Because few politicians feel comfortable telling politically dangerous truths, the best they can do is hint at them, hoping the news media get it. Yet, the media are bound by the same, sad restrictions.
In the case of Mayor Bloomberg’s recent war on excessive sugar in New Yorkers’ diets, it seems he’s free to mean what he says, but not say what he means.
Thus, he has been lampooned as a meddlesome nanny, in everybody’s business, an impediment to common freedoms of choice and the right to pursue happiness in 20-ounce soda bottles.
How ridiculous! He makes such an easy, comical target on this one.
But let’s back up a bit. Roughly 15-to-20 years ago an urban public school system — I forget where — made national news when it banned students from wearing Starter-brand athletic jackets. At the time, those shiny jackets, carrying the names of pro and college teams were enormously popular.
When the jackets were banned by the school district, the simplistic, knee-jerking reactions came fast. “Who is the superintendent to tell kids what to wear?” “Is this a prison system or a school system?” “They have the right to wear whatever they choose!”
But not once, from what I read, heard and saw, did the media explore in any depth the larger question of why such jackets would be banned. Just because kids liked them? That made no sense.
Lost in a stew of civil liberties applications was the practicality of the ban: Kids throughout urban America were being mugged and even murdered for these jackets! And they were being robbed, beaten and killed for these jackets en route to and from school.
This school system, responding to the realities of its neighborhoods — and to what the media were largely ignorant to — was trying to protect these kids, the preponderance of them minority kids!
That’s what Bloomberg, in his sugar decree, seems unwilling or unable to say. That’s what the media seem unwilling or too foolishly frightened — or too simple-headed — to report: Bloomberg’s motives, while meddlesome, are predicated on trying to protect New York’s most vulnerable kids — her minority children.
It’s a nationwide numbers-supported fact: There’s an obesity epidemic among African-American and Hispanic-American children.
A year ago, while driving in The Bronx, I was stopped behind two school buses as kids, ages about 8-to-13, were dropped off in front of an apartment building. I watched maybe 75 boys and girls, all black or Hispanic, leave the buses.
And it was impossible not to be blown away by the scene. At least 60 of them were clearly overweight, and roughly 40 of them were obese, enormous, toes to neck. They walked laboriously, like arthritics. Nearly all of them were into a box of candy, a bag of chips and/or a plastic bottle of soda.
It was heartbreaking.
And I’ve lately wondered, as Bloomberg is simplistically attacked and mocked in newspapers and on radio and TV as a grumpy old kill-joy, if what I saw that afternoon — and the national data that conforms to what I saw — were applied to the matter, if his position would not be seen and presented differently.
It’s just that he seems unable to say what he means: “We’ve an obesity epidemic among our minority children. And if they can’t receive proper long-term health guidance from their parents and guardians, then I’m going to give it a shot. Shame on me.”
It’s always easy to apply our own, born-and-raised standards to whatever goes down or comes around. To look beyond is the tough part.
Do I support Bloomberg’s heavy-handed sugar policy? I don’t know. It is heavy-handed. Do I understand it? I think so. Appreciate it, too. It’s just a shame that he can mean what he says but can’t say what he means.