Cuomo rally draws protests
Published in the Columbia Daily Spectator on September 28, 2010
Gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo’s early morning campaigning trip in Harlem did not go exactly as planned.
And it wasn’t just the persistent rain that got in his way.
Cuomo—the current New York State attorney general and the Democratic candidate for governor, who is up against GOP candidate Carl Paladino—planned a 7:30 a.m. campaigning session on 125th and St. Nicholas Avenue, where the A, B, C, and D trains stop.
But members of the Freedom Party also came to the event to make their voices heard and hijack Cuomo’s campaigning.
“He doesn’t have any issues that would empower black people in this state, and we need empowerment,” said lifelong Harlem resident Vincent Vann, who came to protest Cuomo and support Council member Charles Barron, the Freedom Party’s candidate for governor. “We need empowerment. This is our home. This is Harlem.”
Barron made headlines back in June when he formed the Freedom Party partly to protest the lack of diversity on Cuomo’s ticket.
Barron supporters said it was a slap in the face for Cuomo to visit Harlem. James Putnaude, a Freedom Party campaigner, complained that Cuomo “comes to our neighborhood with no one to run on the ticket with him. … [He has] an all white ticket.”
The loud chants from the Barron team, coupled with the rain, made it difficult for Cuomo to chat with passersby.
Calls of “Cuomo! Cuomo!” were sometimes drowned out by chants from the Freedom Party: “Whose party? The people’s party! Whose streets? Our streets!”
Omowale Clay, another Barron supporter, urged Harlem residents to pull the lever wisely on election day. “This is a movement to let people know that they’re not the victims of history, they’re the makers of history,” he said. “And all they have to do is make the right decision.”
Not long after Cuomo’s arrival—and after declining to speak with the group of reporters—Cuomo headed to the nearby Dwyer Cultural Center, shaking hands with a few pedestrians along the rainy walk.
Some locals spoke highly of Cuomo as he passed by.
“I know his daddy was an excellent governor,” passerby Drew Jackson said as Cuomo tried to continue campaigning. “If he [Andrew Cuomo] was reared by his daddy, he must share some of those excellent policies.”
Eventually, Cuomo held a press conference at the Dwyer, where he was scheduled to meet with a number of high-profile black leaders including congressman Charles Rangel, former New York comptroller Bill Thompson, and Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
At the conference—which began after reporters waited outside in the rain for nearly two hours—discussion veered away from his policies and toward the controversial emails of opponent Paladino. The GOP candidate has been criticized for forwarding racist emails to friends, one poking fun at President Barack Obama.
Cuomo dodged repeated questions about whether or not he would describe Paladino as “racist.”
“I believe Mr. Paladino’s position … is an extremist position,” Cuomo said. “It is an extreme position and it is being held by an extremist.”
When reporters asked specifically about Paladino’s emails, Cuomo responded, “Do I believe they [the emails] were offensive? Yes, I believe they were offensive. I believe they have been universally characterized at a minimum as offensive.”
Many other politicians at the conference took a much stronger stance against Paladino.
“I will be across the state, sounding the alarm, that there is no place for racism in this country and state,” Dukes said. “Yes, I’m calling it racism, and I’ve been fighting racism for over 40 years. If it’s the last breath in my body, we will not have him [Paladino] as governor of the state of New York.”
“We’re not going to tolerate overt racism, and that’s just what it is, we’re not going to tolerate it,” Thompson added.
Cuomo, changing gears, said that while the election has been polarizing, it’s time for voters to unite.
“Yes, this is a time of stress for our state, and yes, people are scared,” he said. “The question is, when you have the moment, what do you do with it? Which way do you go? Do we play on the fear and anxiety and do we try to separate people, or do we try to bring New York together and offer hope, and take the energy and bring it into an affirmative plan?”
