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Laurie Cumbo (born February 4, 1975) is the Council member for the 35th District of the New York City Council. She is a Democrat. The district includes portions of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, East Flatbush, Fort Greene, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Park, Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Vinegar Hill in Brooklyn. ==Life and career== Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1997, receiving a degree in Fine Arts. She received a Master's degreee in Visual Arts Administration from New York University in 1999.〔 Based on her 1999 NYU graduate work and a trip to Bilbao, Spain, Cumbo founded〔 and served as the executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Arts (MoCADA). She told the ''New York Timess Local, "prior to (her master's in 1999 ) I would say I was very inspired by the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. This museum created a whole economy for this particular city after its shipping industry died. It made Bilbao and the museum a must destination when visiting Spain. I know that MoCADA can do that for Brooklyn as well."〔 Originally based in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, the museum moved to its current location in Brooklyn's gentrified Fort Greene section within the BAM Cultural District with the help of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Local Development Corporation, which included Bruce Ratner, the Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards developer, on its board.〔 In 2012, the museum landed a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to pay for a two-year program that brought monthly concerts to public spaces in NYCHA Houses like Walt Whitman, Ingersoll, and Farragut in Fort Greene that drew crowds up to 500 or 600. The following year in 2013, MoCADA launched another art performance series, Soul of Brooklyn, which is "a series of block-party style arts events meant to bring the community together and promote local businesses." From 2001 to 2011, Cumbo served as a graduate professor in the Arts and Cultural Management program at Pratt Institute's School of Art & Design. She was also in strong support of hosting the 2016 Democratic National Convention in New York City, specifically Brooklyn, which failed. In arguing in favor of the convention coming to her borough, she argued “We have swag on lock down,” continuing, “A convention anywhere else in the United States of America is just going to be ‘eh.'” 〔http://observer.com/2014/08/schumer-mocks-other-cities-as-brooklyn-vies-for-convention/〕 This earned her an ingratiating visit from Senator Chuck Schumer at her first "state of the district" address at the Brooklyn Museum. In December 2013, one month before Cumbo was sworn in, a series of attacks took place targeting Jewish residents of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, totaling at least eight victims including children. The attacks in were alleged to be part of a trend of "knockout attacks", and antisemitism was cited by a number of community leaders, politicians and media outlets as a precipitating factor in the attacks. Following the attacks, Cumbo publically expressed that her African American and Caribbean constituents had expressed fear of being “pushed out of their homes by Jewish landlords”, and that resentment towards the Jewish residents of Crown Heights "offer possible insight as to how young African-American/Caribbean teens could conceivably commit a 'hate crime' against a community that they know very little about." She wrote "I admire the Jewish community immensely.... I respect and appreciate the Jewish community’s family values and unity that has led to strong political, economic and cultural gains. While I personally regard this level of tenacity, I also recognize that for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment, and a sense that Jewish success is not also their success." Her response was covered widely on blogs and in the New York press. Cumbo's statements raised concerns among many residents, and in addition to the local mainstream media, the story was featured in local Jewish media outlets. Cumbo later apologized to her constituents for her remarks, saying in a statement, “I sincerely apologize to all of my constituents for any pain that I have caused by what I wrote … and I understand now that my words did not convey what was in my heart, which is a profound desire to bring our diverse communities closer together.” The next year she allocated thousands of dollars in district council money to a Crown Heights Orthodox Jewish community group. Earlier, in April 2010, while head of MoCADA, she was quoted in the ''New York Timess Local with another remark regarding Jews. She said, "I’m trying to figure out new ways to do what I want to do to grow the museum.... You have a Jewish children’s museum, but you don’t feel that there should be a black-centered museum?"〔http://fort-greene.thelocal.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/mocadas-laurie-cumbo-looking-for-pink-elephants/〕 She made headlines again in late March 2015 when she asked why there were “blocs” (possibly "blocks") of Asians living in two Fort Greene housing projects. Colleague and Manhattan councilwoman Margaret Chin, who is Chinese-American, said "She certainly could’ve chosen her words a bit more carefully. The fact is that there are many Asian-American families . . . who have applied to live in public housing.” Cumbo issued an apology, but then said she only wanted to know if the NYCHA “uses a cultural preference priority component” in picking tenants to which NYCHA chair Shola Olatoye replied that it did not, saying its vacancy rate is less than 1 percent, making such an influx almost impossible. The Brooklyn councilwoman then told the ''New York Post,'' “There could be some benefit to housing people by culture . . . I think it needs to be discussed.”〔 Queens Congresswoman Grace Meng, also Asian-American, denounced Cumbo's idea, saying that it was "thinly disguised segregation based on race, color, creed or national origin.” City council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito while defending Cumbo called her comments "unfortunate." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laurie Cumbo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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