On the Run with New Kings Democrats

On the Run with New Kings Democrats

Nick Juravich: On the Run with New Kings Democrats

Last week, I discussed the origins, mission, and current activities of New Kings Democrats in Brooklyn, who are in the thick of a wide-open Assembly race in the 54th Election District, as covered in the New York Times. Today, I?m looking back to my own experience running for a spot on the Kings County Democratic Committee?the major organ of machine politics in Brooklyn?in 2010.

As a first-time County Committee candidate, I pounded pavement and knocked on doors in my four-block election district in Crown Heights last summer, explaining the position, the Committee, and the New Kings mission to bewildered and bemused neighbors. I had worked several campaigns before, knew the door-knocking drill, and felt that getting the thirty-five signatures I needed would be a cinch, a day or two?s work at most. Despite delusions of grandeur (mocked gently by my wife, who overheard me rehearsing my spiel in the shower), it turned out that campaigning for oneself, and for an office no one had ever heard of, was considerably more difficult than being a volunteer or foot soldier for a larger, recognizable campaign. My initial excursions were mostly unproductive, netting door slams, raised eyebrows, and queries (?How long have you lived around here, anyway? And you want to represent this community how??) that suggested, even if this position I was running for did exist, I didn?t seem to be the man for the job.

However, as I kept at it, conversations started happening: a long chat on a stoop about the legacy of race relations in New York City politics, an explanation about how frustrating property taxes were for a home-owning neighbor, a street-corner conversation about the need for more local jobs. I made clear that I would be in no position to make or deliver on any promises if my neighbors signed my petitions, but even in the discussions, I could see the latent potential for community building, for coming together on issues that affect everyone in the neighborhood, as well as for beginning to understand the challenges that diverse neighbors face. I was invited to a block party, welcomed into houses, given firm handshakes and even a few hugs after speaking my piece. At one point, a long-time local activist who I had never met before took a page of petitions around his whole building and delivered them to my doorstep later in the evening.

This is, of course, the warm and fuzzy campaigning story, itself a part of the campaigning. I was also told in no uncertain terms that I was a gentrifier who should not only get off the stoop but out of the neighborhood, that I was naïve to think whatever I was running for could change anything, that the city had enough politicians. And, after I did collect my signatures and win my seat (unopposed) on the September ballot, I attended the ludicrous circus that was the 2010 Kings County Democratic Committee meeting, where Brookly boss Vito Lopez and company made it extremely clear that they had no interest in engaging in any sort of dialogue or debate that might have allowed representatives to speak to the needs of their districts. Nonetheless, there were flashes, in these hyper-local interactions, of a politics that might truly engage people on a day-to-day basis, and not once every two or four years? a politics that would give not just a vote but a meaningful voice to nearly anyone who wanted one, and would allow thousands of Brooklynites to run for office and take their voices and ideas to a party that would work to incorporate and respond to them.

The gentrification question in particular is a potentially explosive one for New Kings, and one that the machine has been eager to exploit, painting them as young, white outsiders who don?t understand the communities they hope to represent and seek changes that will only benefit them (i.e., more gentrification). Matt Cowherd, the NKD president, will freely admit that their core group is young, white, and most successful in North Brooklyn?s hipster strongholds, but they?ve embraced the strengths that such an alignment offers while simultaneously trying to expand their horizons. Their ?Vote Local? campaign, he noted in May, deliberately evokes the urban communitarianism of ?shop local? and ?eat local? campaigns that proliferate in changing neighborhoods, and endorsement emails for Gonzalez play gently on the candidate?s first name for the irony-loving set (?Come to Jesus,? and so on). At the same time, their support for Gonzalez, a longtime community activist who can hardly be tarred as a gentrifier, is emblematic of their work to court independent Democrats across race, class, and age lines. Over the past year, established politicians including Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, and State Senator Daniel Squadron have spoken at NKD events, and New Kings were joined on the steps of Borough Hall before the 2010 County Committee meeting by members of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats and Chris Owens, the District Leader for the 52nd Assembly District, among others.

The larger strategy, as NKD leader and State Committeman Lincoln Restler notes, is ?improving communication? and creating ?more opportunities to facilitate dialogue, to build relationships and bridges across diverse communities.? Restler, whose district runs along the waterfront from Greenpoint to Fort Greene and is one of the most diverse political units in Brooklyn, contended frequently with gentrification, and the charge that he was emblematic of it, during his campaign, but in the end, his case for conversation won out. ?A better organized community,? Restler argues, ?is more equipped to maintain socioeconomic and racial diversity.? Gentrification is real, and it is a challenge, but it is one that is far more complicated than the simple racial divides described by snide blogs and machine pronouncements. As with all of the myriad challenges faced by Brooklyn communities, NKD thinks the solution lies in participation and transparency.

For my own part, running for County Committee in a changing neighborhood transformed the way I relate to many of my neighbors. People who passed with a nod or wan smile on the street now stop to chat local politics, or simply to ask how my wife and I are doing. I?m more aware of things that affect people in the community, even if they don?t impact me (canceled bus routes, late garbage pickup on summer days, the tone an officer takes during the frequent stop-and-frisks on Franklin Avenue). I make a point of not missing a community association meeting (of which I am now a dues-paying member) unless I?m working. Perhaps most important of all, I now talk neighborhood change with neighbors from all walks of life?Did you see the new place coming in? Are they going to be hiring locally? Will the menu be affordable??in a way that we might never have felt comfortable talking otherwise. These conversations aren?t a panacea, and they don?t make gentrification (or crime, or unemployment) go away. Still, they are a start to something bigger and better, suggesting the possibility of more lasting, effective organization, even in changing neighborhoods. Tip O?Neill said all politics is local. If that?s true, there?s a great deal of power lurking in mundane offices like my own, a power that NKD hopes to harness as it pushes for better information, participation, and accountability in Brooklyn politics.