‘Insipid' joke about Toussaint sparks demands for MTA labor chief's resignation

by patrick arden / metro new york

NOV 22, 2006

MIDTOWN — Last week MTA labor negotiator Gary Dellaverson made an offhand joke to reporters while discussing an aborted deal with 3,400 Metro-North workers.

“I won't discuss the actual offers because unlike Roger Toussaint,” he said, before stopping to offer this aside: “I have just been putting needles in my Roger Toussaint doll.”

That aside showed up in Metro, and yesterday U.S. Rep.-elect Yvette Clarke, D-Brooklyn, called for Dellaverson to resign or be fired.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, said, “We cannot have people in statewide leadership positions who feel that it is appropriate to ridicule strong Caribbean-American leaders with ignorant, bigoted comments.”

Dellaverson insisted he didn't know whether Clarke had actually made the demand for his head. “If in fact she said this, then her statement is both spurious and slanderous,” he said.

“My joking comment to a roomful of reporters, while insipid, was neither racist nor insensitive. In fact, it has no racial or cultural reference at all,” Dellaverson said. “The simple reality is that Toussaint is fighting for his political life and that manipulating whoever he can whenever he can is for his political advantage. This is a base and cynical act on his part.”

Rev. Al Sharpton, a staunch Toussaint supporter, dismissed the charge that Clarke's announcement was timed to coincide with the transit union's current election. He then wondered whether Dellaverson was being base and cynical.

“If he was just joking, what is the joke?” Sharpton asked. “The joke is, he's talking about voodoo and the Caribbean. If he was saying, ‘I'm sticking pins in my Al Sharpton watermelon,' everybody's going to know he's making a racial reference, and that's supposed to be the punchline.

“That's what he's got to deal with, but he doesn't even have the sensitivity to apologize for it,” Sharpton said. “On top of making a derogatory statement, he must think people are stupid.”