Vanguard Independent Democratic Association (VIDA), a Black-led civic organization with origins in the 1960s in central Brooklyn, threw the gauntlet down at the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and its candidate slate at a heated public meeting this past Monday.
On one hand, some of VIDA’s ire is reflective of the widening generational rift between “old guard” Democrats and younger “insurgent” socialist Progressives in New York. The groups have been at odds since U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) won a congressional seat in 2018 and prophesied a wave of other DSA-backed candidates seeking city and state office.
On the other hand, a historically Black community like Bedford-Stuyvesant has contended with gentrification, skyrocketing rents, deed theft, and displacement since 2010, in line with the changing racial makeup of the neighborhood. The national DSA has roots in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM), which began with student-led grassroots organizers in the early 1970s. It’s now operated by the DSA National Political Committee. There are looming concerns that progress made in the face of redlining, disinvestment, and crippling crime rates—led by Black leaders from within the community—will be lost to a much larger white-led organization that’s outside the community.
“When Bed-Stuy was do or die, nobody wanted to come in,” said Rev. Dr. Robert Waterman of the Antioch Baptist Church. His words boomed over a large, fiery crowd in front of VIDA’s office. “The Crips and the Bloods, and the gangs, and no-policing that allowed you to move out while everyone else is moved in. Then the cops come. Now it’s ‘Bed-Stuy stay alive,’ and everybody wants to live in Bed-Stuy and they want to push you out.”
Many of the newer residents are millennials and Gen Z, white and Black, who are more “anti-establishment” and unaware of Bed-Stuy’s historic ties to the fight for civil rights, VIDA President Henry Butler said. But beyond that lack of institutional knowledge, Butler is concerned for Black incumbents and believes they have been targeted by the DSA.
“They have a bad habit of going after Black women,” said Butler, speaking on past instances where electeds like former Councilmember Laurie Cumbo had unpleasant run-ins with DSA members at home or their office.
The inciting incident behind this recent attack on the DSA stems from a post from Eon Huntley, who is running against incumbent Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman in the upcoming 56th Assembly race. According to a screenshot provided by VIDA, the post read “Know Our Enemies” and linked to a discussion about the “enemies of the campaign and our movement” alongside a small graphic of brownstone houses, a possible allusion to Sun Tzu’s notable quote from “The Art of War” describing how knowledge of one’s enemy is useful in battle. In this context, the battle is for housing.
NYC DSA Central Brooklyn Branch’s social media posts blasted the group for papering signs and caution-taping Senator Zellnor Myrie’s office on April 18, criticizing his support of the state budget as “anti-tenant” and ripping apart the Good Cause Eviction law. Huntley’s post, however, didn’t make a clear enough distinction over who the “enemy” was for triggered VIDA members.
“If you say enemies of the community, I don’t [mess] around with that,” said the B.R.O. Experience Founder & Executive Director Barry Cooper at the rally. “It’s disrespectful, it’s disingenuous and misguided. And as a Black man, it puts fear in my heart because for far too long, they been telling us that we enemies.”
Zinerman, a centrist Democrat, said she was offended as a renter herself that others insisted she disrespected tenants’ rights. “I have a record of protecting tenants in this community. I have a record of protecting homeowners in this community,” Zinerman said. “But yet the people who are trying to convince everyone here and beyond that they’re for tenants, I haven’t seen anything. No receipts at all, just rhetoric.”
Senator Jabari Brisport is a DSA candidate running for reelection and also backs Huntley in his bid against Zinerman. He was in attendance at the contentious gathering. He stayed until after the meeting and offered his perspective to those who asked. Brisport has had an open beef with Zinerman’s stances on certain legislative issues and was not invited to be a speaker during the rally. He was briskly acknowledged by several speakers for attending.
He chalked up the unbridled passion to politics as usual aimed at swaying voters.
“There’s a lot of people that I respect here. It’s always an honor to be in conversation with VIDA even though they endorse against me every time,” said Brisport at the rally. “I have factual disputes with a lot of what was said, but clearly people are passionate and I think that speaks to the fact that people in this district are really struggling and that’s why I’m supporting a working-class champion like Eon Huntley.”
Brisport said that over the past seven years the DSA has run over 20 races with about six races in plurality Black districts. He described it as a “tactic” rather than a deliberate “pattern” used against Black incumbents.
“It’s not news to the residents of Bed-Stuy that our communities are under attack: by the real estate lobby, by charter school interests, and by the Israel lobby that are trying to buy our elections,” Huntley’s campaign team wrote in a statement. “There’s a rent crisis, housing crisis, schools are underfunded, and people are worried about the affordability of their healthcare. Our neighborhoods are undergoing rapid gentrification because our legislators are taking money from the real estate industry and refuse to regulate the rent.”
“It’s unfortunate that people get uncomfortable when we name the structural forces of oppression—including the real estate, private healthcare, and charter school industry—rather than joining together to fight them alongside our neighbors,” said Huntley’s campaign.
Landry Levine of the Central Brooklyn DSA Organizing Committee referred questions from the Amsterdam News to Huntley’s campaign for comment, which did not directly respond to claims that the DSA targets Black electeds by deadline.
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
Let me state from the outset, I will vote for Stefani Zinerman, as far as I know she’s been there for the community, except for when she and VIDA double-crossed a strong young Black woman, Tahira Moore, who was running for a seat on the city council. This is an example of the bankruptcy of the VIDA section of Brooklyn’s Democratic party machine- “going along to get along”-which is a general contradiction of “Negros” in the Democratic party. Another question for VIDA, where were you when Community Board #3 sold out Bed-Stuy to white real estate speculators to demolish the “SLAVE THEATER”, against the will of the community who packed that particular meeting to reject the proposed demolition. To my surprise, Strifani Zinerman did not speak out against this sell-out. If she did, I was not aware of it. And, lastly, the Democratic Party told VIDA to stop Charles Barrone by pushing Hakeem Jeffries for US Congress. Now we have Jeffries in Congress supporting Israel’s murdering tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, and babies. He, Hakeem Jeffries, has sold his political allegiance to the Jewish Political Action Committee and the white Democratic Party regime.