mobanmarketPARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A Black lawmaker’s toddler son had racist abuse flung at him by two young white children in a Park Slope park, she said.
Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest posted a tweet late Tuesday that recounted her 22-month-old son’s run-in at the J.J. Byrne Playground on Fifth Avenue and Fourth Street.
Two white boys called Souffrant Forrest’s son words that Patch won’t reprint, but appeared to her to single him out as the “only chocolate boy in the park,” she said.
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“This was not in TN, AL, GA or even PA,” she wrote. “This was in Park Slope, BK.”
“Racism is violent and pervasive.”
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Souffrant Forrest, in replies to her tweet, said the two boys laughed, pointed and shouted at her small son near the Old Stone House. She wrote her son had been repeating a word he apparently heard from the two boys.
“They had mean faces,” she wrote.
“The other black Nannies caught on and called out the two boys (ages 5ish) black Nannies and the boys eventually apologized. But after only much pressure from witnesses.”
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Souffrant Forrest and her representatives didn’t respond to Patch’s requests for further comment.
Souffrant Forrest lives in Crown Heights, where she formerly worked as a nurse and shot to political prominence as a tenant organizer. A Democrat and a socialist, she was first elected to the Assembly in 2020 and represents District 57, which covers Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and parts of Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy.
Park Slope is well-known as a bastion for progressive politics, but isn’t necessarily the most diverse neighborhood. About 67 percent of its population is white and 6.4 percent is Black, according to a city analysis of Census data.
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