“SHOW ME A HERO”, a new series on HBO, starts with a victory speech: an ominous sign. When a first episode ends in triumph, the only way ahead is down. The year is 1987, and 28-year-old Nick Wasicsko, an ex-cop, has just become the youngest mayor of Yonkers, a New York suburb that was then mostly working-class and white. Wasicsko won because he promised to appeal a federal court order requiring Yonkers to build subsidised housing on its richer, whiter east side, to counteract the concentration of poverty in its mostly black west.
As he speaks, a telephone ringing in the background grows gradually louder. The scene cuts to the next day, when the new mayor takes a call from the city’s lawyers. There are no grounds for appeal, they tell him. Wasicsko is disappointed, but resigned. Now it’s time to follow the law and build the houses, he reasons: nobody can blame me for that, right?
Over the next five episodes, the ramifications of Wasicsko’s decision play out in two worlds. In the world of city politics he is, of course, roundly blamed: it costs him his career (saying this gives away nothing:...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1JkAOHC
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