We Want to Talk About Race

Speaker 1:

Listener supported WNYC studios.

Speaker 2:

NYPD take on me! NYPD take on me! NYPD take on me! NYPD take on me!

Brian Lehrer:

NYPD take on me, chanters chanted over the weekend here in the city, Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue our coverage of the uprisings against police brutality here in New York and around the country. As a program note, our coverage will continue with Alison Stewart on All of It. After this program ends at the top of the hour, we have The Takeaway at 3:00 o'clock with Tanzina Vega, it's her first day back from maternity leave. All Things Considered at 4:00 and at 8:00 o'clock tonight, a two hour national call-in special, America, Are We Ready?: A National Call-in About Racism, Violence, and Our Future Together with Kai Wright and Tanzina and Angela Davis from Minnesota Public Radio and me and special guests. That's 8:00 until 10:00 Eastern time tonight around the country. Right now we continue to invite you to call in if you were among the protesters this weekend and have your voice heard on the air right now, it's 646-435-7280.

Brian Lehrer:

Makes a powerful statement to demonstrate as a group, to be sure as people did. And here as an additional venue, you can say what you want to say as an individual on the air. So if you were protesting over the weekend, we invite you to call in. Why were you there? What was the experience like for you? What did you see? What are you thinking about and what are you feeling this morning? How do you hope to bring about change going forward or anything else you want to say? If you were out at the protests this weekend, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. And with me now, Ijeoma Oluo, author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book, So You Want To Talk About Race and her forthcoming Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy Of White Male America. She is Seattle-based and joined us from there. Ijeoma, we really appreciate you making time for us. And I know it's early out there welcome to WNYC.

Ijeoma Oluo:

Hello.

Brian Lehrer:

So it's not new, obviously that incidents of police brutality get caught on video and make the news. Why do you think the killing of George Floyd was the final straw to a nationwide response like the country hasn't seen in 50 years?

Ijeoma Oluo:

I think that it's really just a culmination of what has really been a brutal couple of years, especially for black America. This is coming off of the murder of so many other black people in this country. But also I think we're right in the middle of a health crisis that is disproportionately impacting black people in this country. And I think that when you are a black person, you have kind of your reserves that keeps you going, right? You try to ignore certain problems, let certain things go because the truth is, is that if we felt the full impact of the systemic racism in this country all of the time, we would not be able to survive it. But I think that whatever reserves we've had as a people were already spent, they've been spent by watching black people die at alarming disproportionate numbers from this virus and then watching our president ratchet up his racist rhetoric. And knowing that we've been disproportionately impacted by job loss and that many people of color, including black people are also putting their lives at risk, doing essential work for low pay.

Ijeoma Oluo:

So we didn't really have the reserves to help us get through this and to realize that in the midst of a pandemic that violent white supremacy doesn't stop, but it still comes for you. To realize that cops would risk their own health and risk getting COVID-19 themselves, just to have the opportunity to kill a black man in front of this whole country. I think it is hitting us very, very hard, and we really just don't have any reserves to be able to absorb that right now.

Brian Lehrer:

Yeah. And when you say no reserves and say people are spent, you use the word spent besides the grief and the anger, I've been hearing the word exhaustion, which has been in our national vocabulary a lot anyway the last few years, especially for people of color. And the word exhaustion is being spoken a lot. I wonder if you're feeling or want to reflect on exhaustion as a relevant emotion in these times?

Ijeoma Oluo:

Oh, absolutely. You know, the truth is, is that our mental energy is an energy like anything else, right? Our brain is a muscle and what it takes to recover from these sorts of events is a lot of energy, but we really can't because we are being hit one after the other, after the other and I am exhausted. I was saying to my partner last night, I have some deadlines and some work I was trying to do. And I said, "How is a black person supposed to get anything done in this country? How am I supposed to shift my brain from the unending terror and grief of what is being done to us, to what I need to do to be able to feed my family." It is so exhausting. I wish that non-black people in this country understood the amount of mental energy that is taken up to deal with anti-blackness and violent white supremacy in this country. I can't imagine what we would be able to accomplish if we didn't have to deal with this all of the time.

Brian Lehrer:

Let's take a phone call, Julie in Bushwick you're on WNYC, hi Julie.

Julie:

Hi. Yeah, I went to the protest on Friday and Saturday, and I should say that I'm white and I've always been like kind of conflicted about destruction that can come from protest. But then particularly Saturday going and seeing and hearing mothers and sisters and brothers, they've lost loved ones at the hands of the people that are supposed to protect them and then their streets aren't safe. And then you hear the chant, "Whose streets? Our streets," and you see a cop car burning or a major corporation on fire. And a historically black community narrative becomes really clear. And I had a moment this weekend of really understanding that that destruction is all a part of the demonstration, like demonstrating why these streets need to be taken back. And I had a long talk with my mom about all of that, and I understand it's like confusing and hard to understand destruction happening, but it kind of also creates such a clear narrative for me personally. I understood that this weekend.

Brian Lehrer:

Thank you very much. Ijeoma, thinking anything in relation to that caller?

Ijeoma Oluo:

Yeah. I actually had this conversation with my son earlier, he's 12-years-old. And children, you try to raise them with morals and things are very black and white to children. And he was very disturbed by the destruction he was seeing and here in Seattle, of course, we had some major destruction of big businesses in the downtown area as well. And he really wanted me to say, this is unequivocally wrong. And I couldn't say it to him and he was really disturbed. And what I realized sadly, is he doesn't have the cumulative trauma yet to understand how it gets to this. He hasn't seen time and time again, people who look like him being treated as less valuable than property. To understand why in order to be listened to some people would start to come for property. And it really made me sad to say one day you'll get it. And it's not because you don't have the intellectual capacity it's because one day you'll have that trauma and then you'll understand.

Ijeoma Oluo:

And that's really what we're looking at. This is lifetimes, multiple generations of extreme trauma. This is what it looks like when you tell black people for over 400 years, that that building matters more than them.

Brian Lehrer:

And yet when people start to commit violence, there's a reaction that that's crossing the line and descending to their level. Let me play you a clip of the mayor of Atlanta, Mayor Bottoms and get your reaction to this.

Keisha Lance Bottoms:

Yesterday when I heard there were rumors about violent protest in Atlanta, I do what a mother would do, I call my son and I said, "Where are you?" I said, "I cannot protect you and black boys shouldn't be out today." So you're not going to out concern me and out care about where we are in America. I wear this each and every day and I pray over my children each and every day. So what I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos. A protest has purpose. When Dr. King was assassinated we didn't do this to our city.

Brian Lehrer:

Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms. What are you thinking as you hear that clip? She's talking to her kid too.

Ijeoma Oluo:

Yeah. And I would say, as a black mother, I would probably be doing whatever I could to keep my child away from there as well. It is important to understand that with this destruction and there have been obvious cases I think of some people who are coming to take advantage of the unrest and increase the destruction that really isn't tied to feelings of anger but some of it is very genuine. That black youth in these protests are the most at risk when these things start to happen. So as a parent, as a mother, I absolutely would be terrified of the thought of my child being there, but to say that it's not protest, isn't true. I think that every politician has to say that. It's your job to protect these communities, right? And to protect these businesses and to protect the people who work in and own these businesses.

Ijeoma Oluo:

But I think it's really important to recognize that this is happening because of the constant, extreme violence against black people in this country. I think it's also important to recognize that when we're seeing things like your Nordstroms and your banks and your national chains being impacted, we also aren't talking about black businesses, right? We are talking about institutions that have regularly profited off of the labor of people of color while giving very little back. And I'm not saying that it is right or wrong, but I am saying that we need to give empathy to people who are out here whose anger has boiled over. And I'd say that we have to be continuously stealing this conversation back to what is the real violence in this situation. And the truth is, is that capitalism has left black people behind. Capitalism was built up of black bodies and will never include black people in its profits.

Ijeoma Oluo:

And to see people take this out on capitalist systems, the see them take it out on systems that have harmed them, you may think that your national chain has nothing to do with this, but it does. And I don't think that we should be that it is the answer to go out there, but what is the answer? And this is something that I was trying to ask someone the other day. What is the answer? What is the thing that works? What is the thing we haven't tried? Can you tell me? Because it's been over 400 years. And it's not like we haven't been trying, it's not like we haven't been begging and pleading and marching peacefully. Dr. King marched peacefully and he got shot in the face for it. So what are we supposed to do at this point to get people's attention? What are we supposed to do to let people understand whether it's because they care about us or just because they don't want to deal with the hassle of our protest that this needs to stop.

Brian Lehrer:

Ijeoma Oluo with us, author of So You Want To Talk About Race and Dean in Jersey City, you're on WNYC, hello.

Dean:

Hi.

Brian Lehrer:

Do you have a story to tell from the week?

Dean:

Hello.

Brian Lehrer:

Hi Dean, were you out over the weekend?

Dean:

Yes, I was in Newark. I do live in New Jersey and I was in Newark at the protests and I just wanted to say that it's such a stark difference between the protest here and neighboring Camden, whereas in New York City. The conversation was ... I talked to a lot of my friends who were there and we realized that the biggest difference is community building and the community resource, community involvement. In New York City everyone knows most of the cops that work there tend to live in outer boroughs, upstate New York, Long Island. They don't live within the community that they're policing. Whereas in Newark or in Camden, a lot of them do live in that city, their own city. So maybe that's what's needed. That's where we need to go. And then I know a lot of people are upset about the looting and the burning of the businesses, but somehow everyone forgot the same thing happened in Tulsa.

Dean:

What about those black businesses that were burnt - it was over a hundred years ago almost now. And it's almost like the whitewashing of the history and everyone forgets the things that were done by the white people towards people of color. And suddenly the Wendy's going up in flame or Target getting looted is such a national tragedy.

Brian Lehrer:

Yes, Dean, thank you. The white riot in Tulsa, 99 years ago yesterday. And I believe that comes up in the chapter of your book called, Is Police Brutality Really About Race? Because I know you go into a lot of history there. You want to talk about that at all, as a kind of root of what's going on today even.

Ijeoma Oluo:

Yeah, I think it is important that we recognize that when we look at policing in America, we have two very separate experiences and histories. Our police forces that rose from slave patrols that were rounding up escaped black people and sending them back into slavery have always had two missions. One is to serve and protect white America and to control black America. And it is really hard I think for a lot of people to understand that the cop that they would turn to when they're in trouble, it's the same cop that will take the life of a black person in times of crisis. And we have dealt with that reality and it has been denied us. The recognition that it has always been like this for us, has been denied, but we see it time and time again, we see it in statistics.

Ijeoma Oluo:

This is not just emotion speaking. This is the fact that you are three to four times more likely to die in an encounter with police if you are black, even though you are less likely to have any sort of contraband on you when you encounter police officers. We are sometimes up to 12 times more likely to encounter violence in general, in our encounters with police officers. This is the reality that we have always faced. And so our relationships with police, especially when we see time and time again, that our forces are turning against community policing, are refusing to get officers living in the areas that they're policing. They're refusing to really look at bias. They're refusing to have transparent processes to deal with issues of police brutality. How are we supposed to be working with police officers? What is the anger supposed to look like? Why are we supposed to be coordinating our protests with them?

Ijeoma Oluo:

And so you will see in certain areas where police forces have taken more effort to really rebuild. And oftentimes it does take things like really shifting personnel. Rebuilding from the ground up or retraining from the ground up and looking at your policing practices, your prosecution practices. That you are seeing a more coordinated response in these protests. You are seeing more empathy from the officers on the streets because these are their neighbors who are feeling pain and fear instead of the population they've been told to control. And right now we are seeing militarized police who are coming into the streets and meeting hurt, angry and scared of black people with the mission of controlling them.

Brian Lehrer:

Liz in Park Slope, you're on WNYC with Ijeoma Oluo. Hi, Liz.

Liz:

Hi. Yeah, I participated in the protest last night at Barclay Center and I just wanted to offer this observation. Something I witnessed from protesters was that the vast majority of them were basically begging NYPD to take a knee, to join them in solidarity, to show some empathy with regards to their pain and their suffering. And of course, there was virtually no response from police officers and they continued to stand there expressionless. One officer laughed, which obviously only made things more painful and more difficult for protesters. At one point as the protest was coming down Flatbush Avenue and crossing Bergen near the precinct, imagine there's a massive SWAT team waiting for these protestors. What if they'd all been on their knee in solidarity. And we talk about reform and how we need that. Last I checked, these protests are about police as a collective behaving badly. And so why not in this moment reconsider how they treat these protests, why can't taking a knee become that reform that we need?

Brian Lehrer:

It's a great question. And did you say that being white, you didn't feel at risk or as much so that you felt you were able to engage the officers on the scene last night?

Liz:

Absolutely. I knew that going into it that my sense of risk was very low and I even inadvertently found myself directly in front of the precinct because I was going down Bergen. And they didn't give me a second look, but they were rushing to barricade basically the precinct from the protesters coming down Flatbush, but I was fine.

Brian Lehrer:

Liz, we really appreciate your call and let's end, Ijeoma, on a related note because I was reading the chapter of your book last night, called Talking Is Great, But What Else Can I Do? In which you note that you don't just write to increase the general knowledge, but to inspire people to action. And action takes place on something as overwhelming as racial justice piece by piece. And so you write, vote in your local elections where your votes have more power, get into schools and find out about achievement gaps and if black history is only taught in February. And one of your suggestions was to white people to bear witness, to use the leverage of their privilege, your words, use the leverage of their privilege. When it's safe, make your presence known when a police officer is stopping a person of color. And you tell a story of your white mother using the leverage of her privilege and her union. So would you like to end on that as an idea that people can take with them?

Ijeoma Oluo:

Absolutely. I think that it's really important, first, if you were at the protest and you are a white person to make sure that you are not escalating the tension in these protests. Because the people who will pay for that escalation are black and brown people on the streets. So make sure that you are not adding to that. Let the decision of the level of tension in those protests be between the black people whose bodies are at risk and the police officers. But put yourself between black people who are at risk and officers. One of the most powerful thing that can be done at protests if you're there, is to build a wall that protects black people who are more likely to be brutalized in these protests between yourself, between them and the officers. If you cannot make it out to the protests, please make sure first that you were having conversations with people who are not understanding why this is important with other white people, other non black people. And telling them why this matters and why you support it.

Ijeoma Oluo:

Give money to bail funds, give resources to black community funds, black businesses, make sure that you are helping in tangible ways. Reach out to black people who may be disproportionately impacted emotionally, physically by this and make sure that they have lunch, that they're taken care of that they can continue on through this. And then start looking at how your power impacts this system. The truth is right now that it is not only police, but it is prosecutors and judges who are making decisions about whether or not police are held accountable for their actions. And yet we do not vote these prosecutors out when they decline time and time and time again to hold officers accountable. And that needs to change. So start paying attention to your elections, pay attention to your mayor, your city council, all of the people who can help hold police forces accountable and make sure they know that their job depends on doing better. We need to start getting rid of officials who have the power to do something about this and are not.

Brian Lehrer:

Ijeoma Oluo, author of the bestselling book, So You Want To Talk About Race. Thank you very much for joining us on this important day.

Ijeoma Oluo:

Thanks for having me.

 

Announcer:

Listener-supported WNYC Studios.

Brian Lehrer:

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and Ijeoma Oluo just before the break, was talking about the centrality of voting in your local elections as a way to make systemic change, and we're going to turn now to local elections coming up this month in New York state. There is an election coming up. It's New York's primary. With the presidential race all but decided, there is still something. There are many things to vote for. Every member of the House of Representatives is up for election or reelection, as are the state legislators. Election Day is June 23rd, but early voting starts on the 13th. So, this is around the corner, and many of us are using absentee ballots to vote by mail this time because of coronavirus. And if you live in New York, you probably have an absentee ballot application already sitting in your mailbox if you're a registered voter. So, with this region leaning so heavily Democratic, it is often the primary that determines who wins in November.

Brian Lehrer:

So, with voting being fundamental to this democracy and a sure way to affect change, let's not let these races fall off our radar. So, let's talk about some of the key contests, especially those in some open congressional seats with Ben Max, Executive Editor of Gotham Gazette and cohost of the Max and Murphy podcast, and Emily Ngo, politics reporter for NY1, who, in fact, brings us some breaking news in one of these contests, which we'll get to in a bit. So, welcome back to the show, Ben and Emily.

Emily Ngo:

Thanks for having us.

Ben Max:

Thanks, Brian. Good to be with you. Hi, Emily.

Brian Lehrer:

And listeners, we'll be talking more about the voting process itself, which is a little unusual, to say the least, in New York this year with WNYC's Brigid Bergen tomorrow and the impact of coronavirus on all of that. But that said, let's start with the open seats where there's no incumbent, and there are real contests. And in the city, that takes us right to New York's 15th congressional district where Representative Jose Serrano is retiring, and his Bronx district seat is you for grabs. There's some very familiar names on the ballot: Melissa Mark-Viverito, former city council speaker, council members Ritchie Torres and Ydanis Rodriguez, both prominent, Assembly member Michael Blake, prominent in the national DNC as well as in the New York State Assembly, plus activist Samelys Lopez, who's gotten the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists endorsement. But there's another city council member, Ruben Diaz, Sr., who is infamous or famous for some of his conservative views, who actually stands a good chance of winning as the others split the vote in this district. So, Emily, want to start and tell us what's going on there?

Emily Ngo:

Sure. This is the district that is completely within the boundaries of the Bronx, NY-15. We have retiring council member Jose Serrano, who's been in power for three decades. And really, when it comes to those seeking to fill his seat, is a bit of a free-for-all. 12 Democratic candidates on the ballot, and it's hard to see who the front runner is for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. The top fundraiser, council member Ritchie Torres, has a lot of money from national LGBTQ groups, and then, there's also national groups campaigning explicitly against Reuben Diaz, Sr., who, of course, has deep name recognition in the borough, and it can be a bit of a wildcard. We don't know what turnout or "turnout", what with absentee balloting, will look like, and he does have a lot of loyalty in that district, in that region.

Emily Ngo:

He has, also, the endorsement of the PBA, the Police Benevolence Association, which also endorsed Chaim Deutsch, another bit of a wildcard in a separate race. He's the challenger to Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn. But it's sort of hard to see what's going to happen in the New York 15 race that have actively open seats because, as you said, even if you're not a top fundraiser like Torres or like Blake or like Mark-Viverito, you have Samelys Lopez, who has the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other big groups. So, a lot of factors in that race.

Brian Lehrer:

It would be weird if a social conservative with Police Benevolent Association endorsement, right at this moment, were able to sneak through in the Bronx and wind up going to Congress from that district, given everything that's going on because others split the vote. One other thing about that race, Ben, don't Melissa Mark-Viverito and Ydanis Rodriguez live in Manhattan? This is a district that, as Emily just said, is solely within the Bronx.

Ben Max:

They do, and I'm glad you brought that up because I found that a very strange element in this race that you have these two either former city council member or current city council member trying to run to represent a district they don't live in. Mark-Viverito at least represented part of the district in her city council seat, but still a little bit strange. You don't have to be a resident of the district while you run, but it is a strange element on the race. Rodriguez likes to talk about the fact that when he ran in the Public Advocate special election, which I think at least three of these candidates in New York 15 ran in that special election last year. Rodriguez likes to talk about how well he did in this congressional district. So, maybe that's part of the reason he ran. But there might also be some other political considerations behind his run. Just two other things on this race that I wanted to mention. I think the idea here is that Reuben Diaz, Sr., has his strong base of support, and the real question is whether the rest of the field is so fractured because there's so many candidates that his base just lets him win with something like 20% of the vote or even lower.

Ben Max:

It's going to be a really low turnout election, most likely, because of the pandemic and other reasons, and this fracture field could let him sail through with the base that he has. I mean, Ritchie Torres is probably the person that would be able to stop him from doing that if he can consolidate enough support leading up to the vote here, but I think, as Emily's going to talk about with some news in another district, that might require one or two of these other bigger-named candidates sort of dropping out and endorsing Torres in the last minutes. But I don't know if that's going to happen because someone like Michael Blake, for example, has gotten an immense amount of labor union support in this race. And so, he might be thinking that if all of his labor support comes out to back him, he's got a real shot here.

Brian Lehrer:

And Ben, I know you moderated a debate in this contest via Zoom, I guess.

Ben Max:

Yeah.

Brian Lehrer:

Were there any central issues for people making up their mind on the issues?

Ben Max:

Well, I do want to say that basically of all of the candidates we invited, which were anybody that showed any fundraising or any real campaign activity, Reuben Diaz, Sr., was the only one who did not accept our invitation to debate. So, that's worth noting. One of the keys here, obviously, is the response to the coronavirus crisis and both its public health and economic fallouts because, of course, the Bronx and low-income communities are being hit very, very hard. And it's important to note that while Representative Serrano's been in this seat for decades, this is the congressional district with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is the district that, well before this coronavirus crisis, needed more resources and much more help. And so, there's a lot of sense of urgency among the candidates that it's about bringing resources back to the district, especially now.

Brian Lehrer:

Emily, I'm going to not keep our listeners in suspense anymore now that I tease that you have some breaking news in one of the other New York City congressional primaries. You want to break it?

Emily Ngo:

Sure, and I'll segue a little bit, too, from what Ben said about the effectively open seat with Jose Serrano's district, is it's the poorest congressional district in the country for several years running, and a lot of the candidates there are emphasizing their lived experiences, having been part of the working poor themselves. And we sort of have this same sentiment and trend in New York 16, which is the Bronx/Westchester seat currently held by Eliot Engel. NY1 was first to report this morning that there's been a consolidation of the progressive challengers to Engel. The congressman who is very senior in Washington. He's chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee is facing a pretty strong challenger in Jamaal Bowman, who has a lot of support from national progressive groups. He's got the Working Families Party behind him. He's got Justice Democrats, Democracy for America, and the other progressive challenger in the race who runs a little bit to the left of Bowman and certainly to the left of Engel, who actually identifies as a democratic socialist, Andom Ghebreghiorgis, had dropped out of the race and is endorsing Bowman.

Emily Ngo:

So, we see them joining forces against Engel. We're not going to have to worry about splitting the anti-incumbent vote, splitting of the progressive vote if we have these two effectively joining forces toward a collective goal, a common goal of unseating Engel. Susan Lerner of Common Cause pointing out that this is the kind of consolidation we could see when it comes to rank voting next year. It's not in effect now, but a lot more challengers in these House primaries all around than in 2018 for a lot of reasons, including the fact that they might have been inspired by AOC's win over ... her upset over Joe Crowley two years ago or inspired just about the rise of progressivism nationally.

Brian Lehrer:

And most New York democrats who are in Congress and running for reelection are not getting serious challenges from the AOC wing of the party, if you want to call it that. Eliot Engel is. Why is he a target?

Emily Ngo:

He's a target because, for one, and this wasn't a factor when the challengers announced their bids, but for one, he's 73 years old, and he hasn't been in the district since late March. He's been in Washington. He's been overseeing very important investigations into the Trump administration in the state department and also various pieces of legislation having to do with coronavirus response and coronavirus aid and relief. But they see him as vulnerable, and they see Jamaal Bowman, who I referenced earlier, has a lived experience in commonality with Andom Ghebreghiorgis as Black men in America during a time when lives remain. Black lives remain expendable as educators. Ben will know from his background. It's sort of rare to be a Black man in education, but they see him as vulnerable, and they see in Bowman just a figure that national progressives can get behind. Their consolidation, their alliance was brokered by the Working Families Party, which is really looking to build up its base in the Bronx in particular. We talked several times about Samelys Lopez, who is a House candidate who has their endorsement. But there's also an open Assembly seat, open, essentially, Assembly seat in the Bronx. We had Carmen Arroyo get kicked off the ballot for fraud, and now, the only candidate that remains in the Democratic primary for her Assembly seat is Amanda Septimo, who has also been endorsed by the WFP.

Brian Lehrer:

We'll continue in a minute with this preview of the congressional Democratic primary races on the ballot in New York this month. Stay with us.

Brian Lehrer:

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we're previewing this month's congressional primaries in New York state. Primary Day is June 23rd, but there's early voting that begins before that starting on June 13th. Early voting still new in New York state. So, if you're not used to it, you're going to be able to vote, for many of you, for the first time as an early voter coming right up. So, it's time to get your heads around these races if you've got a congressional primary in your district. Then, of course, the presidential primary is back on, even though all of the other candidates have conceded to Joe Biden. Andrew Yang went to court and got the presidential primary reinstated. So, you'll be able to vote for whoever's on the ballot in the Democratic presidential race. But the ones that are still actively being contested for federal positions are for Congress, and we've been going over some of these with Emily Ngo from NY1 and Ben Max from the Gotham Gazette. And Ben, you mentioned one of the others that's considered a potentially close race with an incumbent, and that is the one that involves Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn's 9th congressional district. Tell us about that race.

Ben Max:

Yeah. So, this is one of a couple semi-rematches. I mean, you can't quite call it a rematch because it's a more crowded feel than the one-on-one contest two years ago, but in Brooklyn's 9th district, Yvette Clarke is trying to hold her seat again. Adem Bunkeddeko, who gave her a real run for her money two years ago, is back, but now, there's three other Democratic candidates in the running, the most prominent of which, as Emily mentioned before, which is city council member, Chaim Deutsch, and he really throws a wrinkle into the race because he brings a base of support from southern Brooklyn, from Orthodox Jewish communities. And it's really not clear what kind of impact he might have. I mean, of course, he could possibly win, but when you look at Clarke coming back as the incumbent and Bunkeddeko, who came within just a couple thousand votes of her last time, it's a very interesting race again now that he has that run under his belt from last time. Of course, the pandemic also throws a real wrench into his attempt at overcoming the deficit that he couldn't quite make up last time.

Brian Lehrer:

And Emily, staying on that race, who is Adem Bunkeddeko?

Emily Ngo:

He had-

Brian Lehrer:

If you've covered it.

Emily Ngo:

Yeah. I have. It's so interesting because there's been a swell of progressive challengers. Like Ben said, this is not a rematch, per se, but it is his second time running. These progressive challengers are running against progressive incumbents. They might not be as progressive as some New Yorkers would like, but by national standards, they're certainly progressive. So, in Adem Bunkeddeko and Isiah Jones, we have two progressives, Isiah Jones. This dynamic reminds me a lot of the Eliot Engel race in that there's two progressives, one further left than the other, but the front runner, who is a little closer to the center would be ... has more fundraising, is a stronger sort of challenger. But I don't believer that this will be as close as it was last time. I think that a lot of elected officials are consolidating behind Yvette Clarke. They want to make sure that she doesn't squeeze by again by 1800 votes. She had a pretty massive virtual campaign rally two weekends ago where the likes of Cory Johnson and Brad Lander and Michael Blake came to support her. It's significant that Yvette Clarke holds this seat as a Black woman legislator, a seat that was formally held by Shirley Chisholm. And it's significant, also, that all her challengers that raced are men. But Bunkeddeko certainly, like Ben said, gave her a run for her money, but I feel that she's much more on her toes this time around.

Brian Lehrer:

And there were also two-

Ben Max:

Yeah, I was-

Brian Lehrer:

Let me jump in just so I can touch in our last two minutes another couple of seats, and listeners, we're not going to get to Carolyn Maloney, New York City incumbent facing challengers again, but two more empty seats. Peter King, Republican from Long Island, is retiring, and Nita Lowey, Democrat from Westchester, is retiring. Very briefly on the Peter King seat, is there any chance that this becomes a serious swing seat with Democrats taking the suburbs so much more in recent years, Ben?

Ben Max:

I think that's going to be pretty challenging for Democrats this cycle, but one of the most important things as we look ahead that's, of course, for November, as we look ahead for November, it's going to be a matter of how well, from the top of the ticket down, the Democrats are able to do, assuming it is, indeed, Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, how much he, as the candidate, is able to sort of move those swing districts. And we know Long Island can very much fit that category.

Brian Lehrer:

And briefly, in 30 seconds, on the Nita Lowey seat, Emily, are you watching it? Because that's out of the city, or is it not on your beat?

Emily Ngo:

I am. Open races are always very exciting. There's seven challengers with the exit of Catherine Parker, who is a county legislator, and it really could go anywhere with Mondaire Jones as the progressive in the race. There's several progressives, of course, that's endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro. So, we'll see how that goes. Not as concerned as we are with the Peter King district about it swinging one way or another. It's likely to remain Democratic, but a pretty heated contest up there.

Brian Lehrer:

Emily Ngo from NY1, Ben Max from Gotham Gazette, thank you so, so much for joining us and filling us in on these races.

Ben Max:

Thanks, Brian.

Emily Ngo:

Thank you.

Brian Lehrer:

And our coverage will continue tomorrow. We'll be covering the New York primary a lot between now and when voting starts on the 13th and ends on the 23rd. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.