I really can’t make this shit up. I know it seems like I do…but I’m not even that imaginative.
Let me give you the basics first:
A company called Real Bronx Tours is now offering their customers an adventurous ride through a real New York City “ghetto” instead of the boring, expected trip trough city streets to see historic landmarks.
I. Kid. You. Not.
First of all, I thought we stopped using the term, “ghetto?” Secondly, what the hell is this shit?!
Apparently foreigners (mainly White Europeans and Australians) are able to witness what the hood really looks like (whatever that means) for about $45 a person. The tour stops for photo ops at a food pantry line, “pickpocket” park and of course, the projects.
According to an unnamed patron on the tour, one of the guides, Lynn Battaglia (pictured), from Pittsburgh, poked fun at impoverished areas, describing the South Bronx, in particular, as a crime-ridden borough infested with poverty and violence, which has plagued the area since the 1970s.
At one point during the tour, Battaglia allegedly told the tourists in front of pantry line, “I don’t know what that line’s about, but every Wednesday we see it,” Battaglia told the tourists. “We see them go in with empty carts, and we see them come out with carts full.”
Excuse me?
Anyway, Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito weren’t too happy about that (obvi…it’s mad racist and rude and there are a ton of things just completely wrong with the tours) so they wrote an open letter to the company’s owner, Michael Myers.
“We are sickened by the despicable way in which you portray the great borough to tourists…We strongly urge you to stop profiting off of a tour that misrepresents the Bronx as a haven for poverty and crime, while mocking everything from our landmarks to the less fortunate members of our community who are availing themselves of food assistance programs.”
Agreed. I just would have said that in a totally different way…if you know what I mean.
