Pinkwashing Inclusivity
By Jared B. Arader, LID President
The County party has taken a (small) step closer to equality and inclusion by creating 4 at-large (not enough) gender-neutral county committee seats in each assembly district.
LID Recording Secretary Derek Gaskill is one of the first persons appointed to a gender-neutral county committee seat.
However, this step in the right direction also took two steps back. The same resolution which added the gender-neutral seats also included a poison pill shifting the power of filing vacancies from the county committee to the executive committee, the body consisting of all of Brooklyn’s district leaders.
Lets back up. The County Committee, the largest governing body of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, consists of over 5400 seats across Brooklyn. County Committee members get there by gathering petition signatures from their neighbors, and sometimes (but very rarely) have to survive a primary challenge to get the seat. Most seats go unfilled (in 2020, 3351 remained after elections). At the beginning of each term, the County Committee was able to vote on appointments to fill those vacancies.
That power has now been taken away from 5400 Brooklynites and given to 44 people.
Why do we care? LGBTQ power in local politics doesn’t just come from electing queer candidates . It comes from all of us working together and with our allies to gain power through our local party’s operations. Local parties help decide which elected officials to offer support, confirm the party’s judicial candidates, and generate enthusiasm for political activism. Gaining seats – and power – on the County Committee enables us to have a voice in how our party is run.
When more power is stripped from the County Committee by the executive committee, our community loses out. What is even worse is that LGBTQ community leaders – including myself and District Leaders Samy Nemir Olivares, Julio Pena and Jesse Pierce were completely unheard throughout this process as we called out this act of pinkwashing.
What are we going to do about it?
Currently, the county committee is, pursuant to the county party’s rules, split evenly among men and women. This means that, until just last week, many TG/GNB people were unable to serve. Recent, temporary, changes allow for 4 non-gendered seats in each assembly district (for a total of a whopping 84 seats out of 5000). Permanent changes must include full equity for TG/GNB people in order to gain more political power and push our party in the direction best for us.
On Monday December 6 and Tuesday December 7 , the party’s Task Force on Gender Discrimination and Representation will be hearing public comment on proposals to change that. Read LID’s comments on the proposals here (link).
One proposal – Proposal 6 – does the only thing acceptable: removes all gender barriers from the rules, allowing for TG/GNB to hold as many seats as they are elected to fill.
We encourage all Brooklynites to write to the task force by clicking here to tell the county party to remove all barriers to TG/GNB political participation.