New York gubernatorial candidate
Cynthia Nixon raised eyebrows and is now facing criticism after
suggesting that giving black people access to marijuana licenses is "a
form of reparations."
Nixon is challenging current Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the state's upcoming Democratic primary and appeared at the NYC Cannabis Parade. The issue of adult-use marijuana legalization is one that separates the two candidates, as Nixon has made it a central focus of her campaign, while Cuomo has not endorsed recreational legalization, according to Forbes.
It was in an interview with Forbes after that appearance when Nixon started the controversy, with a comment tacked onto the end of one of her answers.
"Now that cannabis is exploding as an industry, we have to make sure that those communities that have been harmed and devastated by marijuana arrests get the first shot at this industry," she told the publication. "We [must] prioritize them in terms of licenses. It's a form of reparations."
Nixon is challenging current Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the state's upcoming Democratic primary and appeared at the NYC Cannabis Parade. The issue of adult-use marijuana legalization is one that separates the two candidates, as Nixon has made it a central focus of her campaign, while Cuomo has not endorsed recreational legalization, according to Forbes.
It was in an interview with Forbes after that appearance when Nixon started the controversy, with a comment tacked onto the end of one of her answers.
"Now that cannabis is exploding as an industry, we have to make sure that those communities that have been harmed and devastated by marijuana arrests get the first shot at this industry," she told the publication. "We [must] prioritize them in terms of licenses. It's a form of reparations."
Nationally, blacks alone have been nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession from 2001 to 2010, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nixon's argument is that marijuana legalization is an issue not only of personal freedom and increasing the state's tax base, but one of social and racial justice.
But even some people inclined to agree with her overarching sentiment have taken issue with her use of the term "reparations."
The term reparations usually refers to a form of economic payment to black Americans for generations of slavery, racial terrorism, Jim Crow laws and unequal opportunity.
Black Lives Matter of Greater NY blasted Nixon's comments on reparations as "offensive and ignorant," according to the New York Daily News.
"I'm all for legalizing marijuana and I like Cynthia Nixon but putting pot shops in our communities is not reparations," the Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted Monday.
Economists told the New Republic in a 2014 piece that enslaved people were denied somewhere between $3 billion and $6.4 trillion in wages when the practice was legal in the U.S.
Before running for Governor of New York, Nixon was best known for her role as Miranda Hobbes in the HBO drama Sex and the City. The show ran for six seasons, from 1998-2004, and spawned two feature films in 2008 and 2010.
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