— Membership in The Democratic Socialists of America
recently reached 25,000—
more than tripling in size since Bernie Sanders’s campaign brought the movement in from the fringe.
But if the Socialist bloc wants to become more than just a party of dissent,
they’ll need to appeal to some non-white demographics.
That’s a problem facing many alternative political groups on the left.
— I graduated right into the recession.
The economy was absolute crap, I couldn’t find a job.
I went to go apply for a job putting labels on test tubes at a dentist office,
and then the person interviewed me said,
“I don’t know about this, I have people with graduate degrees applying for this job.”
It’s for $12 an hour.
— Jabari Brisport is running for City Council in New York.
— What are these Republicans trying to do now?
— Kill us!
— Kill us, yes!
— Jabari was born in the district he’s running in.
His family has lived in the same Brooklyn brownstone for 50 years…
— It is not okay to keep…
— …and he’s campaigning on a platform of police reform, public school improvements and affordable housing.
— …housing is a human right!
— In most years, all that would add up to a pretty compelling Democratic candidate.
But Jabari’s not running as a Democrat.
— I switched over to Green in June of last year.
I would say my dissatisfaction started even, like, in Obama terms.
I mean, immediately after the bailout,
I was kind-of pissed that I was seeing Wall Street bankers
reinvesting tax dollar money into billion-dollar bonuses.
Then the Occupy Wall Street happened and I started getting pushed further left,
and then, you know, Black Lives Matter started picking up
and I started getting pushed further left,
until Bernie Sanders started making socialism cool again.
— Thank you!
— Bernie lost the black vote nationwide by a catastrophic margin,
with more than 75 percent casting their votes for Hillary Clinton.
Bernie didn’t exactly help the cause with a few well-publicized campaign gaffes.
— To answer your question:
when you’re white,
you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto,
you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.
— There were tiny imperfections in his campaign with
his attempts to tie everything almost into economic terms.
— But there’s some reason for optimism.
Bernie actually won black voters under the age of 30 by five points—
fueled, in large part,
by prominent black figures like Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner,
and the rapper Killer Mike…
— Oh, I am truly, truly honored to be here.
— …both who questioned whether mainstream Democratic politics
were working for the black community.
— Socialism, it’s not a dirty word anymore.
— What’s the reaction from people,
in this very historically Democratic district, when you say that you’re a socialist?
— They get a little wide-eyed, and then they listen for my platforms—
I would like to fundamentally transform our society and our economy
into one that is centered around people’s needs, not profits.
— Jabari isn’t the only black third-party candidate to come into prominence over the past year.
This spring, Chokwe Antar Lumumba became the Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi
running on a platform of radical economic transformation.
Democratic Socialist Khalid Kamau was elected to the City Council of South Fulton Georgia.
And in New York, Akeem Browder will be running for Mayor on the Green Party ticket.
These new black leftist candidates might only be running on a local level for now,
but third parties like the Green Party and the Democratic Socialists of America
have thrown their support behind them.
— DSA’s super supportive. DSA made it rain.
It took me three months just to get to $10,000,
and then DSA sends out a fundraising email before our deadline on Tuesday
and, like, 4, $5,000 came in in one day.
Which is insane.
— Here’s the district he’s running in—
it may be the best shot a leftist third-party candidate
has at winning a major political seat.
It includes several of Brooklyn’s most quickly gentrifying neighborhoods,
which means there’s a lot of young black and white voters.
— What do we want?!
— Health care!
— To win, Jabari believes he has to capture those young white voters
and convince enough black residents to leave the Democratic Party.
And he’s not sure if a white candidate could pull that off.
— The burden falls primarily, if not completely,
on socialist people of color.
It’s just not going to work with a bunch of white socialists
coming in to a person of color communities and telling them how things should operate,
because there is that color barrier, unfortunately.
— A cynic would say that the best way for socialists to try to overcome that in the next election
is to have people of color run as socialist.
Do you feel ever like you’re a token?
— I can see why that question would come up.
I would say no, most because I’m doing this on my own volition,
because of things I strongly believe,
and I’m openly running and running as a socialist
because I believe it is the best thing for liberation of people of color.