34:00

performance, I'm able to be

34:02

in relationship with black

34:04

people of different class. But I

34:07

find myself constantly, constantly frustrated because

34:09

it's like talking to everybody's had

34:12

every I'm sure everybody

34:15

on this call has had the experience

34:17

of talking to somebody who's maybe a

34:19

multimillionaire, maybe close to a billionaire, and

34:21

they just feel disconnected. It's

34:23

like sometimes I'll have that kind of experience

34:25

with black people who are just in the

34:27

upper middle class. And I'm like,

34:30

people are suffering. People are really not

34:32

doing well. And even these narratives

34:35

around the economy and saying the economy is

34:37

doing well, corporations are doing well. Where

34:40

I live right now, and I see these black

34:42

men, I have black men who will come to

34:44

me and send me an Amazon package. And then

34:46

I'll order something from DoorDash and it'll be the

34:48

same black man. And then I'll call an Uber

34:50

because I can't drive because queer people don't drive.

34:52

And I get an Uber and they'll be calling

34:54

my Uber too. So now black

34:56

men and working class black men are

34:59

overrepresented in exploiting their time and labor

35:01

through these corporations and still not making

35:03

enough money and still not getting

35:05

ahead. And I feel

35:07

that way too. And luckily, I've been able

35:09

to work

35:13

and seduce my way into work that

35:15

really helped me. But it's

35:17

hard. And if you don't have that, and if

35:19

you don't have that class performance, and if you

35:21

don't have the friends that I

35:24

have on the network that I have, it would

35:26

not surprise me that

35:29

you would choose the couch. And

35:31

I think that's one of the reasons why the

35:33

Obama thing really upset me

35:36

and really bothered me because

35:38

Obama is the exact representation

35:40

of the upwardly mobile Negro

35:43

who went to

35:45

Harvard who somehow is

35:47

disconnected from other class of

35:49

Negroes. That

35:52

was long, child. Sorry. Y'all can send

35:54

me your invoice. Can

35:56

I actually jump in with actual? I just want to

35:58

read a couple of things. mental

1:30:00

health recovery who need

1:30:03

really economic opportunity. And

1:30:05

instead of focusing on giving them

1:30:07

those resources before they interact with

1:30:10

the system, we have instead tried

1:30:12

to shovel everybody into a failing

1:30:14

institution. So I agree with

1:30:17

what is already on the books. It is

1:30:19

a law that we should be moving to

1:30:22

close Rikers so that we can be handling

1:30:25

New Yorkers in a way that is positive.

1:30:28

I have proposed a number

1:30:30

of bills that look to build

1:30:32

coalition to solve some of the

1:30:34

root causes. I represent Central

1:30:36

Brooklyn. There's a block there that I

1:30:38

have gone to on a number of

1:30:40

occasions after shootings have happened. And

1:30:43

I remember talking to one of the guys

1:30:45

after a particular shooting on that block who

1:30:48

said Z, because that's what they

1:30:50

call me in my district. They said, Z,

1:30:52

do you think we want to be out here

1:30:54

on this block? I

1:30:56

just want a job, bro. Just

1:30:58

give me some opportunity. And I

1:31:00

just got fired from the job that I had in the

1:31:03

kitchen down the block because they found out I had a

1:31:05

record. So I said, let me

1:31:07

figure out what I can do legislatively to get

1:31:09

to the root cause of this. And we passed

1:31:11

something called the Clean Slate Act that

1:31:13

says, if you have paid your dues, if

1:31:16

you have served your time, if you are

1:31:18

out and staying out of trouble, that we're

1:31:20

going to automatically seal those convictions so you

1:31:23

can apply for housing, you can apply for

1:31:25

a job, you can get the opportunities that

1:31:27

you need. So I think

1:31:29

it's solutions like that that we should

1:31:31

be investing in and not just looking

1:31:34

at carceral solutions to society's problems. And

1:31:37

I'm sure that you've seen the ProPublica

1:31:39

exposés at this point. I mean, there's

1:31:41

a lot going on. So NYPD, it's

1:31:44

a hard day when the police commissioner

1:31:46

is getting raided and the next police

1:31:48

commissioner gets raided. But I'm assuming you

1:31:50

saw the reports around the stunning lack

1:31:53

of accountability in the NYPD, that

1:31:55

the police commissioner was

1:31:57

routinely just literally dismissed.

1:31:59

or ignoring, found

1:32:01

in complaints of police misconduct.

1:32:04

And what is your

1:32:06

take on the accountability for the

1:32:08

police department? You know, I

1:32:10

think that we have been presented a

1:32:12

false narrative, certainly in our politics in

1:32:16

the city, and in some

1:32:18

instances on a national level as

1:32:20

well. And that is that

1:32:22

accountability cannot coincide with justice. And

1:32:25

I have a real problem with this, because

1:32:28

as you know, in the communities that

1:32:30

look like you and I, we have

1:32:32

to deal with twin illnesses. We

1:32:35

have to deal with high rates of crime, and

1:32:38

high rates of over policing. You know,

1:32:40

I myself when I went out to

1:32:42

protest was pepper sprayed and arrested. And

1:32:45

I had to go through

1:32:47

the CCRP process where that

1:32:50

was dismissed. And

1:32:52

so I feel this in a personal

1:32:55

way. But I also represent people like

1:32:57

my mom, who was robbed at gunpoint

1:32:59

with me in the elevator when I

1:33:02

was very young. So her worldview is

1:33:04

informed by feeling safer when there are

1:33:06

more cops around. So I have tried

1:33:09

as best as I could in my

1:33:11

representation to say the community

1:33:13

is safer when we know that

1:33:15

there is accountability when cops step over

1:33:18

the line. We know that

1:33:20

there are many people who put on that

1:33:22

uniform and who have every single intention just

1:33:24

to keep the community safe. That's why they

1:33:27

took the job. But we know

1:33:29

that there are instances where individuals do

1:33:31

step over the line. And thus

1:33:33

far, we have not had, I think,

1:33:36

enough accountability within the system.

1:33:39

So I think that we have to be, and it starts

1:33:41

from the top, we have to

1:33:43

be serious about both things, that safety

1:33:45

and accountability actually work in tandem. And

1:33:47

we have to be serious about giving

1:33:49

the CCRP the resources to ensure that

1:33:52

that's upheld. And what

1:33:54

about, you know, the rent

1:33:56

is too damn high. I think

1:33:58

everybody in New York City would

1:34:00

say that that is true. that

1:34:02

even the one bedrooms are 3K,

1:34:04

3,500 and people are spending

1:34:06

a huge portion of their paychecks every

1:34:09

month on not even great places to

1:34:11

live, just trying to figure out what

1:34:13

to do. What can the mayor do

1:34:15

about that? Well, I think there are

1:34:17

a couple of things. This is the number

1:34:19

one affordability crisis that I hear about as

1:34:21

that people can't afford to stay here and

1:34:23

live here. I was talking about my own

1:34:25

personal story about us trying to figure out

1:34:27

how we can lay down some roots in

1:34:29

the very communities that we've made attractive in

1:34:31

the first place. It's going to take a

1:34:34

couple of things. You got to build more,

1:34:36

of course. We have a supply

1:34:38

issue here in the city, and so we

1:34:40

have to build more housing, but we also

1:34:42

have to utilize some of the city tools

1:34:44

that have not been utilized. We have a

1:34:47

little known city entity

1:34:49

called the New York Housing Development

1:34:51

Corporation, HDC. And

1:34:54

HDC, I think, has the power

1:34:56

to help with building, but not

1:34:58

just building towers, building

1:35:00

smaller units that

1:35:02

are more family friendly, that are

1:35:04

more targeted for affordability for the

1:35:07

middle class, that can

1:35:09

help be in multiple neighborhoods and

1:35:11

not just stacked in one. HDC

1:35:13

has the capital to do that, to

1:35:16

support some minority and women-owned businesses

1:35:18

who are in the construction industry,

1:35:20

who want to be a part

1:35:22

of solving this crisis. So

1:35:24

that's one avenue I think that we could

1:35:26

use. We also have to loosen some of

1:35:28

the restrictions to help convert some

1:35:31

of the buildings that are no longer being

1:35:33

utilized as high as they are

1:35:35

now. So we see in our commercial

1:35:37

real estate industry, there are places in

1:35:39

Midtown that post-pandemic are just never going

1:35:41

to return to what they were in

1:35:43

the past. We have an ability

1:35:45

to convert that to residential so that we

1:35:48

can have our young professionals be in some

1:35:50

of those spots and free up some of

1:35:52

the family, two, three bedrooms so that people

1:35:54

can stay there and raise their families. So

1:35:56

there are a number of tools that can

1:35:58

be used from city halls. but it requires,

1:36:01

frankly, a focus on the nuts

1:36:03

and bolts of government and having

1:36:06

this be prioritized, not announcing this in

1:36:08

the third year of your administration, but

1:36:10

tackling this day one and in the

1:36:13

first 100 days. And that's something that

1:36:15

I'd be excited to do. Another issue,

1:36:18

you know, people clown de Blasio

1:36:20

for a host of things. And, you know, I think

1:36:22

a lot of us would be like, who this was,

1:36:24

that wasn't what we got now

1:36:27

is real rough. But one of the signature programs,

1:36:29

if you'll call out the last administration was 3k

1:36:31

for all. And, you

1:36:33

know, this administration has, you

1:36:36

know, really screwed up 3k for a lot

1:36:38

of people and has not been honest about

1:36:40

screwing it up, which is really hard. What

1:36:43

is your commitment, if it any, to 3k

1:36:45

for all? Yeah, we have to not

1:36:48

just support this program, but we have

1:36:50

to expand it. We have

1:36:52

we call this universal pre-k universal

1:36:54

3k. But we had families

1:36:57

this year who put in their applications,

1:36:59

who were told from a press conference

1:37:01

by the mayor that if you wanted

1:37:03

a seat, you would have a seat.

1:37:05

And then they got letters a

1:37:07

month later saying, actually, we don't have a seat

1:37:09

for you. Or we have a seat

1:37:11

for you that is too far away to make sense

1:37:13

for you to go to work, drop your kid off

1:37:15

and be able to pick them up. And so I

1:37:18

think there has to be two things happening at the

1:37:20

same time. A dedication to

1:37:22

the philosophy that child care should

1:37:24

be affordable for everybody, that we

1:37:27

should provide this opportunity for everyone.

1:37:29

And also being serious about the administrative

1:37:32

nuts and bolts of achieving that. We

1:37:34

know exactly where the applications came from.

1:37:36

We know what exactly what the demand

1:37:38

is, and where that demand is coming

1:37:40

from. It is incumbent on

1:37:42

the city to then accomplish the

1:37:45

matching of where that demand should

1:37:47

be meeting the supply. And so

1:37:49

I am very much in favor

1:37:52

of us doubling down on pre-k

1:37:54

and 3k, ensuring that child care

1:37:56

is affordable, but also providing some

1:37:58

of the other institutions. that allowed

1:38:01

for childcare activity like our libraries

1:38:04

to be open seven days a week. I

1:38:07

thought it was ridiculous that this

1:38:09

administration put our libraries on the

1:38:11

chopping block because they

1:38:13

not only serve as a place where

1:38:16

you go to get reading material and

1:38:18

listen to music. I spent almost every

1:38:20

day after school in the Flatbush Library

1:38:23

doing my homework and being in a safe

1:38:25

environment. A lot of folks depend

1:38:28

on this during the weekend for places

1:38:30

for them to go with their families.

1:38:32

And so it's about upholding the institutions

1:38:34

that the public taxpayers support that allow

1:38:36

for families to flourish in the city.

1:38:39

I would be very much in favor

1:38:41

of us uplifting all of those institutions.

1:38:45

And the last big policy question is

1:38:47

around schools. As you know, biggest school

1:38:49

system in the country, still the mayor,

1:38:51

mayoral control, unlike some other, you

1:38:54

know, I was the chief here in Capitol Baltimore. The

1:38:56

mayor does not control the school system in Baltimore but

1:38:59

very much sort of a board that does it. There,

1:39:02

some interesting in your plans for the school system, as

1:39:04

you know, there are some schools doing very well in

1:39:06

the city and some I taught in East New York,

1:39:10

you know, which feels like 17 years ago. It

1:39:13

feels like a long time ago, tough sixth grade math. And

1:39:15

there are some schools doing really well, some schools not doing

1:39:17

well. So I wanna know what you play into, how you

1:39:19

think about that. And then there's been a

1:39:21

lot of conversation about the specialized

1:39:24

high schools and what do we do? Do

1:39:27

we keep them? Do we get rid of them? Like,

1:39:29

what does that look like? Yeah, so I'm a product

1:39:31

of a specialized high school. I'll start with the second

1:39:33

question first. I went to Brooklyn Tech for

1:39:35

high school. It was a life-changing

1:39:37

experience for me. And

1:39:40

the only reason I got into Brooklyn

1:39:42

Tech was I had

1:39:44

a math teacher in the seventh

1:39:47

grade who said, I'm gonna

1:39:49

scrap the curriculum. And for

1:39:51

the first couple of weeks, I

1:39:53

am going to equip you to do well

1:39:55

on this test. And that's

1:39:57

what he did with the entire class.