“Sex and the City” actress-turned-New York Gubernatorial Candidate Cynthia Nixon made her first major snafu in her newly launched political campaign.
Nixon said that if New York would create a legalized pot industry, it could be a form of reparations for Black communities. This ignited outrage and calls for Nixon to apologize.
Nixon told Forbes magazine, “Now that cannabis is exploding as an industry, we have to make sure that those communities that have been harmed and devastated by marijuana arrests get the first shot at this industry.”
She added, “We (must) prioritize them in terms of licenses. It’s a form of reparations.”
The backlash came almost immediately.
“I’m for legalizing marijuana and I like Cynthia Nixon but putting pot shops in our communities is not reparations,” the Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted. “Health care, education!!”
Manhattan Democratic Party Chairman Keith Wright said Nixon’s comment “is ill-informed, lacks understanding of the greatest crime in history, and should cease and desist.”
“Reparations is a repayment for the free labor that built this country,” said Wright, a former state Democratic party chairman under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom Nixon is trying to unseat.
Wright added, “Ms. Nixon should relegate her comments to legalization, pro or con. I believe social equity should be a part of licenses to sell marijuana, if and when legalization does occur. However, it is insulting to my soul, that the free labor that my ancestors gave to this country would be equated with the selling of marijuana.”
Black Lives Matter of Greater NY issued a statement that said Nixon’s comments were “offensive and ignorant,” the New York Daily News reported.
“It does a disservice to our community for her to play into harmful stereotypes of African-Americans as drug users and dealers,” the group said in a statement. “And it does an even greater disservice to the enduring consequences of both slavery and Jim Crow and the inequities these systems of oppression perpetuated to claim that legalizing marijuana would somehow erase that experience.”
The group called on Nixon to apologize.
Nixon is challenging current Gov. Cuomo in the state’s upcoming Democratic primary.
After the backlash, Nixon tried to clarify her comments. “There’s no way legalizing marijuana would be a remedy for the legacy of slavery & Jim Crow,” she said in a tweet. “But when it comes to repairing the wrongs of a racist drug war, we’ve got to make sure black and Latino communities are prioritized in the new legalized industry.”
Still, it was interesting that Nixon raised the issue of reparations. ”Economists say that enslaved people were denied between $3 billion and $6.4 trillion in wages, depending on the numbers used, inflation, and if interest is included in the figure,” Vox reported.
Nixon also had a point about inequality in the legal marijuana business. “This is not to say that Nixon doesn’t raise a valid point. Racial justice advocates and civil rights groups have pointed out that with the rise of legalization, marijuana is becoming the next big industry for white entrepreneurs, leaving people of color behind. In 2017, the marijuana industry brought in some $9 billion, a figure that could rise to $21 billion by 2021, according to CNN,” Vox reported.
Nixon’s suggestion about spreading the wealth of the marijuana business in the Black community is actually happening elsewhere. Oakland City Council, California, in 2016, launched a program that prioritizes people of color from communities when issuing marijuana licenses.
I’m for legalizing marijuana and I like Cynthia Nixon but putting pot shops in our communities is not reparations. Health care, education !!
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) May 7, 2018
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/993861953020932097
