Ted Cruz Visits The Bronx Two Years After Disrespecting Us; Protesters Greet Him With a Bronx ‘Welcome’

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Via Rebel Diaz on Twitter

First, Senator Bernie Sanders took his presidential campaign to The Bronx which was met with roughly 18,500 supporters and was nothing but love.

Two years after Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz took an uneducated jab at our borough, he has the audacity to come to The Bronx and have lunch with none other than Senator Ruben Diaz. (We shouldn’t be surprised because Senator Diaz shares similar conservative and homophobic values unlike real New York values).

But it wasn’t all pleasantries with Bronxites as he was greeted with protests, particularly from the group, Rebel Diaz who called him a bigot.

Granted, The Bronx is made up of a beautiful tapestry of people including conservative and Republicans, however, the likes of Cruz doesn’t belong in a borough of immigrants he so much loathes.

Rebel Diaz said it right when they shouted, “…he’s a right-wing bigot that has no place in The Bronx.”

Much like Trump’s campaign, Cruz has been using hatred and xenophobic rhetoric to catapult him to the spotlight.

Need we remind you of his comments two years ago? Check out the post below from the summer of 2014:

Tea Party Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas / Image Credit: Reuters
Tea Party Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas / Image Credit: Reuters

Tea Party Republic Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, in an attempt to mock Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, bashed The Bronx as a dangerous place when he said, according to Business Insider, “Now, I understand that Manhattan is very concerned with their security with the Bronx, but it’s a little bit different on 2,000 miles of the Rio Grande.” Senator Cruz said these remarks during  a meeting of the conservative Americans For Prosperity’s Defending The American Dream Summit in Dallas, Texas.  Guess he doesn’t know his own state and that The Bronx is safer than its 3 largest cities.

Here’s a little lesson for you, Senator Cruz, courtesy of a little digging Welcome2TheBronx did:

The following is data compiled by the FBI via their Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics utilizing the latest dataset as well as data from the NYPD for The Bronx:

Crime Rate of The Bronx vs Dallas and Houston

Violent Crime Stats as of 2012
Violent Crime Stats as of 2012

 

As you can see from the data Dallas, which was the location of the meeting where Senator Ted Cruz made his disparaging remarks about The Bronx, has a much higher murder rate and almost double the incidents of rape. In the robbery and assault categories, The Bronx and Dallas are roughly on par with The Bronx slightly higher in those categories.  Houston’s crime rate is also significantly higher across all major violent crime categories.

Crime has continued to drop in all the above cities but The Bronx is still ahead of the game with a murder rate of 5.9 and 16.7 rapes per 100,000 population according to NYPD stats for 2013.  Also now that crime stats from Riker’s Island will no longer be counted with The Bronx, you can expect the numbers to drop even more drastically for our borough.

Furthermore, the popular data site, Neighborhoodscout.com (used by such sites as The Huffington Post, The New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal) lists the Bronx as safer than Dallas and Houston.  In fact.  NeighborhoodScout gives The Bronx a rating of 22 out of 100 (100 being the safest)  with Dallas receiving 3 out of 100, Houston 5 out of 100, and San Antonio got a 3 out of 100 making our borough over 7 times safer than Dallas and San Antonio and over 5 times safer than Houston — all 3 which are the largest cities in Texas with a population of over 1 million.

Oh and here’s another little interesting tid-bit:  Manhattan received the same rating of 22 out of 100 from NeighborhoodScout as The Bronx. And according to an article by the Huffington Post last year, Brooklyn was actually the bloodiest borough far ahead of The Bronx (interesting how media spins and age old stereotypes continue to portray The Bronx as the worst of all).

So Senator Cruz, hope you learned something: Think before you speak.  You try and disparage our home and we will come for you with irrefutable evidence of how wrong you are.

Here’s what our local elected officials had to say about Ted’s fear-mongering:

 

 

Ed García Conde

Ed García Conde is a life-long Bronxite who spends his time documenting the people, places, and things that make the borough a special place in the hopes of dispelling the negative stereotypes associated with The Bronx. His writings are often cited by mainstream media and is often consulted for his expertise on the borough's rich history.

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