The Third Way Forward. Featuring Rosa Clemente
Welcome back, everyone. We are so glad you joined us. On our last episode, we talked to uncommitted DNC delegate Essen Baray about working within the confines of our 2 party political system, and we examined that through the lens of the uncommitted movement. Essem shared his frustration and disappointment with the Democratic Party's leadership and their unwillingness to be moved on the situation in Gaza. That's despite multiple attempts from those in the uncommitted movement to engage the Democratic Party on its terms.
Emily Williams:SM told us that while he won't have his vote taken for granted by the party's candidates, he still feels that the Democratic Party is his political home and the best place for him to work for change. But that's not the case for many others who no longer feel that the Democratic or Republican parties best represent their beliefs and values. And for those folks, a political home outside the duopoly feels like a better fit. It can feel hopeless to think your only options are between 2 bad choices. The truth is there aren't just 2 options.
Emily Williams:But in this country and in this election, what does it mean to make a different choice? I'm Emily Williams, executive director of the Arcus Center For Social Justice Leadership at
Rosa Clemente:Kalamazoo College. This is Beyond Voting.
Emily Williams:We started this show for people like you and me, people who are socially aware, people who care about making a difference in the world, people who wanna share in redesigning the democracy that we deserve outside of the typical political binary. This podcast is rooted in our conviction that democracy requires more participation than just voting. It's up to all of us to take action if we wanna see real change. We'll feature conversations with leaders, activists, and educators discussing the state of our country's institutions, ongoing systems of oppression, and most importantly, how we, the people, can take critical actions in pursuit of true equity and justice. Let's talk about 3rd parties.
Emily Williams:3rd parties get a lot of backlash. Every 4 years, we hear the same accusations against 3rd party presidential campaigns, that they're a distraction, that it's throwing your vote away, that they take critical support away from, quote, unquote, serious campaigns and help secure wins for elites who don't really care about the interests of the people or even that third party candidates are secret political operatives funded by conservative special interest groups to sabotage the left and keep our politics in their 2 well established lanes. But some people believe that staying within well established political lanes isn't serving us. For them, radical new visions of democracy and sweeping social change is necessary and achievable. So I wanted to talk to someone who shares that radical vision and believes that sweeping change is just as necessary and achievable today as it's ever been.
Emily Williams:And if ever a third party candidate was serious about that change in breaking our duopoly, it's today's guest, Rosa Clemente. Rosa is a black Puerto Rican scholar, activist, journalist, organizer, and former vice presidential candidate alongside Cynthia McKinney on the Green Party ballot in 2008. She has consistently raised up black and Latinx liberation movements and struggles against violence and colonialism. She was in the streets during the Black Lives Matter protest in Ferguson in 2,014. She led a group of young organizers to cover the destruction hurricane Maria caused in Puerto Rico, and she has been an instrumental voice in calling out rape culture in hip hop.
Emily Williams:When I talked to Rosa, she had just interviewed 3rd party presidential candidate with the justice for all party, doctor Cornel West. So 3rd party campaigns were front and center in her mind. We talked about her introduction to the Green Party, how third party campaigns actually help influence policy, money, and political viability, and her perspective on those who are weighing a historic vote for Kamala Harris against their concerns about her policies. Rosa, thank you so much for joining us.
Rosa Clemente:Thank you for having me.
Emily Williams:So, Rosa, tell us, how did you get involved with third party politics, and what's your sense about what role third parties play in influencing policy?
Rosa Clemente:I got involved in third party politics right after the Gore election in 2000. I had known about the Green Party, and I had been to events through my university at that time, the University of Albany Albany, New York. And I went to an event that Ralph Nader was talking about. And I went up to him and I said, you know, this is great, but you're, you won't get it as a white man. There's, like, things that you missed.
Rosa Clemente:And then he was like, you should join the Green Party. So I did. So that election where the Supreme Court made George Bush the president, that was my first election, and I wrote it for Nader. Then in 2003, I was part of the 13 people that founded the National Hip Hop Political Convention. And we had a huge conference in Newark, New Jersey, where around 3,000 young folks from around the country came to develop a hip hop political agenda, and we did that.
Rosa Clemente:And then the last one was 2,008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. But at that time in 2,008, me and my husband's daughter were living with my sister in South Carolina. And, I had already began to see people that I knew, particularly Jared Ball. Jared was running for president, then he and someone else stepped aside. And then we knew it was gonna be Cynthia, and then Cynthia called me.
Rosa Clemente:And it was weird because I was we were such upheaval in my immediate family. I don't even know how she got in contact with me. I mean, she did and then she asked me and I was like, I'm pretty much unemployed. I could leave, my daughter, Alisa, and my husband, Justice, stay with my oh, then we got a little, like, crib in in North Carolina. And then I just started going on the road.
Rosa Clemente:And then on July 12, 2008 in Chicago, we got the nomination.
Emily Williams:Wow. And then it sounds like you were involved with a lot of electoral politics and forming your own political parties before you were then asked to be Cynthia McKinney's running mate? You know, what role do third parties play in influencing policy?
Rosa Clemente:If you look at the Green Party platform, for decades, the Green Party was the first ones to call for equality in marriage. The Green Party was the 1st party to stand on the Palestinian side of what was what continues to happen in Gaza. The Green Party was very instrumental in getting people to understand not only what happens when people from the Green Party run, but making people understand that ballot access is very, very difficult and that to a third party to become a permanent party where they wouldn't have to spend most of the time getting on a ballot. If we get 5% of the electorate, that means you're permanent and you're in the range of, being able to get matching funds from the federal election committee. You know?
Rosa Clemente:So what it really comes down to is this duopoly doesn't want any third party. They don't want the libertarians. They don't want the craziness of RFK. They don't want Green Party. They don't want justice for all party, you know.
Rosa Clemente:And it's it's interesting because yesterday, I saw the story because I interviewed doctor, Cornel West yesterday, and I was like, people need to know the people that sue the Green Party the most is the Democratic Party. Like, right now, if we were a party, we'd be closer than ever. Well, we would get the 5% now, right, because they're stoked young people and Palestinian people in Michigan that are, like, uncommitted on the president all the way down. And then, obviously, there was no youth enthusiasm at all, you know, and all that changed very quick with vice president Harris. So those 2 major parties don't ever wanna see a 3rd party.
Rosa Clemente:What I I now get more than ever, 16 years later, how me and Cynthia also created that space.
Emily Williams:And thank you for sharing so much of that and also your personal experience because at least in 2008, at least for me, the Green Party had visibility, and and you and Cynthia's ticket had visibility. And that platform was really influential for me personally and I think for a lot of other activists. I mean, even this notion that in the 2020 elections that student loan cancellation was such a major issue, often it does take 8, 10 years for these movements to actually get visibility in mainstream politics, particularly in the elections. And so I think a lot of that has to do with the work that you and Cynthia did back in 2008.
Rosa Clemente:Yeah. And let me say this. We would be in such a much better place, but the Green Party treated me and Cynthia like shit. Colorado Greens took us off a ballot. It's like, what party takes their candidates off the ballot?
Rosa Clemente:There's a lot of, like, white male racism to this day, a lot of entitlement, and, they just treated us horribly. By the time 2000 and when when does Trump win 2016? By the time that was going on, Cynthia had been left the party. Like I said, I stayed registered to vote for a John Muirika. And then that's the last time I voted for the Green Party.
Rosa Clemente:And, you know, I'm not voting for them again. You know, I'm a member in it. I think it's important, but the things that they did to us, there's still been no accountability, especially from white men in that party.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And I hate to hear that because it's like, you know, we have these brilliant women of color who are, like, on the front end of our movements, on the front end of pushing our democracy forward, and we get beat up for it. We get abused for it, and it absolutely should not be that way. And, hopefully, we have more I don't know that this is true, but one would hope that we have more progressive institutions now who would, you know, understand the importance of third parties and the sacrifices that people take to actually lead these 3rd parties.
Rosa Clemente:Yeah.
Emily Williams:But tell me this, Rosa, what role do you think money or the lack of it plays in the viability of third parties? And relatedly, how do third parties become competitive without becoming corrupt?
Rosa Clemente:Unless there's a, like, actual, like, real revolution. You know, I don't mean it in, like, you know, the way people think about it, violence, civil war, and that. We none of us could compete. You can't compete with half a $1,000,000,000. Like, you know, you can't compete with Kamala Harris getting 3 days, getting a $119,000,000.
Rosa Clemente:Even that, though, people are not being honest about it. She did not get that money from the 44,000 women that were on a black women that were on a call and the subsequent brothers who did a call, where together, they raised 3 to $4,000,000. So where's the other 115 coming from? From APAC? From corporations?
Rosa Clemente:You know, Boeing, APAC, Big Tech. You tell people, like, this is just what it is. I'm not, like, calm down, but don't act like that she raised a $119,000,000 from the people. And the closest we've been to that is Bernie Sanders. So unless, you know, we're gonna go back and relitigate Citizens United, which then gives unlimited money and all the packs, How can anybody compete?
Rosa Clemente:Like, that whole thing where anybody in America could be president? Absolutely not anymore. It doesn't matter who runs. It's just like, stop saying that. The only way that happens is to have federal election committee matching the money.
Rosa Clemente:So you can't compete. So Greenpeace, the best thing they have is that, you know, especially seeing what what's happening until recently where a lot of more younger younger people are tired. Like, they know this democracy shouldn't just be 2 parties. They know how much money is going in it. You know, I would love to at least see people debate.
Rosa Clemente:The last time there was a third party person debating was Ross Perot And during the 10 years, after that, there's never been another third party candidate on either a debate presidential or vice presidential debate. So if you can't get a debate well, the closest ones to at least CNN did a town hall with a John Will Rocker and Joe Stein. But yes. So the money thing, unless you get through something or there's things that change that, and no money from corporations. No no one can compete with a $120,000,000.
Rosa Clemente:And probably at the end, both of the candidates will probably have spent a $1,000,000,000 together. Mhmm.
Emily Williams:And if you all maybe had been building the movement for the Green Party since 2008, that makes sense. But, you know, recently, I've seen folks on social media respond to the idea of voting third party by saying that we only ever see these 3rd party candidates every 4 years, and, basically, that these 3rd party candidates come to convince people to, like, throw away their votes. So why do you think people feel that way, and how can we change that perception?
Rosa Clemente:Yeah. I mean, that's a complete misconception because you don't win or lose an election because someone else is running. That fear comes from when people for months blame Ralph Nader when Al Gore lost. But at the end of the day, Al Gore didn't get elected because the supreme court stopped the counting of votes and shut it down. So the vitriol towards Nader and other third parties at that time was pretty super intense.
Rosa Clemente:Right? And you're beginning to see it now again. So what people do that is also to instill fear in anyone that thinks, I don't I don't like either party. I don't like this way going down. Let me see another party and what's going on.
Rosa Clemente:And then the thing is if people are voting out of fear, that is not a democratic process. That's like in Russia when they're, like, 90% of the Russians voted. Yeah. Because they have to. They go to people's houses and, like, you better be on that line.
Rosa Clemente:You know? Right. And that's that's that's authoritative oligarch kind of way. But that's the whole point. Like, why are you scaring people?
Rosa Clemente:Well, you're scaring people because at the end, none of these parties are doing them what they need to do, and it's just gonna be the same stuff. When Harris wins for that, what what is she gonna change? She's gonna be good on some things, which is great. Yeah. Yeah.
Rosa Clemente:But at the end, she can't even really come hard as she should have against the genocide. Right.
Emily Williams:Exactly. So, Rosa, people often think of third parties as too narrowly focused on, like, 1 or 2 issues or that they lack flexibility when it comes to, like, working within our political system. Do you think that's a fair assessment?
Rosa Clemente:That they're too political? To what?
Emily Williams:Like, too narrowly focused or that their focus is so far afield from what mainstream candidates are talking about or what people perceive as the mainstream issues.
Rosa Clemente:No. Well, we don't. 3rd parties are what the real mainstream issues are. We don't want war. You know, create a department of peace.
Rosa Clemente:We think everybody deserves a livable wage. We think everybody deserves their debt being canceled, not the $10,000 that everybody thinks Biden canceled all debt. And I think this is where he's been the best at. I just wish he went one step forward. You know, this generation, younger generation, can't stop.
Rosa Clemente:They can't be in the economy, buy houses, participate because of a student loan. But everything else, it is a mainstream. So the thing is people gotta read the platforms. So that's the problem too. There's so much there's lack in voter education.
Rosa Clemente:Like I said, if you look at the Green Party or you look at my speech from the National Hip Hop Political Agenda, every issue that people of color to this day, that working class people around this country, they would be siding, especially with the Green Party, because the Green Party's 3rd party platform to me is the best. Well, like I said at the beginning, it's the Green Party that developed the Green New Deal. AOC didn't do it, neither did Bernie. Joe Stein wrote that. Right?
Rosa Clemente:So, like, it's interesting to see the Democrats have taken things literally from the Green Party platform and be like, these are the ideas. But, again, what do we want? An end to police violence. Right? A livable wage.
Rosa Clemente:Every on house person should be in house, like, immediately. Right? Canceling student debt loan, strengthening voter rights act, fighting to get our reproductive rights. That's always been the Green Party platform. And if you juxtapose it with the National Hypopolitical Convention, we added a couple things.
Rosa Clemente:And one of our biggest things coming from our people would end the mass incarceration. And now that you look particularly look at how much further the police violence or mass incarceration movement has been getting major, major wins. Right? So I believe that those three platforms and agendas is everything that people want.
Emily Williams:I agree with that. And I think if people truly understood representation in a democracy, people would get that too. But too often, people capitulate to the power of the mainstream candidates, right, because that's where they believe the power is and only where the power can be.
Rosa Clemente:And also the media's complicit. I watch CNN, MSNBC daily, and I'm like, look at all these the I call them the punditry class. Right? These cats on TV are acting like they're not millionaires. So when they're sitting there in their, like, nice contract and on TV being like, oh, inflation's not bad, it's because you can't afford $8 for an avocado.
Rosa Clemente:It's because you're rich. Where's the journalists that aren't rich? On Democracy Now and other places. Right. But they've also this consistent litany of saving democracy, save for who?
Rosa Clemente:What are you saving democracy for? You go around the world, you're gonna see, like, 50 different parties, and you're gonna see mad people running, and then you're gonna have one election, then you're gonna have the second. The best thing to watch recently is what happened in France. You know, they went hard on the right, then Marie Le Pen and all the other right wingers were like, we're about to win, and then the left came out and shut it down. We don't have that.
Rosa Clemente:How do you only have 2 parties. No one can really run. Once you're in AOC, Rashida Tlaib and all that, their politics may be great, but then they're joining 435 people that, you know, Nancy Pelosi is is so diligent and and, Hakeem Jeffries, like, you know, shut down anything, shut it down, and the the squad becomes a little gnat. They're not able to do what they want in there to do, or they're getting pushed out, or they're gonna be primaried. So, like, that whole thing of democracy for group.
Emily Williams:Exactly.
Rosa Clemente:Exactly. Another black woman shot in her house, Sonia Massey. You know? Like, look at all the work young people have done. And now in the last 10 days, there's been 3 other black men murdered by the police, and now we have this mom that literally called them to help her, and they shot her in her face.
Rosa Clemente:So it's like, democracy for who and what? No. You have no clue what's going on in our communities, period.
Emily Williams:Right. Because they don't want to. It's also willful ignorance. Right?
Rosa Clemente:And money. Look. Let's not underestimate that this is the 1% of the black and Latino community. So, again, they're like, inflation is not bad. Public schools are great.
Rosa Clemente:Put police in public schools. Can stop gun violence. But then they're sitting there and then they start to attack in their kind of way of, like, well, if young people don't come out, you're gonna get Trump. It's gonna be your fault. No.
Rosa Clemente:If Harris loses, that's what's gonna happen. They're gonna blame Latinos and then young people and then 3 party people as opposed to being like, you knew you shouldn't have run him. She should've already been the nominee. And now this high level expectation, you know, now I'm saying, she's obviously is polling, like, doubling her polling. We're now seeing young people engaged.
Rosa Clemente:I love that. As a black woman, if she becomes the president, that's something we have to be like, oh, shit. It's here. And but then the next day, we gotta go and then push her on whatever it is. And, of course, we don't have to discuss.
Rosa Clemente:If Trump loses, there's gonna be a lot of, like, violence, political violence. And then if he wins, you know, he's gonna be a dictator, and how do we prepare for that? And what would that look like now that the Supreme Court basically said what he said when you started running? I could kill someone in Townsquare in public, and I'm not going to jail. Well, actually, you could do that now, and you're not gonna go to jail.
Rosa Clemente:Right. Right. The reason supreme court has just given immunity for acts in office and acts after.
Emily Williams:Right. Yeah. And Yep. You know, after he stacked the Supreme Court and now that they've given him full immunity for anything he does in his official capacity as president, he knows exactly what that means. But, Rosa, so because you just mentioned Kamala Harris, and she's now the Democratic nominee.
Emily Williams:How do we respond to people who, you know, may agree with the policies of a third party candidacy like West and Abdullah but are also swayed by the potential historical significance of this moment for Black women?
Rosa Clemente:I mean, that's critically important. Look, I call myself a Black Puerto Rican, but the African American women experience is different. And I've been very mindful of not going hard on her. Like, when my daughter calls me and she's like, mom, I'm gonna be able to vote for a black woman. Are you gonna be mad?
Rosa Clemente:And I was like, no. Like, no. Why would I be mad? I was like, girl, that's shit. Like, going in that booth or pressing that button, you know, that's that's for you.
Rosa Clemente:That's your decision to make. Look, when it comes down to it, I may be totally off on this. I just don't think men are gonna vote for a woman to be president. Black, white, Asian, not let's see. Come on.
Rosa Clemente:Like, I'm like, so our reproductive rights no longer exist, but now this country is gonna elect a black woman. Beyond that, you know, what I do, and I always am clear to, you know, when people call me for advice or anything, what I say now with this is, like, totally opposed to probably every policy decision. I don't forget that she passed a law where the families of kids that were truant were arrested. I don't forget her APAC speeches and all of that. But if someone began to attack her because and it's already happening.
Rosa Clemente:Because of gender and patriarchy, I don't support any of that and I don't accept it. Because when I was running, that's when Hillary Clinton was still in it and, like, the vitriol based on her looks in that. So I think you can have both. I think you could oppose vehemently, you know, the policies. But, also, if she's attacked, it's the responsibility of us as women of color to be like, no.
Rosa Clemente:This is not gonna go down that way. Look. This is gonna be an incredible moment for African American women who keep saving the Democratic party. This is gonna be a significant moment for young young people to be like, oh my god. A woman's the president.
Rosa Clemente:So I always say, vote your values. Vote that day. The next day, get back to organizing.
Emily Williams:Right. Which is so important. And, you know, that's kind of like, this election shows us that more than anything. You know, you you gotta vote, but then it's like, you gotta organize. And we should always be organizing, actually, in my opinion.
Rosa Clemente:Absolutely. But
Emily Williams:I wanna go back to something that you said earlier about whether or not men will actually vote for a woman to become president. I think that's a valid question, but then also you mentioned we're taking away women's reproductive rights in one moment, and then the next moment, we think a woman can win as president. I just I wanna hear you say more about that because when I think about how women lost the rights or their reproductive rights, it was because of this very far right agenda and because the Supreme Court is packed. Not necessarily, like, this broad misogyny or patriarchy that led to it, but rather was just almost like a small contingent of people who made that happen because they had the power to do so. So what is it that makes you say that you can't see that men will actually vote for a woman to become president?
Rosa Clemente:Because men have literally dropped the ball on calling a mass movement, mass march, whatever, to push for abortion to be codified, which is democrats had many years to codify reproductive rights and not leave it up to the supreme court just or leave it up to the states. Because if that was the flip like, if it was if it was men's reproductive rights that were taken away, the country would have burnt down in, like, 5 days. Where are the men? Right. Like, where are you?
Rosa Clemente:And I mean, all of you. Like, where are you? And I also believe it's not, as you know, just about abortion. It's about controlling your reproductive rights. And anytime I'm in a space where a man might say, well, I don't know or I'm not sure, I also say don't think that you one day will be even able to control your own body.
Rosa Clemente:What if those goes the more dystopic way of, well, you know what? We're gonna take away the reproductive rights of poor black men. Oh, you know what? We're not we're not gonna allow somebody that was in jail. We we wanna sterilize them before they come out so they don't have reproductive control of their bodies.
Rosa Clemente:Now and when you when I say that to men, then it's like, oh, word. Like, I'm like, stop acting like it's just us. Right.
Emily Williams:And stop acting like you don't have a stake when it's just us.
Rosa Clemente:Yeah. But I also hate when men are like, oh my you know, I get misogyny because my daughter. You should get it anyway. Like, it's not about having a
Emily Williams:woman in your life. Exactly. Exactly. You're listening to Beyond Voting. I'm Emily Williams.
Emily Williams:Before the break, we were talking with 2008 Green Party vice presidential candidate Rosa Clemente. In the second half of our conversation, Rosa shared her thoughts about what it would take to mobilize a third party into relevancy, the current state of social justice movements, and what kind of country we'd have to look forward to if we implemented Rosa's vision for America. So tell me this, Did we miss an opportunity to mobilize for a third party when Biden stood down?
Rosa Clemente:Yeah. We did. We weren't prepared for it. You know, we're running these 3 different kinda independent campaigns, and also you have RFK and the libertarians, you know, I think what should have happened is all the 3rd party candidates should should be together and got at least on the same ballot. I think it happened so fast too.
Rosa Clemente:You know, I think what was going on was that people just were exhausted at that point. We're like, whatever. Just let let us get to the ballot booth because this everyday kind of thing. I think the Democrats, again, as of if I was a political operative, I would have been told them, like, yo, why y'all pinning him up there? Like, why is Joe Biden and his sister and his son not being like, yo, you've been in here for 50 years.
Rosa Clemente:You have done some incredible good work. He did some bad work, right? Because he was the one at when the Anita Hill confirmations were were happening, he led that, you know, and obviously the war, what's going on in Gaza kind of thing. But there's a moment where you have empathy and compassion. You know?
Rosa Clemente:And I think what's also happened, which is antithetical to how black and brown people rule, is the disrespect of an elder. You've seen him struggle like that, and it's just like, why y'all doing this? And that the mainstream media was taking some form of glee. You know, like, oh, what's gonna happen? Why is he gonna pat and it's like, that shit's not funny.
Rosa Clemente:All, like, that's sad.
Emily Williams:Yeah.
Rosa Clemente:He had some sympathy.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And I think in some ways, it was like so many people were just so numb. So many people had already resigned themselves to you know, I saw so many people online saying, I'm gonna vote for Joe Biden if he's, you know, on life support, you know, because they just didn't want the alternative. So I think so many people were just numb and just forced themselves to just resolve to vote for him no matter what because he's not Trump, you know, because he was the Democratic nominee. And, you know, when I think about probably the majority of the country being in that state of mind, that also makes me think about what you said about, like, how we weren't prepared for that moment because we just we were just numb to it.
Emily Williams:Right? We're just going along with it at this point. But it also makes me think, how do we take our radical left politics and apply them to this moment that we're in right now?
Rosa Clemente:Well, I just I don't think we have a movement. And, I also think what happened is more left people, social justice, racial justice people, gender justice, you know, they put in all their their their true skills and money to vote for somebody. I think that's the biggest mistake the movement has made to forget organizing on the ground locally. Right? And then only coming right now and and scaring everybody to be like, give us money.
Rosa Clemente:We gotta make sure that Harris wins. I think the movement has become too dependent on electoral politics. But also, again, we don't have a movement. It's been completely shattered. I think that's the biggest mistake that happened post Obama, that this overreliance.
Rosa Clemente:So are you gonna get a left political radical? No. No. You're gonna get it if you're on the ground organizing in your organization. That's not gonna come through, voting for a president.
Rosa Clemente:And to see the movement so fractured that some of us really paid attention to older folks, the hip hop generation kind of political people. We we were never engaged in electoral politics like that till after Obama, and now it's become the main thing that people are using. And then all the attacks on Black Lives Matter, Movement For Black Lives, Dream Defenders, me hint that these organizations that have come out from the millennial generation, that generation who created these new organizations come out of having voted for Obama. So then when Trayvon is murdered and then George Zimmerman gets acquitted, that was a time where that generation were like, why does it matter to have a black president? You know?
Rosa Clemente:And we're never gonna have a radical black politic within electoral projects. That's why it's the organizing on the, where you're at locally, because we don't have a national kind of overbroad movement. People have gone in different directions, but the local organizing that's what's gonna work better than anything else, you know? And I think we need to get back to doing organizing on the grassroots, to do a movement, to say, if you want to get down with electoral politics, do it to these 3rd parties. Now what I've neglected to say is because what happens also, we don't know people that have been elected.
Rosa Clemente:So when you look at the Green Party nationwide, we have elected mayors, city controllers, board of ed people on the Green Party platform. We just haven't gotten to the national election and those candidates.
Emily Williams:So what do you think it would take to rebuild that kind of movement?
Rosa Clemente:You know, I don't think that's gonna happen again. So I think, like, for me, if there's maybe a national movement comes back up on some other thing, like maybe a national movement towards, working class people to better the economic conditions and opportunities. But also, you know, I also believe capitalism is the main tool that destroys so many people. So I think it's local community organizing. And coming out of the Malcolm x grassroots movement, one of our tenants is self determination.
Rosa Clemente:And that can look very different, but I do see more and more people being, like, less organized. I don't need to get on a plane to go to someone else's protest. Let's organize here. Let's build something. And there are organizations that are doing that.
Rosa Clemente:One of my best that is my also a political home is what, folks have been doing in cooperation, Jackson. Then I live in so that's Jackson, Mississippi. That's my Congress of Malcolm x grassroots movement, Kaleo Kuno and Saki Okuno. It's also where Chokwe Lumumba became the mayor, and, unfortunately, he died of a heart attack. Well, Kali specifically had developed a 10 year plan of self determination.
Rosa Clemente:So if you go to Jackson right now, they have a supermarket. They got gardens. They have built houses for activists, but they're creating those things, and I see it. Then I live here in upstate New York. We have probably one of the few black Latinx farms in about 30 minutes away from me in Albany and in Grafton.
Rosa Clemente:And I tell people, just come out here so I could take you to see this. Because what it is is, like, we know that Malcolm did always talk about 2 things. If you can't have land and feed yourself, you're always going to be dependent. But now that we know that 44,000 black women were on that call, I think that after the election, we need to have a mass call like that from everybody in this country that we can all tap into collectively and at least be like, okay, this happened. And then if he were to win, we really gonna have to do that because it I'm sorry.
Rosa Clemente:If he loses, I know there's gonna be a lot of political violence, and it's gonna be coming from the Proud Boys and the Steve Bannon's and all of that because they're gonna do the same thing. And this time, it's not going to be not that it was good last time, you know, but I think it's gonna be a very, very dark time. So that's what I'm saying. Local organizing works if you could tap into the national. And if people can't organize on the ground like that, then at least let's support these groups that also are not intertwined with the nonprofit industrial complex, the real folks that are doing that work of what Malcolm said, self determination.
Emily Williams:Yeah. And thank you for that. And what advice would you give to even the younger activists among us?
Rosa Clemente:Well, I would like the younger activists to be part of an organization and not just think, like, you know, organize doing yourself on TikTok is making a difference. It's making kind of people retreat to like their specific corner and their specific politics. What I would say to generation C to not make, I think the more mistakes about the millennials is the minute they start wanting you on a magazine, the minute they wanna close you, the minute you go on Jimmy Fallon, that's already done. It's over.
Emily Williams:Right. So I've heard you say that your focus is on motivating nonvoters. So what do you tell disillusioned, undecided voters? What do they need to do right now? What do they need to do on November 5th?
Emily Williams:And what do they need to do in the 4 years between this year's election and the next election?
Rosa Clemente:I mean, when I was in the Green party, yeah, I wanted to you know, I I would tell everybody we gotta get at those that are not voting that moment, what that demographic looked like. But I've never been one that says you have to vote. And this is the part you people are like, Rosa, look. You vote, you don't vote. Again, that's a personal decision.
Rosa Clemente:But coming out of Puerto Rican politics on the island, not because I live there, but Puerto Ricans and other, maybe some some other countries, when you withhold your vote, you should be withholding it as the message itself. So if you look at elections around the world, there will literally be people like, I'm not gonna participate in this system of voting. So when someone tells me that, I'm like, at the end of the day, that's your position. Because for me, whatever president's in it, whether it would ever have been me or it's gonna be Cornel West or whatever, I don't shame people who don't vote. Enough people do that.
Rosa Clemente:Now in Puerto Rico, we can't vote as a president. Right? And that itself is disenfranchisement of 1,700,000. Puerto Ricans under colonial rule who are not allowed to vote if they live on the island. So if you're gonna withhold the vote, I'm not mad at that.
Rosa Clemente:But I think for me, I love the uncommitted movement, and I love that that is coming straight from the ground that Palestinian people in Michigan have already said, and they said it even when Harris, you know, become an up nominee, if you do not end this genocide in Gaza, we are withholding our vote. And the reason the Democrats are very scared of that is because that's what happened when Hillary and Trump. So you see 43,000 people that voted in Michigan but did not vote for the president. But I think the sophistication that the Palestinian movement in this country say, you know what? I'm still voting uncommitted.
Rosa Clemente:Until they stop the war on genocide, you are not getting my vote. I will vote down ballot for our congresswoman, Rashid, and other people. And I don't think the DNC is taking that seriously enough.
Emily Williams:I agree with you on that. I don't think they're the DNC is taking it seriously enough, and I agree that it was it was so smart, and it was timed perfectly right around the primaries to say, listen. We're not gonna vote for you. We're uncommitted, and here's our issue. Right?
Emily Williams:So that was super smart. So, alright, Rosa, I have so been looking forward to asking you this last question. Okay. So let's just say that we successfully bring down the duopoly, and now we have president Rosa Clemente.
Rosa Clemente:No. I'm never running again. I've I've been never. I've been very clear on that. Like, no.
Rosa Clemente:I mean, I'm glad to be, like, you know, when younger people are maybe in the green party and they're, like, they're running, and I'm like, how can I support you? But, no, I I don't wanna run for any position. I I don't have that in me anymore.
Emily Williams:Okay. Okay. So then okay. So let me just shift it then. Yeah.
Emily Williams:So let's just say that we successfully bring down the duopoly and someone from the younger generation who you have mentored and for whom you have been a political operative. Let's say that they are now president. How would you advise them to implement a social justice platform in the first 100 days? Who's in that cabinet, and how does the country change for the better? Yeah.
Rosa Clemente:I mean, in those first 100 days, they could do a lot of executive orders. You know, immediately, I would hope that they would first deal with the migrant situation on the border. Yeah. I think the way people are looking at it is an old way of looking at it. I think people don't understand that there's also Chinese folks, Haitian folks that are coming through that border too.
Rosa Clemente:And the actuality is that the Mexican migration movement has, like, dwindled, and now you see more other countries and and them making these treacherous journeys. I would, advise them again to cancel student loan debt. I would want them to maybe reshape the supreme court and impeach those that need to be impeached because they're they're the law of the land and that everyone has housing. And then lastly, just health care for all. I mean, Joe Biden has done good on that.
Rosa Clemente:You can't be like, yo. Insulin was $500 and not $35 a month. I would be like, it shouldn't cost anything. There's no way in we're the richest country in the world and anybody have to do anything but get free health care and not have to jump through through hoops. And I was just seriously look at a new way of looking at education and what would that look like because public education needs to be revamped.
Rosa Clemente:Because it shouldn't be I was going to high 30 years ago, and the schools still look the same and are teaching the same way when now we're a country where it's like, you know, we could do education very differently. We could also obviously, that higher education should also be free. And we can do all these things. And it could cost, what, a $1,000,000,000,000 to do everything I said. Well, we're already in $2,000,000,000,000 worth of debt.
Rosa Clemente:I mean, and immediately cut at least the military spending 50%. Do that alone. Everything that I just said happens. So that's what I would advise them. I would go to the party and, meet Kendrick and tell him he's a genius, and then I would go home and be like, I I'm here when you need me.
Emily Williams:Alright. So many important lessons from this conversation with Rosa. Let's start with what's on everyone's mind. If you're not happy with any candidate in this election, and let's be honest, even with vice president Harris now being the Democratic nominee, many of us still don't feel our values in politics are represented by any candidate. Then the question is, how do we create change, especially when it seems that the system, as in the US electoral system, is so deeply entrenched?
Emily Williams:Remember that voting is a tool. It is far from the end all, be all within a democracy. To truly create the democracy that we all deserve, we have to find multiple ways to make our voices heard as individuals and as collectives, as members of communities. Rosa said, vote your values, then get back to organizing the next day. She stressed that we can't put too much emphasis on the presidential elections.
Emily Williams:When the people's issues are environmental justice, a livable wage, ending war and violence here and abroad, organizing is critical. So vote your values and get back to organizing, especially at the local level the very next day. Perhaps you're listening because you wanna get active in your community and make a difference. Perhaps you're worried about the fate of democracy if Trump is elected for a second term and what that will mean for the rise of fascism here in the US and around the world. Or perhaps your concern because the Democratic party isn't distinguishing itself enough from the Republican platform.
Emily Williams:Those are real concerns, and we'll talk more about them next week. But when we say organizing, we mean coming together with others, determining a set of issues to address, strategizing the way forward, and being relentless about creating positive social change. Social media can be a great tool for community organizing, but it cannot replace working collaboratively in real life with other groups of folks to bring about change. And remember when Rosa said that the Green Party would get 5% of the electorate now in this election? That didn't happen because in many ways, the Green party lost momentum after Rosa's and Cynthia McKinney's run for president.
Emily Williams:So we have to organize continually to address our community's issues and for the world that we deserve so that when the time is right, we're ready with the alternative the masses are looking for. I mean, just imagine if Rosa and Cynthia were running in this election and on a platform of ending war, canceling student debt, actually passing the Green New Deal, access to reproductive rights for all. Imagine how different this election would be. So remember that organizing is often about the long game, and it's about being ready for when the moment is right. Don't expect change to be easy.
Emily Williams:Rosa started her journey into 3rd party politics when she was in college. She's been at it a long time. That's not the only reason why making change wasn't easy for Rosa. It's also because when we buck up against the status quo, those who benefit from it try really hard to resist any change that could threaten those benefits. Rosa shared about the white male racism she encountered, which ultimately caused her to physically leave the Green Party even though she still donates because she knows how important the work of third parties are.
Emily Williams:Part of the reason why third party candidates struggle so much is because of the amount of money in politics. Remember that she said Kamala raised a 119,000,000? The media made it seem as though that money was raised from the black women and men who held Zoom calls to celebrate her candidacy, yet it was big tech and other special interest groups that donated the majority of the money to her campaign. So if candidates are beholden to their donors and the corporate PACs who helped to finance their campaign, how would our issues ever truly be represented by the presidential candidates? Perhaps we need to strategize on how to get corporate and special interest money out of politics so our voices can actually be heard.
Emily Williams:So what do we do beyond voting? Whether your vote stays with establishment candidates or ventures to a third party, I think the key lesson is that we must recognize that the real work happens outside of the voting booth. Rosa is right. We shouldn't be waiting for a political superhero to come along, occupy the Oval Office, and make the change that we so desperately need. If we're waiting for a savior, we're gonna be waiting forever.
Emily Williams:The real work of supporting and saving our communities happens in those communities. We all know that lasting, substantive, life saving change always happens from the bottom up, not the president down. So tell us, how are you practicing your politic? What are you doing to organize in your community? You can tell us on IG at arcus.center, or you can drop it in your 5 star review of the show.
Emily Williams:Shout out to our guest, Rosa Clemente, for sharing her time, her passion, and her wisdom with us. You can find Rosa on her website, rosalclemente.net, and you can find her on Instagram. She's Black Puerto Rican PhD. If you like today's show, let us know. Share the episode with your friends and family, and please visit us at arcuscenter.quayzu.edu.
Emily Williams:Thanks for joining us on Beyond Voting. See you next time. Beyond Voting is hosted by me, Emily Williams. Keisha TK Dutas is our executive producer. Kristen Bennett is our producer.
Emily Williams:And this episode was written by Kristen Bennett and me. Our sound designer and engineer is Manny Face. Marketing is courtesy of Fabian Mickens, and our music is provided by Motion Array. Special thanks to my team at the Arcus Center For Social Justice Leadership, Quentin, Crimson, Tamara, Winter, and Kierra. Beyond voting is a production of Philo's Future Media.