more, it's a very important divide, with the added info. from me that Williamsburg and Bushwick are arguably the most young-white-single-lefty-hipster neighborhoods in Brooklyn:

Laurie Cumbo, a Black councilwoman from Brooklyn who is majority leader, compared calls to defund the police to “colonization” pushed by white progressives. Robert Cornegy Jr., a Black councilman also from Brooklyn, called the movement “political gentrification.”

[....]

At the heart of the dispute in New York City is the impact of police officers in neighborhoods that have higher rates of discriminatory policing. The issue came into focus in the weeks leading to the July 1 deadline to pass the city’s budget, as Council leaders pledged to cut police funding by $1 billion in response to the wave of protests after Mr. Floyd’s death.

But a fissure opened when it became clear during negotiations that passing a budget with the $1 billion in cuts meant reducing police presence on the streets and eliminating school safety agents.

During the debate, Black and Latino council members representing both poor and middle-class communities of color, including Brownsville, Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens, wanted to take a measured approach to cutting the police budget. White progressives, allied with some Latino council members from gentrifying and racially mixed neighborhoods and two Black council members, called for more aggressive reductions and reforms.

Ms. Gibson was among a handful of Black and Latino council members who said cutting the size of the police force would exacerbate conditions in neighborhoods already struggling with a rise in shootings and homicides, and with the health and economic disparities that were intensified by the coronavirus crisis.

Yet several progressive Black and Latino council members, like Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn, who represents Williamsburg and Bushwick, were willing to reduce the number of law enforcement personnel and funnel the savings into other programs, such as mental health services.

“We have wrongly been told our whole lives that police keep us safe,” Mr. Reynoso said.

He and other progressive council members said [....]