Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

OTP:   In terms of this campaign, what is the importance of another party line, what power does it give you, and what are the issues that your campaign will address?
Mary France:  There are several lines right now, but in spite of that none of the current parties represent the masses of the people.   None of them.  Not the Democrats, the Republicans, the Conservatives, none of them.   They have a White male dominated mentality.   Unity is very, very different.   Even the Green Party, which is a progressive party, is white male led.   So there is no message being sent to people who are not white, that there is a party that is out there for them.  And the issues of people of color and other oppressed people and working class people and people who don’t have jobs, those issues are not being met by the existing parties.    So we don’t really have a People’s Party.  That’s what Unity is about.  And it’s not just a one shot deal, we’re here for the long term.  Once we get our 50,000 votes and a ballot line, we will be able to run local candidates throughout New York over the next four years.  We’ll be able to make a real difference by offering a real alternative, a People’s Party that is focused on addressing the needs of the average person and the people who have been overlooked.   This stands against the major parties that look to protect the interests of the upperclasses.   Unity is a People’s Party that has more emphasis on meeting the needs of the poor and the average worker versus looking at corporate America.   It’s the people who we serve that make it a different kind of party.   The issues that come out of that are their issues.  There are issues such as the Prison Industrial Complex being built versus having schools and education as a priority.   There are issues of people not having jobs and then finding jobs created in prisons and holding facilities.   Many people don’t have access to health care.   The Unity Party will shift the emphasis of the health debate toward Universal Health Care so that people don’t have to worry about HMO’s and not being able to be served.   There are a lot of issues, but the ones that stand out for me are the prisons, jobs and education because they are all so intertwined.  We don’t put a priority on education.   We don’t try to rehabilitate.   Others talk about being tough on crime and all they mean is putting people in jail longer.  We’re tough on crime by being strong on prevention and rehabilitation. There’s only lip-service  being given to the youth.  What we need are strong after-school programs.  We have to come up with progressive human based solutions rather than this punitive based mode we’re in. Those are the kinds of issues this party will speak to. 
OTP:  You mentioned human type programs.  Give me an example of a human type program.
MF:   Look at community development.  We have to reinvest in the communities.  Right now, the emphasis is on trickle down.   Well, if you’re dying of thirst, a trickle of water is more frustrating than helpful and may be too little too late.    Giving millions to major corporations and having those corporations spread around some minimum wage jobs,  that does not help the communities or the lives of those people.   They don’t have develop any wealth, they don’t own anything.  The community doesn’t benefit.  So in terms of human type things, when we invest in the community, we’re building up the people in the community, we’re building up the infrastructure of the community the housing the schools the health care system.  We help that community be viable.   We are going to have programs that reinvest in the economic development of communities.   In the Unity Party, we call it a 21st Century Program for jobs.  We will be looking at banks and other financial institutions to show them their responsibility and determine how they can participate in the community building process.   We will be looking at their loan programs for home improvement, entrepreneurship and community investment. 
OTP:  In the last two days the Federal Reserve Board of New York stepped in to save a failing fund called Long-Term Capital Management. John Merriweather ran the thing and he was supposed to be this massive genius with Nobel Prize winners on his team.  Now he’s screwed up big time and they took $3.5 billion out of some fund and saved his ass.  It seems that the elite have a system in place to take care of themselves and their kind.  What systems would you put in place to take care of small businesses that come upon hard times?
MF:  We don’t need a new system.  The same one that worked for those people that got that $3.5 billion?   That’s what we need.  The monies are there, the only question is who gets it.   The money is always there when certain people need it.  When the S & L’s got into trouble the money was found for them.  Now you’re telling me they came up with $3.5 billion dollars?  That’s a whole lot of money.
OTP:  I thought so.
MF:  You see, if you have the right emphasis, there is no reason why we cannot have community development.  No reason why we cannot have plans and initiatives to help community people instead of just giving handouts to these big corporations.   I’m not familiar with the specific situation you’ve mentioned here, but I would examine those kinds of actions, examine the language and the structures that allow that, and make them apply to communities in the same way.  This kind of behavior is obscene.   There is no reason why communities have to suffer while these other guys get taken care of.  

It is important that communities have a positive sense of the future, that they have some hope they can have a thriving foundation.   Everything works together.  If you build up the community, if you create the housing, have the programs the development, get the school working, then you don’t have all of these other problems that people are locked up for.  You eliminate those problems with prevention.   Let me emphasize that I don’t just mean black communities here.  It is important that average working communities across the racial spectrum have the opportunity to grow and heal and save themselves.
OTP:  You spoke about the youth a moment ago.  You know there was a Million Youth March here in New York on September fifth.  Were you there?
MF:  Yes I was and when I arrived I was sickened at how people were herded like cattle through those metal barricade chutes.   To see that in 1998 people are so disrespected in the African community was disgusting.   This was a festive crowd of positive African people and other nationalities, simply hungering for ways to make their lives better, and they were treated like that.
OTP:  That was outrageous to have to wind through those mazes the police set up.  Looking at the behavior of some of the police units at the end of the march, what did you think of that, and as Governor what could you do about it?
MF:  When people ask me about the Million Youth March, the first thing that comes into my head is racism.  It’s ingrained in the fiber of this country.  People don’t like to talk about racism but it is a fact of life and New York is no exception.   It is conscious and unconscious.   At different levels and degrees people use rationales to cloak it and cover it up.  There is a tacit understanding of “Let’s keep certain people in their place.” 
As a Governor, at this point it is uncertain if there is any legal redress in terms of the actions taken by the mayor and the officials of the police department.   But as Governor of the State of New York, while Pataki may not have been able to take a legal position, he could have taken a humane position.  He could have taken a stand.  He could have addressed the concerns of an oppressed community in his state.   He could have at least done that.  As a leader he could have spoken out against the way politicians try to pit upstate against downstate in a racial divide.   He could have set the tone and said, “In the State of New York, we will not have this kind of Bull Connor attitude.  We have a diverse state and we will respect the contributions of all of the people.”  A leader should set those kinds of tones.  He could do that as a leader but he failed there. 
OTP:  What about the state budget and affirmative action spending.  I remember when Dinkins was mayor, he had a serious affirmative action component.  I was in a previous career at the time and I attended some of those proposal review sessions for contractors.   They had the contractors, and I was one of them working for a white company at the time, scrambling to find minority partners to fulfill their portion.  It was the first time I had seen that.   What kind of affirmative action component would you have in state spending budget?
MF:  When it comes to Affirmative Action, I would look at that history very closely.  Affirmative Action across the board has not necessarily benefited African people.    I don’t care what people call it, but there must be programs that bring equity and fairness and levels the playing field.  Any program I have as governor of the State of New York would be fair to all its citizens be they African American or women.   These are groups that have been disenfranchised, who have not had the equal footing and could not reach equal equity because they’re always behind.   The goal would be to put everyone on a level playing field.  Until that is done, we will work to have programs to insure that happens.  Historically, white men have had the power.   Women have not had it and African Americans have not had it.  If women and black people had not fought for the vote and other equalities they would never have come.  We have to make sure we do not stop that fight until we get there.  Affirmative Action has to exist, not just in regard to African people, but for all folks who are not where they could be because there has been a long history of inequality with certain groups benefiting over others.  We would change that.
OTP:  The prison population has been exploding and a lot of it has been based on the Rockefeller Drug Laws.  Could you comment on that?

MF:  We need to repeal these Rockefeller Drug Laws.  They’ve been in effect since 1973 and they are very discriminatory.  It doesn’t make sense that people would go to jail for a  small amount of crack and not go to jail for a large amount of powder cocaine.   But people have to be educated.  Many in our own community say, “Yeah, send them to jail.”  But it’s not fair that people should be in jail for years rather than be rehabilitated.  We have to look at bringing people out, helping them be productive citizens instead of just locking them up.   But again, the laws are designed to keep certain people in their place.  Most powder cocaine users are white, and they get to walk.  Most crack users are black and they get locked up for long sentences and a lot of the crimes are non violent.   It isn’t all shootouts.   A lot of it is someone found carrying vials and suddenly they’re locked up for long periods of time.  The worst part is the way people are being convinced that these are criminals.  I really resent that.  We have to look at that for what it is and change it.  These laws are set up so that African Americans don’t grow and be competitive as a people, and we need to be honest about that and deal with it.   If a person is a real leader they will address these things in a forthright manner.    If they don’t then it’s either because they feel African Americans should be dealt with in this way, or knowing the system is wrong, don’t deal with it because the people who vote for them wouldn’t like it and they don’t have the guts to stand up and say, “These things are wrong, let’s change them.”  We need to raise these issues and force politicians to deal with them, and where they don’t, we need to kick their behinds at the polls.

David Mark Greaves

One of the problems with Khalid Muhammad is that he believes too much in the myth of “America”.   He believes first of all in the First Amendment and the notion that he, a black man, has as much right to speak as provocatively and wrongheadedly as any leader outside the mainstream.   The police usually put up protective lines to keep groups safe from others who object to what’s being said.  They do not attack the stage or the speaker.   Khalid thought the same rule applied to him.  It was not that he was mistaken putting his faith in New York’s Finest to responsibly fulfill their obligations to protect the Constitution and the right of free speech.   His faith was well placed in the majority of officers at the event, particularly the community patrol officers who are closest to the people on a daily basis.  They, along with many of the other officers, were looking at a good overtime day of standing around in a peaceful crowd, being bored and being well paid for it.  Had these officers been left in charge, the event would have ended safely.

We have learned that there are two elements in the police department.  There are the everyday cops doing their jobs, and then there are the Special Units.  Every fascist has them.  Sometimes they’re called the SS, the Gestapo, or the Palace, Praetorian or Presidential Guard.  These are the Elite troops that the maximum leader knows he can count on when the task is subduing the citizenry, a task that officers too close to the people may blink at.   Those special forces were nakedly revealed at the Saturday march, and the effectiveness of their tactics is unquestionable.
Khalid… a Disappointment
And that’s where Khalid was a disappointment.  His remarks at the end of the march were ill-advised at best and deliberately provocative at worst.   That he bracketed them with words of peace, love, self defense and legalisms, are fine points that his lawyers may have to bring up in a court of law.   But they are fine points that are lost in the media’s editing room.  And that they were spoken by a man who then sped off surrounded by security while women and children were left to be protected by those with the courage to stay, that was inexcusable.  
Giuliani’s Ambitions
The fact is, Rudolph Giuliani is mayor of the city, he’s a totalitarian leader, and he don’t cotton to that kind of talk around here.   If Khalid were a Jew in Nazi Germany, he would know better than to get on a soapbox and speak ill of the Nazis.  If he were in America in Puritan times, he would not proclaim that those who burned witches should turn to Allah.  He would know better. We live in New York City, a place where the Mayor is floating balloons for a Presidential run.  The mayor could not care less about black people in New York.   They don’t vote generally, and when they do, it’s not for him.  Mayor Giuliani was busy calculating the affect in Iowa, Florida, and Arizona. He wants his future to lie on the national stage and a 15% voter turnout puts the backs of black folks at the right level to step up on. 
Lost Opportunities
What is in danger of being lost here is the best of what the march could have been.  What is clear at this point is that only organized, political action can achieve any measurable goals.
There was a lot of potential at the march.  A lot of good energy and sincere people, many ready, willing and able to work toward goals.  But much of it was lost in violent rhetoric.  Young people have to be taught how to use language in a more sophisticated way.  Because of Khalid’s remarks and the easy path they gave for the mayor to dash for the high ground, movement energy will be spent defending him, rather than lining up the political power to destroy this mayor’s presidential ambitions.  The only way that is done is with voter turnout.  And if that is the legacy of this march, then it would be well-remembered.   If it made people look back at the courage and discipline of the nonviolent  resistors who faced dogs, cattle prods, and water hoses, at the height of the civil rights movement, then it will be well-remembered.   There was once a time of meetings in homes, organizing across groups, and door-to-door outreach into our communities.   It was these efforts and those of people like the freedom riders of the sixties that reshaped America.   Those were revolutionaries who were on a mission and who were able to achieve goals.  They walked on dusty roads and in and out of yards, having to be watchful of ever-present dangers.   They were attacked and beaten.   Some lost their jobs, others lost their homes and their health.  Many like Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, were beaten to death.  Others like Medgar Evers were shot.  They endured all of it in the faith that later generations would take the right to vote that had been so painfully won and use it to continue the march toward a free society.  In the face of those sacrifices, African Americans in New York should be awash in embarrassment at their 15% turnout in the September Primary.

The vote is the only thing that keeps the fascist element in politics at bay.   With a 15% voter turnout, it’s no wonder they’re at our front door.  With a 15% voter turnout it’s no wonder politicians don’t respect us, why should they?   Because we’re Black and Beautiful?  Because we can dress in wonderful colors and march in righteous indignation?   Because we’ve got a couple of jobs in midtown or Wall Street and promise to be good?  
This is the United States of America.  It is a market driven society.  It is run by white males and they aren’t playing games.   Black people had better get to work, and quickly.       David Mark Greaves

To paraphrase an old New Yorker cartoon, the Unity Party has put it all together.  They’ve walked the streets throughout New York State.  They’ve gotten 20,500 signatures and are listed on the ballot.  Unpaid citizens have been meeting every week for several months after work and on weekends.  They’ve made the calls and addressed the envelopes.  They’ve held fundraisers and community meetings. They’ve held petition seminars, and voter rallies.  They have a candidate for Governor who’s a mother, a grandmother, a teacher, an activist, a doer, an African American.  They’ve built a multiracial coalition spanning the entire state.  They have a platform that comes up from the street and borough coordinators directing outreach.  The United Nations is in session and the world is in New York.  There was a 15% voter turnout in the Democratic primary so nobody’s expecting much.  The stage is set to rock New York.  All they need is you.
Mary France was born one of eight children, in Scottsburg, Va. Her father never went to school; he and Mary’s mother were farmers.  Mary graduated from Mary Bethune High School in Halifax, Va., an all-black segregated school.
   After high school Mary moved to Corona, Queens, She got married, had six children, worked for an agency part-time cleaning offices early in the morning and late at night while she took care of her children and began attending York College in Jamaica. She worked with the Parent Associations in her children’s schools, including being the president of the P.A. at PS 92 in Corona. She graduated Cum Laude from York College with a BA. in English in 1980. Mary was the founding president of the Parents Coalition for Education in 1982 and continued in that capacity until 1989. She ran for school board twice, in 1986 and 1989 and as an independent for State Assembly in 1994. She has been a member of the Queens Coalition for Political Alternatives, National Black Child Development Institute, NAACP, and the National Council of Negro Women.  She played a leading role in the Emergency Campaign to Save Our Schools, African Americans
Political Power, the Citywide Coalition of African American Education Organizations, Advocates Children, the National Committee for Independent Political Action and the Campaign for a New Tomorrow(CNT). She was N.Y. State coordinator for Ron Daniels’ Independent Presidential campaign -in 1992. She has worked actively with CNT’s Haiti Support Project.
   Mary was the Director of the Office of Parent Involvement under Richard Green, the city’s first American School’s Chancellor. She has worked as the Director of the Homework Assistance Program at the Langston Hughes Library and Cultural Center, Senior Instructor and Project Director at York Adult Learning Center and Director of the Even Start Program in Community School District 2. She currently teaching English at I.S. 227 in East Elmhurst and serves on the N.Y. State Regents Visiting Committee for Low-Performing Schools. In addition to her sir children, she has six grandchildren.

The Million Youth March should have been a quintessential experience for our youth the way it was for the participants at the Million Man and Million Woman Marches.  Thousands of young people,  toddlers,  school-age children, teenagers, adolescents, young adults, showed up for an event that was supposed to be about them.   The first speaker, 17-year-old Damian, a youth leader and member of the Boys Choir of Harlem, declared “Generation X is the New Millennium!”  Placards told of concerns about AIDS, homelessness, education, housing, racism, health, Reparations and empowerment,  self-respect, brotherly love and Black Power.  Two young men representing the Five-Percenters spoke about family.   There were Erica Ford’s demands for Black Power underscoring the need for Black self-love, Black economic development and political empowerment.  A young couple from California, the Los Angeles coordinators, embodied the movement and energy of youth in their dramatic message about respect.  There were other young speakers, and the audience listened to all of them.  They were ready for something new.  These young leaders were hard enough and strong enough to talk about peace.  Older soldiers, scholars,  politicians and others- from Dr. Ben and Dr. Jeffries to the people’s mayor, The Rev. Al Sharpton and Harlem’s mayor Delois Blakely showed that the greatest weapon is the mind and the real untelevised revolution is the one that takes place in the mind’s eye first.  Waiting in the shadows to talk about such issues as Voting and Education were Cornel West and Adelaide Sanford.  Their voices were not heard that day.  There was no time. 
Yes, there was all this at the March, but what our  youth got was “Apocalypse Now” — rhetoric, lingo, mega-guns, sharpshooters, pepperspray and helicopters.  They were given this by adults who focused on termination rather than determination, action, unity. And with only four hours to get the message out, too many speakers used the time unwittingly to promote the enemy, real and perceived.
There were rumors – later verified by callers to radio talk shows – that Harlem school gyms were filled to capacity with artillery and weapons.  We saw horsemen lined up at Marcus Garvey Park, water tanks on 110th and Lenox.  It was reportedly planned that injured police officers would go to St. Luke’s or Roosevelt Hospital while marchers would be taken to Harlem Hospital or North General.  Was someone  preparing for an all-out military operation? 
Perhaps the legacy of the Million Youth March is this: in its effort to bring youth issues to the forefront for discussion and solutions, the March itself was a reflection of the monster challenges many of our youth say they face daily in their personal lives: there is never enough time to take time, few appear to be listening to them, there’s a constant threat of being shot down, and the guardians who would lead, protect, teach and guide the children are in need of guidance and leadership skills, themselves.
In the end, the youth were the heroes.  They restrained themselves at the barricades, and protected the women and children in the path of  riot police. They invoked the spirits of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Million Marches.   They included Rap artists, security personnel, The One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, mothers and fathers who care, the residents along Malcolm X Blvd. and its side streets, the Bedford Stuyvesant Ambulance unit and many, many more.  They were calm and they were calming, and they stood  their ground on Malcolm X Blvd .. . like real warriors.

Khalid Muhammad’s most challenging moment may have occurred six hours after the rally and less than a mile away from 118th St. and Malcolm X. Blvd.    A busload of youth had come up from North Carolina to participate in the rally. They wanted to take home more than the next morning’s headlines.  And they had some serious questions of the March convener. Khalid  took a deep breath and walked over to their circle.  On a dimly-lit sidewalk a few feet away from a bustling Harlem avenue , he quietly listened to their questions.  The easiest to answer concerned the reasons for the libations ceremony and why  Master P was so heavily promoted.  (Eds. note:The rap mogul provided the much-needed last-minute financial backing for the event).  Khalid thought perhaps the youth group’s adult leader had encouraged her charges to prod  him a little.  But he said this with a sigh, as if he understood that  that’s a youth leader’s role. 
(We present in this issue speeches  that may have been lost in the  blitz to report on the March’s final minutes. In this issue, also, are some of  the March  supporters I spoke to in the crowd at the frontlines.Next month, Fatima Prioleau, Sharonne Salaam, C. Virginia Fields, and more.)

The Candidate Speaks
OTP:   In terms of this campaign, what is the importance of another party line, what power does it give you, and what are the issues that your campaign will address?
Mary France:  There are several lines right now, but in spite of that none of the current parties represent the masses of the people.   None of them.  Not the Democrats, the Republicans, the Conservatives, none of them.   They have a White male dominated mentality.   Unity is very, very different.   Even the Green Party, which is a progressive party, is white male led.   So there is no message being sent to people who are not white, that there is a party that is out there for them.  And the issues of people of color and other oppressed people and working class people and people who don’t have jobs, those issues are not being met by the existing parties.    So we don’t really have a People’s Party.  That’s what Unity is about.  And it’s not just a one shot deal, we’re here for the long term.  Once we get our 50,000 votes and a ballot line, we will be able to run local candidates throughout New York over the next four years.  We’ll be able to make a real difference by offering a real alternative, a People’s Party that is focused on addressing the needs of the average person and the people who have been overlooked.   This stands against the major parties that look to protect the interests of the upperclasses.   Unity is a People’s Party that has more emphasis on meeting the needs of the poor and the average worker versus looking at corporate America.   It’s the people who we serve that make it a different kind of party.   The issues that come out of that are their issues.  There are issues such as the Prison Industrial Complex being built versus having schools and education as a priority.   There are issues of people not having jobs and then finding jobs created in prisons and holding facilities.   Many people don’t have access to health care.   The Unity Party will shift the emphasis of the health debate toward Universal Health Care so that people don’t have to worry about HMO’s and not being able to be served.   There are a lot of issues, but the ones that stand out for me are the prisons, jobs and education because they are all so intertwined.  We don’t put a priority on education.   We don’t try to rehabilitate.   Others talk about being tough on crime and all they mean is putting people in jail longer.  We’re tough on crime by being strong on prevention and rehabilitation. There’s only lip-service  being given to the youth.  What we need are strong after-school programs.  We have to come up with progressive human based solutions rather than this punitive based mode we’re in. Those are the kinds of issues this party will speak to. 
OTP:  You mentioned human type programs.  Give me an example of a human type program.
MF:   Look at community development.  We have to reinvest in the communities.  Right now, the emphasis is on trickle down.   Well, if you’re dying of thirst, a trickle of water is more frustrating than helpful and may be too little too late.    Giving millions to major corporations and having those corporations spread around some minimum wage jobs,  that does not help the communities or the lives of those people.   They don’t have develop any wealth, they don’t own anything.  The community doesn’t benefit.  So in terms of human type things, when we invest in the community, we’re building up the people in the community, we’re building up the infrastructure of the community the housing the schools the health care system.  We help that community be viable.   We are going to have programs that reinvest in the economic development of communities.   In the Unity Party, we call it a 21st Century Program for jobs.  We will be looking at banks and other financial institutions to show them their responsibility and determine how they can participate in the community building process.   We will be looking at their loan programs for home improvement, entrepreneurship and community investment. 
OTP:  In the last two days the Federal Reserve Board of New York stepped in to save a failing fund called Long-Term Capital Management. John Merriweather ran the thing and he was supposed to be this massive genius with Nobel Prize winners on his team.  Now he’s screwed up big time and they took $3.5 billion out of some fund and saved his ass.  It seems that the elite have a system in place to take care of themselves and their kind.  What systems would you put in place to take care of small businesses that come upon hard times?
MF:  We don’t need a new system.  The same one that worked for those people that got that $3.5 billion?   That’s what we need.  The monies are there, the only question is who gets it.   The money is always there when certain people need it.  When the S & L’s got into trouble the money was found for them.  Now you’re telling me they came up with $3.5 billion dollars?  That’s a whole lot of money.
OTP:  I thought so.

MF:  You see, if you have the right emphasis, there is no reason why we cannot have community development.  No reason why we cannot have plans and initiatives to help community people instead of just giving handouts to these big corporations.   I’m not familiar with the specific situation you’ve mentioned here, but I would examine those kinds of actions, examine the language and the structures that allow that, and make them apply to communities in the same way.  This kind of behavior is obscene.   There is no reason why communities have to suffer while these other guys get taken care of.  
It is important that communities have a positive sense of the future, that they have some hope they can have a thriving foundation.   Everything works together.  If you build up the community, if you create the housing, have the programs the development, get the school working, then you don’t have all of these other problems that people are locked up for.  You eliminate those problems with prevention.   Let me emphasize that I don’t just mean black communities here.  It is important that average working communities across the racial spectrum have the opportunity to grow and heal and save themselves.
OTP:  You spoke about the youth a moment ago.  You know there was a Million Youth March here in New York on September fifth.  Were you there?
MF:  Yes I was and when I arrived I was sickened at how people were herded like cattle through those metal barricade chutes.   To see that in 1998 people are so disrespected in the African community was disgusting.   This was a festive crowd of positive African people and other nationalities, simply hungering for ways to make their lives better, and they were treated like that.
OTP:  That was outrageous to have to wind through those mazes the police set up.  Looking at the behavior of some of the police units at the end of the march, what did you think of that, and as Governor what could you do about it?
MF:  When people ask me about the Million Youth March, the first thing that comes into my head is racism.  It’s ingrained in the fiber of this country.  People don’t like to talk about racism but it is a fact of life and New York is no exception.   It is conscious and unconscious.   At different levels and degrees people use rationales to cloak it and cover it up.  There is a tacit understanding of “Let’s keep certain people in their place.” 
As a Governor, at this point it is uncertain if there is any legal redress in terms of the actions taken by the mayor and the officials of the police department.   But as Governor of the State of New York, while Pataki may not have been able to take a legal position, he could have taken a humane position.  He could have taken a stand.  He could have addressed the concerns of an oppressed community in his state.   He could have at least done that.  As a leader he could have spoken out against the way politicians try to pit upstate against downstate in a racial divide.   He could have set the tone and said, “In the State of New York, we will not have this kind of Bull Connor attitude.  We have a diverse state and we will respect the contributions of all of the people.”  A leader should set those kinds of tones.  He could do that as a leader but he failed there. 
OTP:  What about the state budget and affirmative action spending.  I remember when Dinkins was mayor, he had a serious affirmative action component.  I was in a previous career at the time and I attended some of those proposal review sessions for contractors.   They had the contractors, and I was one of them working for a white company at the time, scrambling to find minority partners to fulfill their portion.  It was the first time I had seen that.   What kind of affirmative action component would you have in state spending budget?
MF:  When it comes to Affirmative Action, I would look at that history very closely.  Affirmative Action across the board has not necessarily benefited African people.    I don’t care what people call it, but there must be programs that bring equity and fairness and levels the playing field.  Any program I have as governor of the State of New York would be fair to all its citizens be they African American or women.   These are groups that have been disenfranchised, who have not had the equal footing and could not reach equal equity because they’re always behind.   The goal would be to put everyone on a level playing field.  Until that is done, we will work to have programs to insure that happens.  Historically, white men have had the power.   Women have not had it and African Americans have not had it.  If women and black people had not fought for the vote and other equalities they would never have come.  We have to make sure we do not stop that fight until we get there.  Affirmative Action has to exist, not just in regard to African people, but for all folks who are not where they could be because there has been a long history of inequality with certain groups benefiting over others.  We would change that.
OTP:  The prison population has been exploding and a lot of it has been based on the Rockefeller Drug Laws.  Could you comment on that?

MF:  We need to repeal these Rockefeller Drug Laws.  They’ve been in effect since 1973 and they are very discriminatory.  It doesn’t make sense that people would go to jail for a  small amount of crack and not go to jail for a large amount of powder cocaine.   But people have to be educated.  Many in our own community say, “Yeah, send them to jail.”  But it’s not fair that people should be in jail for years rather than be rehabilitated.  We have to look at bringing people out, helping them be productive citizens instead of just locking them up.   But again, the laws are designed to keep certain people in their place.  Most powder cocaine users are white, and they get to walk.  Most crack users are black and they get locked up for long sentences and a lot of the crimes are non violent.   It isn’t all shootouts.   A lot of it is someone found carrying vials and suddenly they’re locked up for long periods of time.  The worst part is the way people are being convinced that these are criminals.  I really resent that.  We have to look at that for what it is and change it.  These laws are set up so that African Americans don’t grow and be competitive as a people, and we need to be honest about that and deal with it.   If a person is a real leader they will address these things in a forthright manner.    If they don’t then it’s either because they feel African Americans should be dealt with in this way, or knowing the system is wrong, don’t deal with it because the people who vote for them wouldn’t like it and they don’t have the guts to stand up and say, “These things are wrong, let’s change them.”  We need to raise these issues and force politicians to deal with them, and where they don’t, we need to kick their behinds at the polls.