FRAMING IDENTITY : THE PRESS IN CROWN HEIGHTS by Carol B. Conaway The Joan Shorenstein Center PRESS ■ POLI TICS Research Paper R-16 November 1996 ■ PUBLIC POLICY ■ Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government FRAMING IDENTITY: THE PRESS IN CROWN HEIGHTS Prologue 1 On the evening of August 19, 1991, the Grand Bystanders quickly formed a crowd around the Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch was returning car with the three Lubavitcher men, and several from his weekly visit to the cemetery. Each among them attempted to pull the car off of the week Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, leader of the Cato children and extricate them. Lifsh tried to worldwide community of Lubavitch Hasidic help, but he was attacked by the crowd, consist- Jews, visited the graves of his wife and his ing predominately of the Caribbean- and Afri- father-in-law, the former Grand Rebbe. The car can-Americans who lived on the street. One of he was in headed for the international headquar- the Mercury’s riders tried to call 911 on a ters of the Lubavitchers on Eastern Parkway in portable phone, but he said that the crowd Crown Heights, a neighborhood in the heart of attacked him before he could complete the call. Brooklyn, New York. As usual, the car carrying He was rescued by an unidentified bystander. the Rebbe was preceded by an unmarked car At 8:22 PM two police officers from the 71st from the 71st Precinct of the New York City Precinct were dispatched to the scene of the Police Department. The third and final car in accident. At the same time an emergency the procession was a 1984 Mercury Grand ambulance from the City was sent to the acci- Marquis station wagon driven by a Lubavitch dent site. Hasidic Jews who ran the Hatzoloh man named Yosef Lifsh and carrying two other Ambulance Service, a privately funded, all- Lubavitch men. volunteer service founded by the Hasidic com- At the same time in Crown Heights, two munity in New York City, heard the the City’s seven year-old Guyanese cousins of African dispatcher and sent one of their ambulances to descent were playing on President Street, a street President Street. on which a large number of African-Caribbean The Hatzoloh ambulance arrived at the scene and African-Americans resided. Gavin Cato and of the accident before the City ambulance. A his cousin, Angela Cato were playing close to police officer escorted the three Lubavitch men the curb. Gavin was trying to fix the chain on to the ambulance and directed the ambulance to his bicycle. remove the men from the scene of the accident The motorcade escorting and carrying the before the crowd of one hundred fifty members Rebbe entered the intersection of Utica Avenue beat them further. It left a few minutes later. and President Street without incident and at an Another Hasidic man from the Hatzoloh average city speed. But as the Mercury station service who had come to the scene of the acci- wagon entered the intersection, a Chevrolet dent by car carried a tech/trauma bag and helped Malibu also entered proceeding in the same City ambulance paramedics who were working direction as the Rebbe’s entourage. The Mer- with Angela Cato. Gavin Cato was placed in a cury collided with the Malibu, and veered out of City ambulance and rushed to Kings County control onto the sidewalk. The car driven by Hospital. Shortly after his arrival, he was Lifsh struck the Cato cousins and pinned them pronounced dead. beneath it. Eyewitnesses differed on the speed of A rumor started to circulate among the crowd. the Mercury at the time of impact. Their It was rumored that the Hatzoloh ambulance estimates of the car’s speed ranged from twenty- crew had ignored the critically injured children five to sixty-five miles per hour. Witnesses on and helped the Lubavitch occupants of the car. the street said that the car drove through a red The rumor fed on a longstanding criticism by light; the car occupants reported that the light the Caribbean-American and African-American was yellow. community who maintained that the ambulance catered exclusively to the Jewish community. Carol B. Conaway is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the They and the nearby Lubavitchers argued College of the Holy Cross. Her research interests include political fiercely. Some of the young members of the communication, especially rhetoric analysis, media and politics, and ethnic politics. She previously has served as a Policy Advisor to crowd began to hurl rocks and bottles at the Mayor Frank L. Rizzo of Philadelphia, and a consultant to Abt Lubavitchers. One Jewish woman, (described in Associates, Inc. of Cambridge, MA. She was a Fellow at the the Girgenti report, as being Jewish rather than Shorenstein Center in the Fall of 1994. Carol B. Conaway 1 Hasidic or Lubavitch) who approached the scene, determined by the facts deemed most impor- accompanied by a black friend, encountered tant.3 For an individual, a frame might be knowl- young rioters who threw bottles and rocks and edge previously acquired about a subject in light screamed that “the Jews killed the kids.” Her of which new information is evaluated and friend was taunted for accompanying a Jewish understood. With regard to the press, a frame is woman. The crowds grew larger and the rioting a lens that enables readers to interpret and assess increased beyond the control of the police. news coverage in a way primarily determined by Prominent leaders of the Caribbean-American their previous experience and the narratives and African-American communities agreed that already in their minds, in conjunction with the what lay at the bottom of the riots was the interpretations and narratives of the reporter. perception, stemming from 1969, that the This study of newspaper coverage of the Lubavitchers always received preferential treat- disturbances in Crown Heights focuses on the ment from the police. news frames of the antagonists and the conflict. The rioting occurred in an area that was The hypothesis is that news reporters failed to densely populated by African-Americans, Carib- frame precisely the identity of the antagonists. bean-Americans, and Lubavitchers. As the Thus, the way they framed the conflict conveyed disturbance grew, it was clear that there were the wrong meaning. This study argues that if too few police assigned to the scene to control the press had framed the identity of the antago- the crowd. Meanwhile, the young African- and nists as African-American, Caribbean-American, Caribbean-American youths that remained and Lubavitch Hasidim, rather than as blacks continued their rampage through the neighbor- and Jews, or blacks and whites, they would not hood, setting fires, destroying property, shatter- have framed the conflict or the victims as ing windows, and throwing rocks and bottles. primarily racial. Instead, they would have Groups of young males harassed, beat, or robbed framed the Crown Heights affair as a conflict Lubavitchers on the streets. involving three distinct ethnic groups in which At 11:20 PM, a group of ten to fifteen young African- and Caribbean-Americans attacked not males surrounded and assaulted Yankel all “whites,” but Lubavitch Jews. It will be Rosenbaum, described in the Girgenti report as a argued that this second interpretation emerges twenty-nine year old Hasidic man. He was from an analysis of the rhetoric in the news stabbed four times. Moments later, a youth of articles themselves. African descent named Lemrick Nelson, age Why is it important to make this distinction? sixteen, was apprehended and returned to the After all, the African- and Caribbean-Americans scene. Yankel Rosenbaum was taken to the were racially black, and the Lubavitch Hasidim same hospital in which Gavin Cato died. He died were white. Why would that not constitute a three hours later after identifying Lemrick racial conflict? First, the rhetoric of the three Nelson as his assailant. groups indicates that the antagonists defined the conflict not as blacks versus whites, but as blacks versus Lubavitch Jews. This is a distinc- Framing the August 1991 Disturbances tion that comes out of what the antagonists said How did the press frame the antagonists and to reporters. Rather than its being a racial the conflict that occurred in Crown Heights conflict, the narrative shows that religion and culture were essential to the conflict. Yet, during and after the disturbances? What themes surprisingly, although reporters wrote stories in and story lines were used to organize the facts in news reports? How were both the antagonists which this latter distinction is apparent, they continued to frame the incident solely in terms and the events made meaningful? Did the of race. Racial conflict and violence are not the frames that were used to organize the narrative provide an accurate picture of who and what was same as anti-Semitism. Lubavitch Jews were targeted because they were Jewish, not because involved in what one journalist described as they were white. The underlying premise of the “Sarajevo on the Hudson”? In the broadest sense, frames are conceptual African- and Caribbean-American antagonists was that Lubavitch Jews, not whites, got prefer- tools which media and individuals rely on to ential treatment from the City and from the convey, interpret, and evaluate information.2 A news “frame” is a theme or story line that police, and that Lubavitch Jews rather than organizes the facts in a news report and gives whites had killed Gavin Cato. In the last thirty years there has been an them meaning. For a journalist, the frame might be a story angle, news peg or hook which is increasing literature on how the press frames 2 Framing Identity: The Press in Crown Heights stories on different racial or ethnic groups.4 One conflict was all about, and who was involved.