You’re clad in plaid with a fruity Starbucks drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Your beanie and leather jacket go perfectly with the day’s weather. You look fierce. You’re fresh from LaGuardia or JFK. You’re in New York City. I’ll give you a minute to Instagram… Done? You’re a student at The New School, but you’re not a New Yorker.
Real New Yorkers let their feelings be known. New Yorkers stand up for themselves. We don’t hide behind computer screens. I’m saying this to your face, New Schooler; I don’t like you or what you’re trying to do to my city.
I was born in Manhattan. I lived in Brooklyn for the first three years of my life, then moved to Queens where I grew up. New York City is my home. Queens is the most diverse area in the country. It’s way more New York than Manhattan or Brooklyn. I went to high school with black kids, white kids, hispanic kids, Asians, Egyptians, Indians and a Native American kid. There were gay kids and straight kids, and not everyone got along. But you knew if somebody didn’t like you. There was no Facebook page where people anonymously moaned about their problems and there was no talking behind someone’s back without consequences. We had at least a fight a week in high school.
The city is bigger than The New School. It’s full of the hardworking people from Queens, the families from Staten Island, the hustler from the Bronx, the guys on the stoop in Brooklyn and the old head from uptown. This city is built by people that sacrifice themselves, even when the odds aren’t in their favor. Our nine sports teams represent that. They play through injuries, don’t back down, accept and conquer their roles as the underdog. They are us. Doesn’t matter which sport or team, because they all speak for us. They all wear their hearts on their sleeves. They fight, just like we do. Just like your New School Narwhals do.
Real New York is a hardworking, blue-collar town, full of people that wake up early and work late. We aren’t soft here and we don’t fuck with your organic donuts and sushi bullshit.
Spike Lee recently said, “You can’t discover this.” He was talking about New York City. He was talking about respecting all the people and places that were established long before you came in from Los Angeles or Portland. “We’ve been here,” he said. And we have been here. I’m a fifth generation New Yorker. You, New Schooler, have no right to come to our city and claim that you’re a part of it. You’re not.
You can’t become a New Yorker in four years of college and, no matter how hard you try, you can’t capture all of New York during your time at this university. I know many of you will never “go out” to Queens and you wouldn’t dare go up to the Bronx. Staten Island? Forget about it. But that’s real. That’s New York.
You can’t try to change the culture and fabric of this city after it’s been this way for as long as it has. Recognize what was here before “Girls” started filming. You think that just because you moved into a dorm in Stuy Town or a one bedroom in Williamsburg, you’re a New Yorker. You’re not.
I know foreigners have flocked here for years. But Joan Didion and Andy Warhol were never New Yorkers to me either. New York can’t be adopted. They were from California and Pittsburgh. They tried to adopt this city. They failed.
The New School, even though it tries desperately, has failed miserably to capture New York. New York isn’t about the organic, vegan tofu burger you paid $32 for at a joint in SoHo. It isn’t about your quirky romantic escapades on the East River and it isn’t like that dramedy you grew up watching. Nobody at The New School is authentic. Everyone has an agenda, or something to hide, or a reason to bitch about someone behind their back. That’s not how things are done around here.
New Yorkers are real people. We’ll just as quickly say good morning as we’ll tell you to go fuck yourself. We live with passion. The New School is full of activists, but all they seem to “actively” do is whine. But New Schooler, you’ll still be a tourist when you’re a senior, even if you (hopefully) go back to whatever fufu town you came from after you graduate. You’ll still think you’re a New Yorker after reading this article. You’re not.
Max is a Journalism major from Queens. He plays collegiate basketball for The New School Narwhals and spends the rest of his time watching and writing about the game.
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This is a truly dreadful article. “Opinion piece” doesn’t mean an elitist, one-sided, ignorant article. What if someone was using your argument of “if you weren’t born here, you aren’t a new yorker” in terms of the country as a whole? “If you weren’t born here, you’re not American.” It’s just ridiculous. This is just a whiney rant against the New School masked as a rant against “faux New Yorkers.” You could have easily framed this is as a rant against the materialistic superficial culture of New School students. That’s something I can get behind.
New York is not one singular, “authentic” culture. In fact the whole point of New York, as cheesy as this sounds, is to encompass multiple cultures. You actually allude to this when you lazily stereotype each borough (“the hardworking people from Queens, the families from Staten Island, the hustler from the Bronx”). New York is one of the wealthiest cities in the world, reflected in the $32 vegan tofu burgers you denigrate, so it’s really not sufficient to understand it as a “blue-collar town”, and this romanticized notion of hard work ironically resembles the cliche of hard-working New Yorkers often referred to by people who don’t live here. The “real” New York cannot be some outmoded idea of the city you grew up with. Its identity is flexible, to a lot of people it may now be the image of the starbucks-clutching, beanie wearing youth you seem to despise. It’s incredible that in writing this article on your computer you fail to recognize the irony of criticizing others for “hiding behind their computer screens”, and that you claim to be saying any of this to anyone’s face. You claim to be offering some perspective on the “real” New York, but all you can really offer is the negative stereotype that people from New York look with disdain upon others (“whatever fufu town you came from”).
New York is about acceptance of different cultures. Not being a whiny little bitch about how New Schoolers are tainting your city. Like what chris crew said, “New York is everything you described, and everything you denied.” I’m surprise you didn’t learn that and you grew up in this city.
You should be ashamed of calling yourself a New Yorker.
As a NS student, I agree. I came here looking for something that is gone and was likely never here anyway.
you must really not like the courtyard
While I applaud the desire to represent “your” city Max, this is a trite and poor attempt at it, dripping with empty nostalgia and faux glamor. New York is everything you described, and everything you denied. It’s unclear why an angsty New York teen gets to decide that they have the sole claim to New York truth. That’s actually not very New York at all, as any “real” New Yorker will tell you.
I guess I should apologize for my great grandparents since they came through Ellis Island. They helped to build the city (you have electricity in your home? You’re welcome) but I guess they weren’t “real” New Yorkers (or even “real” Americans).
At first I thought this article was trolling, but then I saw it for what it really is.