to understand in which when you're going from being independent to dependent, that makes you even more vulnerable. Husham, if it's not too much to ask, would you tell us about the incident that led to your injury? Sure. So I was 15 years old when I was shot. I was living in New York City, in Brooklyn, to be exact. And I was just making a lot of poor decisions, just trying to fit in. And so as a result of just kind of being lost and, you know, that mindset or what we were taught is, children, what happens in the house stays in the house. And so mom was in an abusive relationship at that time.

Wasn't with dad, what was somebody new? And so I just was trying to go to school and pretend and putting a mask on like everything was fine. And it wasn't. And so I just kind of found myself lost and got involved in gangs. As a result, I was shot multiple times. What was the most difficult thing for you in the recovery process, Hosham? I would say probably the most difficult part was accepting that life would be.

different. In what way? Just realizing that, you know, I wasn't going to be able to move as fast, you know, as everybody else. The little things of not being able to walk down a block and hold a girl's hand. And so that was just trying to get adjusted to the new normal. What was your definition of being a man when you were, when you were injured? Compared from before the gunshot injury to after? I would say prior to my injury. manhood looked like someone who provided, someone who was a protector, all right? The nurturers were the mothers, the protectors and a provider, you know, the man was supposed to be the breadwinner. But again, I grew up in a single family household, so mom was also a breadwinner. But post-injury, I've learned

that, yeah, manhood is about providing, but it's not just financial. Sometimes manhood looks different in ways of being the voice of reason. Sometimes manhood looks like leading in regards to making sure that your children know that they are safe, letting your children know that they are loved. And so I've grown to understand that manhood doesn't have to be justified as financial, and it doesn't have to be just defined as, you know, I'll take a bullet for you or a car that can, you know, run us over it. But there's so many other things that encompassed, manhood. How did you reach that point? It was really mentors. It was people who were 20 and 30 years older to me, who were men, who were fathers, who were grandfathers. And I just kind of watched them and I

observed them and I listened to them. And really what I've learned is that it is about being sensitive. It is about being attentive. That's the other component of manhood. Dr. Breaker, what do you think in listening to Hashem's story? I think that Hashem aligns with what other men were saying in terms of, of how they perceive themselves to be able to perform their gender roles. And I think that it takes maturity and role models to be able to get to a point where men are able to embrace what we call soft skills, which are skills that are typically seen in women, being able to nurture, being able to understand that there are other ways of navigating

your manhood or masculinity. A few participants in the study identified the point in life where they believed they became men. Hashem, when or what was that particular moment for you? I would say when I became a dad, the birth of my daughter was when I felt like I'm a man now. But at the very least, if I'm not a man today, then I need to start moving in those kind of steps to conduct myself like a man and kind of put some of those childish ways away. just realizing that, okay, you have someone who's watching you. And so I want to make sure that my children are not going to make the same mistakes that I mean. That's Hesham Garrett and Dr. Naja Baker with the Rutgers University Gun Violence Research Center,

talking with WNYC's Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow. You know,