Kermit Impressions at ReBuilders´ Source

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Photos from Mark Winston Griffith´s Campaign

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Campaigning in Brooklyn

For the first couple weeks of September, I worked on Mark Winston Griffith´s campaign for city council in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was an amazing experience, and while Mark didn´t win the primary this past Tuesday, he only lost by about 600 votes. The incumbent, who was running against 7 other people, including Mark, squeaked by with only 30% of the vote.

Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights are really more one community than two. They share amazingly beautiful brownstones and a population that is almost entirely African-American and West Indian. Sometimes during my campaign work, I would have to ask an older person to repeat themselves because I am not accustomed to West Indian accents.

While the neighborhood has more than its share of problems, there is much to love about it, too. As I would head into the campaign office in the morning, I would walk up Nostrand Avenue and say hello to the people I met, who would actually return my greeting and my smile. The same would happen in the afternoons as I would head past the brownstones on my way to knock on doors: the families or Seniors working in the front yards or chatting on the stoops would return my pleasantries with real openness and friendliness.

Two Sundays ago, I went to a church to campaign for Mark. Unfortunately, I wasn´t allowed to make an announcement during that part of the service, but since I was there, I participated in the entire 3-hour ritual. It was amazing. Everyone looked good. Everyone was dressed up, everyone except me, although fortunately I had chosen a decent t-shirt instead of a tank top or a t-shirt with a snarky phrase on it. There were an abundance of ladies with big hats. One woman even had a silver dress that was cut in triangles and had tassles hanging from it. She had a hat to match, too.

The sermon was about recognizing old enemies in new situations, and the pastor made it clear that, even if we have a Black President, racism is alive and well. I wondered if this kind of sermon would be given to a more mixed audience. I was the only white person in the church. I also considered that all of the energy, hope and faith, that people expressed through songs, was probably one of the things that has kept African-Americans going in this country with its history of slavery and racism. The power of the music and the congregation´s response to it also made me wonder if this wasn´t a connection to a truly African heritage, in spite of the centuries that have passed since Black folk were first brought to this continent.

At a certain point, the Pastor asked those who were attending the church for the first time to stand, so I stood, along with a handful of other people. In the same way that people in the community offered smiles as I went about my canvassing, so again did people in the church come to extend handshakes and to say hello to me.

On the other side of this, there are many problems. The foreclosure rate in this neighborhood is one of the highest in the city, and one out of five families has lost their home because of unscrupulous lending. Jay-Z, the rap artist, is from an infamous housing project in this area, the Marcy Projects, and fellow campaign workers noticed gang signs around the projects. Just a few days before the election, three people were shot in a housing project, and some of the canvassers who had been brought on for the final push were terrified because they ended up walking by the bodies.

One older woman I spoke with told me that she wanted to return to her youthful home of Virginia because she was tired of everything in Bed Stuy. A day or so earlier she had seen a police office punch a woman in the face because she was asking about something that was happening to another man.

Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights are beautiful, and while there is crime and violence, there is also a substantial educated, middle class. A couple of the young men from the neighborhood who were working on the campaign attend the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon.

I hope that Mark wins in November. The community needs someone who is going to put himself out there and do. It needs someone who is going to care, and Mark cares.