Latrice Walker Walks over Mealy in Bid to retain her seat as Assemblymember in Brooklyn's 55th District of Brownsville: 75% LANDSLIDE

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

Just wanted to make sure you heard the good news and are in a celebratory mode, like I am!!

My dear sister/friend, Latrice Monique Walker just walked over Darlene Mealy, soon to be former City Council Representative, and has retained her seat as Assemblymember for the 55th District of Brownsville.

Yaaaay!!

To those who want to be politically correct - ooops!!! But I'm partisan press, so I reserve the right to be glad if I choose to!!  And just in case you think it's a fluke - especially those who predicted that the seniors would not vote for Ms. Walker, she won by an historymaking 75% vote to Mealy's 25%. If that isn't a vote of confidence in Walker's policies, nothing is.

So Kudos and Congratulations to Latrice- Keep up the wonderful work - your love and devotion to Brownsville has not gone unnoticed or unrewarded.

NYS Assembly - District 55 - Democrat

100% REPORTING

Latrice Walker

75%4,153 Votes

Incumbent

Darlene Mealy

25%1,420 Votes

 

 

 

Latrice Walker is was born and raised in Brownsville.  It has always been her primary concern - so much so, that rather than move to more lucrative environs after she passed the bar, she remained not far from where she originally grew up. 

A  product of New York City public schools,   she received her undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase College, and later, a  law degree from Pace University.  She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2007. 

As a young, African American female barrister, there weren't many demands for her service.  However, she started her career in entertainment law, and then later moved into public service, as Counsel to  Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke who backed her on her bid to become Assemblymember after the previous encumbent was indicted for fraud. 

In addition to  Clarke, she also had the support of Public Advocate Letitia James and Congress Member Hakeem Jeffries, and  former City Council member Una Clarke - and apparently nearly the entire community of Brownsville.

Her district includes Ocean-Hill Brownsville,  portions of East New York and East Flatbush, Bushwick, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, but she is known and respected throughout Brooklyn.

Assemblywoman 

Latrice Walker

In a pre-election interview, Latrice Walker (and Mealy) was asked to respond to the following question that was posed to her from a local Brooklyn Publication :

"Brownsville and the 55th Assembly District is one of the most economically impoverished districts in the city. What have you done in your tenure as a lawmaker and what do you intend to do further to help the plight of your constituents economically?"

Walker's response:

"As a freshman lawmaker in the New York State Assembly, I was elected with an agenda to help the people of the community in which I was born and raised. I voted to pass the historic $15 minimum wage increase and Paid Family Leave that are now law.

“I worked with Governor Cuomo to strengthen health care delivery in Brownsville. Together, we have allocated $700 million to build a stronger hospital, clinics and urgent care centers through a partnership with Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center and a potential bigger, financially stable hospital. This new partnership will preserve current Brookdale-affiliated health care jobs. As the partnership develops architects will be needed, as well as construction workers from a variety of trades. Residents – from apprentice to skilled trades – will be invited to participate in building a bigger, better hospital system for Brownsville and the 55th Assembly District. Once complete, the new hospital system will offer expanded health care services that require additional health care workers. The ultimate goal is to strengthen urgent care and wellness services with jobs as an added benefit.

“As chair of the Assembly Subcommittee on Renewable Energy, I recognized the opportunity to bring 100% clean energy to Brownsville. I worked with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to create Solarize Brownsville, an initiative to increase the supply of electricity in the Brooklyn Queens Demand Management (BQDM) catchment area while reducing demand on the Consolidated Edison Substation in Brownsville.

“Solarize Brownsville has made an immediate economic impact. Solar panels are installed on qualified homes at no upfront cost, refuting the idea that solar energy is expensive. Each home owner who has solar panels installed on their home will see a reduction in their monthly electricity bill of up to 25% per kilowatt hour. Since the June 2016 launch, more than 100 home owners have signed installation agreements. Each of these homeowners has or will receive a special cash rebate of between $250 to $500 – disposable income that the home owners can use. In addition, each solarized home will receive a $5,000 State energy credit and a $5,000 New York City property tax credit.

“Brownsville’s demand for solar panels has created jobs. I hosted a Job Drive at my district office for Solar and Event Ambassadors. Community residents were hired from this outreach event. Level Solar is currently asking to host another Job Drive to fill openings for Operations Personnel: Solar Panel Installers and Electricians. I encourage community residents to apply.

“Jobs are one of my top priorities. I encourage affordable housing developers to establish community hiring objectives. The new SUNY ATTAIN Lab at St. Johns provides technology training and job readiness counseling. I worked to expand State funding for Summer Youth Employment Program jobs that increased the number of jobs available for our young people. I support contracting opportunities for M/WBEs.”

Add to that an engaging smile, a hands on approach when it comes to her constituents, and a heart for her community, it's obvious why she prevailed as Assemblymember for one of the most dynamic assembly districts.  

Kudos and congratulations to Latrice M. Walker.

Stay Blessed & 

ECLECTICALLY BLACK

Gloria  

 

EVENT ALERT: LATRICE WALKER'S INAUGURATION SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2015

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Hello All:

I know all my friends and colleagues are so excited now that the day of days is nearly here and my sister/friend Latrice Monique Walker's inauguration gets under way.

So I'm going to keep this very brief:

She is definitely the right one for the job.  Brownsville has never been more loved and honored than by this fantastic sister who is taking her rightful place as a member of the New York State Assembly's 55th District.

Not only does she have Brownsville and the progress and well being of their constituents at heart - this has been a life long love.  When I say "you got the right one, baby! - I mean it!  Kudos to the voters in Brownsville for having the good sense to put some one in place that will make a critical difference in your futures. 




Latrice honed her skills as legal counsel to Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, and has been a very visible figure in the Borough of Brooklyn, in general, and Brownsville in particular through crises and triumphs.  

Let's congratulate this dynamic sister for a job well done as she takes her place in Albany.  

Congratulations Latrice!  YOU ARE AMAZING!!!

Stay Blessed & 
ECLECTICALLY BLACK 
Gloria
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STAY BLESSED

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Shirley Sherrod: My Response to Commentary on Controversy

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 5:33 PM, this message was forwarded to me from one of the BlackList Rise Up Net contributors. He was forwarding to me an email he received on Friday, 7/24/2010 1:16:04 AM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, and his response; to wit:

“In New York City, for example, an average of 20 people for every 100,000 residents in the Upper East Side (a wealthy area where Mayor Bloomberg lives) were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana charges in 2007-2009. In that same period, the arrest rate for the same offense was 3,109 people for every 100,000 residents in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that is 75% African-American.” -jypzzz

“This, dear friends, is the real point. The harsh and swift judgment Mrs Sharrod received (From her own people) is culturally imbedded.   It is what we see every day in our criminal justice system and most prominently in the War on Drugs/Black men!   No white man or women would have been treated so harshly.   "Plausible denial" (the white man's get out of jail free card) is not something that is available to black people!   Not that Mrs. Sharrod had anything to deny, but it wouldn't have mattered. Just a thought to add to a well reasoned essay. mike“ 

Below are my comments on the Shirley Sherrod situation:

DearMcFad3: This is one of those times when I totally agree with you.  A great many of us are prone to rush to judgment when it comes to our own people and a matter of their guilt or innocence.  That is indeed something that we have to deal with - the evil in our own eye when we look at each other. 

I do, however, want to point out, just for the record, that Ms. Sherrod was libeled, slandered.  And in journalism, there are (or were) laws against libel that really should cause Breitbart some serious financial damage.  When he went to all the trouble to take excerpts from Ms. Sherrod's speech, and present it as though it was the sum total of everything she had said, it was libelous and slanderous.  It is the highest (read lowest) form of defamation of character.  It really boils down to an attempt to sully Ms. Sherrod. 

Yes, there may have been a rush to judgment.  However, I daresay, given the presentation in the original format, it would have been difficult to have to come to any other conclusion.  And as duplicitious as the mainstream is when it comes to trying to vilify us, I don't think many of us (including yours truly - who doesn't trust them any further than I can throw them), would have suspected  them of  having the temerity and the gall to present a tape that was so doctored and distorted. 

But that, folks, is what Macchiavelli's "The Prince" called the big lie.  It is a lie so big, and so bold, and so outrageous, that most reasonable, regular people could not imagine someone going to such an extent to do so.  Why would they?  What would they get out of it?  So it must be true? Right?  But we have been victims of the big lie all our lives...you know the ones - we're inferior, Black people are 3/5's human, and so on and so forth.

So when the clip was presented of Ms. Sherrod allegedly making a racist statement, and it's in video, and it's her, it was difficult for someone to say - oh, wait a minute, could this be a doctored tape put together to make us jump down this poor Black woman's throat and show that we don't know how to see through a set up?  We, as usual, are trying to maintain the "golden rule of do unto others."  I.e., if we wanted mainstream to stop discriminating against us, how then could we continue to employ some one at the federal level, who by her own words, appears to be practicing reverse discrimination?  So of course the next logical move was to summarily and dramatically terminate her; making sure the world knows that we, at least, are dealing evenhandedly with wrong doers.

Breitbart must have thought this was a tremendous joke.  President Obama, Ben Jealous, the head of the Department of Agriculture, and a large number of Blacks and whites had all been fooled by his bogus video.  What a lark!!  Of course Ms. Sherrod, who had been doing an excellent job for decades found herself in a maelstrom of controversy.

The positive thing, however, was that when the truth came to light, profuse apologies were offered all around.  The head of the Dept. of Agriculture offered her her position back.  But, as she stated on The View, "I don't know if I want to go back to that department.  I think, given the circumstances, I need to be in another department, maybe even another division of the government."

Now, down to the real nitty-gritty:  What else have we learned from this?  As our Indian relatives have told us for hundreds of years "white man speak with forked tongue."  And in Breitbart's case, this is patently true.  Secondly, no matter how big a stack of Bibles they swear on, we must always do our own due diligence before we accept what they say as true. (So, for those of you who have been following the actions and activities of the "Tea Party" you already know they are bogus, racist, and a throwback to the bad old days).

As a kid in Oklahoma City, it was taught that the more the mainstream media spent vilifying a Black person, the more likely he or she must be doing something right.  I was in the 4th grade at the time.  It is as true now, as it was them.  So when you read hostile headlines about President Obama in the Post, Daily News, New York Times, etc., or Congressman Charlie Rangel, David Paterson, or Kanye West, or whomever, consider the source.  They have yet to prove to me to be the bastion of truth and honesty when it comes to us and our affairs.

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) which represents 220 Black Newspapers nationwide, are dedicated to keeping Black people informed and abreast of issues that directly affect us.   I strongly suggest you maintain a subscription to at least one of them. And of course, thank goodness for The BlackList, and other websites that are devoted to things Black people need to know.

Soooooooo, what have we learned from this, and what will we teach our people?  There is an element of mean-spirited, negative, evil, low-lifes, who will spend every waking minute in the pursuit of racism, racial hatred, and pitting people against each other.  They are not to be trusted. 

You should be able to smell them from far off.  When you read them, when they come on the news and spout stats; when they are on their talk radio shows and, the ersatz religious and news TV shows, going under the guise of legitimacy, while spouting invectives against you, the President, or anyone else who is trying to make sure we have our fair share; you should now be able to point your finger at them, look at them with a wise and knowing eye of wisdom, and say in a loud voice - YOU ARE A LIAR, back up and back off!!! (in church they would say "the devil's a liar"; or "get thee behind me satan" - it works the same way).

Bottom line then is this: WE WON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN - EVER!

STAY BLESSED &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Latrice M. Walker Launches Candidacy for Brownsville Female District Leader

by Gloria Dulan-Wilson

Latrice Monique Walker, affectionately known as The Beautiful Brown Barrister from Brownsville, made history in Brownsville Saturday, June 26, by announcing her candidacy for District Female Leader in Brownsville’s 55th Assembly District.

Latrice Monique Walker, Esq., right hand to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, of the 11th CD, serving as her Community Development Policy Analyst, proudly threw her hat in the ring, pledging to address the ills that have assailed her community for decades.

True, this is Ms. Walker’s first foray into the political realm as a candidate. But if her passion and enthusiasm for her community and her constituents-to-be -- she’s Brownsville born and bred -- are any indicators, she is definitely the best person for the job!

Using the slogan “WALK WITH WALKER!!” she detailed many of the problems that have assailed her neighborhood, including being the last to be considered for programs, while at the same time the first to suffer cuts; being the community most likely to be targeted and profiled by police for criminal activities; being the community most likely to have underperforming educators and underperforming schools.

Starting out in a relatively soft tone by saying “To God Be The Glory, for Who am I?” she briefly reminisced about her childhood in Brownsville with her father, who succumbed to cancer when she was a child, she stated: “As a young girl my dad used to sit on this very bench right there. One day I was out here, I fell off this very little block; there was a doctor’s office across the street and my dad carried me right across the street to the doctor’s office right there.“

But her voice amped up a couple of decibels as she launched into the body of her speech, and the crowd found themselves totally mesmerized: “Your roots got to be thick in Brownsville if you want to get out here and work in the community! And every one who knows me knows that Brownsville is always on my heart; it’s always on my mind. The other day I said to Assemblyman Boyland, I’m tired of people looking at Brownsville as a hot dog and a hamburger vote! We said we need to put new leadership in Brownsville -- and we are the new leadership! We’ve got homeless issues out here! We’ve got drug abuse out here! We’ve got people who are dying on the street everyday in this community and it’s time to take it back! And it’s starting here with me! We’re out here in this heat. We’re taking it to the street. We are empowering these young people. We’re giving them jobs; we’re going to tell them about the importance of education; we’re going to talk to them about the importance about giving back to their community. Jobs not jails! We have more Black men in Brownsville who are going to jail who would have been in these facilities, but who is trying to keep them from going to jail? I AM! I am out here on the battle field with these people. That’s one thing that I always talk about with people is that you have to be hands on. Politics is a contact sport. When you’re out here and people are saying to you, what are you doing for the community? What can you say you were doing for the community, out here teaching children how to write grants. We need to be a self-sustaining community. We have been dependent on too many outside forces for far too long. You have to be hands on. You got to be out there in the street on a daily basis! So we‘re going to walk with Walker!”

She ended on a crescendo that got even those on walkers up on their feet, applauding her, and smiling at this young woman who might just be able to galvanize the energy and the apathy and forge it into the action that has so long been needed.

Latrice Walker has first hand knowledge of these challenges she spoke of, having grown up in the Glenmore Housing Projects, and received her early childhood education in the New York City Public Schools of Ocean-Hill Brownsville, P.S. 178 and I.S. 55. She obviously had parents and motivators in her life that instilled in her a life long love of learning and achievement. She received the Martin Safran Assistant Principal’s Award on behalf of her school fo having surpassed all other schools in the city. This came as a total surprise, since her school was considered as one of the City’s poorest performers. She attended Brooklyn Technical High School (one of the top high schools in the city) ; and was attended Cornell University in her junior year. She attended SUNY Purchase, and received her Juris Doctorate of Law from Pace University.

Latrice Walker acknowledges there were constant challenges in growing up in a community targeted by economic and sociological racism, but also states that these challenges are not insurmountable. “I’m living proof that you can do anything you put your mind, spirit, will and discipline to. There is nothing you can’t imagine or become, as long as you are not allowing the circumstances to dictate your destiny.”

Dressed in a chic white two piece suit, in a style that is both hip and business, Ms. Walker enthusiastically urged the crowd gathered in the sweltering heat to “WALK WITH WALKER!”

Brownsville will never be the same Latrice Walker at the helm, they’re looking at a hands on, tireless worker, advocate and supporter for the autonomy of a community long suffering under the weight of prejudice and neglect.

Assemblymember William Boyland Jr., who is making a bid for re-election, is supporting Walker’s candidacy, stating, “We have been able to bring new jobs and affordable homes to the community. But with Latrice on board, our arsenal will be complete. We have the will, the strength and the ability to make this a banner decade.”

City Councilmember Letitia James, who served as MC came out in strong support of Latrice‘s candidacy.

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who wholeheartedly endorsed the re-election of William Boyland, enthusiastically stated that “Latrice is not new to the community of Brownsville, she’s true to it!” The Congresswoman further stated Brownsville could have no better representation than Latrice to ensure the issues and concerns of the community are rectified.

Speaking of unity in the community, Congresswoman Clarke indicated broad bases interaction between her office, Assemblymember Boyland’s office as well as that of City Councilmember Letitia James. “When things assail our communities, we pledge to get it done together, so that each of us in our capacity works to provide a solution to the problem! So we have joined together in unity to build this community and to provide services that our people have been denied for so long.”

Further commenting on Walker’s candidacy, Congresswoman Clarke stated, “she has not failed Brownsville, and never will, because where Brownsville goes, she goes. We are taking this mission very seriously. We got a lot of challenges. We’re working right now to stop the NYPD on their stop and frisk practices. The New York State legislature just passed a bill to get rid of the stop and frisk data base. And I am in touch with Attorney General Holder’s office to make sure that our civil rights are protected. Our children do not need to be harassed just for walking down the street!”

Despite the heat of the day, Ms. Walker’s campaign kickoff was well attended by community members of all stripes and ages, who came to lend their support to the young woman who has been present at so many events held in their behalves. She’s assisted in legal matters when they had no means to pay or acquire legal assistance; she’s advocated for quality homes and education in a community that has been relegated to the “hot dog and hamburger vote”, working to ensure their inclusion in opportunities that were accorded other, more affluent communities.

I think it’s clear by the tone and tenor of this article that I am totally in support of Latrice Walker’s candidacy. Having had several opportunities to work closely with her in a variety of programs and events, I have been greatly impressed by her knowledge, enthusiasm, dedication, discipline and creativity. While many of us pay lip service to having the “youth” more involved in current issues, rarely has there been a person in this category (I.e. youth) who actually has a grasp on, and respect for the accomplishments of her predecessors (I.e. Civil Rights Activists), and the responsibility incumbent on her and her peers going forward, who is actually making a significant contribution to the community. She’s blazing new paths, while simultaneously learning from the lessons of history.

If you are interested in supporting this dynamic woman in her fight to bring a better quality of life to Brownsville, and hence, to the rest of Brooklyn as well, contact her campaign headquarters at 1747 Pitkin Ave. or call (718) 940-2018. Time to get out there and be a part of the process to progress. Time for Brownsville to WALK WITH WALKER

Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson