It has been a year since this photograph in my photojournal book was taken. Holiday shoppers seem to have increased, so as the homeless and unlicensed street vendors.
Trying to get by
"Half of New Yorkers say they are barely or not getting by, poll shows." We don't need polls to tell us. Just take a walk in the City, you will see scenes like this image in my book every other corner. Somehow, our policymakers fail to see the obvious. They also fail to see the correlation between inequality and civil unrest in recent history.
A Lesson in Racism & Journalism at the University of Missouri
A lot have been going on at the University of Missouri lately. While I would like the students in Hong Kong who are fighting for academic freedom to take note, this "Letter to the Editor" of the Times by a veteran journalist is a good read by all everywhere. Photographers have been harassed repeatedly in the name of "privacy" by many, including the police, parents, etc. Student journalist Tim Tai got it right, "the First Amendment protects your right to be here and mine."
A Lesson in Journalism at the University of Missouri
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/opinion/a-lesson-in-journalism-at-the-university-of-missouri.html
Generalization, Discrimination, and Stimulus Control
Protesters were against "police brutality" not the "police" as shown in this image of my new photojournal book. For those who intentionally or unintentionally mix the two, take a quick read of the story about a boy and seal hunting (p. 300) in Chapter 10 Generalization, Discrimination, and Stimulus Control, of Learning and Behavior by Paul Chance.
It isn't just a test!
In this image from my new photojournal book, a girl was protesting for her teachers! There seems to have way too many problems in the U.S. education system: too much tests, teachers' performance, failing schools, charter schools, U.S. students falling behind, Common Core Standard, high tuition, student loans, etc. It isn't easy to be students these days, so as the U.S. Presidential candidates (Democrats and Republican) and New York City Mayoral candidates.
Homelessness
Figures show that homelessness has been up THREE times in five years in one of the Manhattan residential neighborhoods.
Every 1 out of 3 elderly in Hong Kong lives in poverty
Similar to the data point that half of New York City is living near poverty, Hong Kong elderly poor is on the rise. Not a surprise to me given what I saw in Hong Kong when I was working on my new book, the Beyond the Pale of Two Cities. The new statistic about one out of three senior citizens in Hong Kong falls under the poverty line has just quantified an obvious problem. The governments can choose to either deny these facts or do something about it before the term "middle class" can only be found in history books.
Book: "Beyond the Pale of Two Cities" is on Amazon
Click here to order your copy of my new photojournal: Beyond the Pale of Two Cities about Black Lives Matter in New York and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong.
Beyond e Pale of Two Cities
My new series, Beyond the Pale of Two Cities is a photojournal about some of the social issues in #NYC and #HongKong. Using the #BlackLivesMatter and #UmbrellaMovement as its backdrops, the 75 image study examines what's behind the demonstrations on the streets.
A photo book of this series will be available on Amazon in October. Like this page on Facebook to get updates when it becomes available.
