Just a reminder for New York Bastards. Tomorrow is Election Day. You have a great opportunity to Vote the Bastards in.
See, adoptees are running for office and your rights.
Vote for James Lane for NYC Public Advocate and Akeem Browder for Mayor–both on the Green Party ticket. James is a Late Discovery Adoptee and Akeem was adopted out of fostercare I wrote about them earlier this year ,and supported James in an earlier campaign. I had intended to interview them this Fall, but my weird work schedule and personal stuff got in the way. So now, the lleast I can do is endorse them,
James (whom I know personally) and Akeem (whom I do not other than by reputation) support and advocate adoptee equality and run on the Green’s adoptee rights national platform, which reads in part:
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James Lane for Public Advocate,
Immediate and direct access to all identifying birth, hospital, foster care and adoption agency records and files concerning the adult adoptee (including the original adoption plans and any contracts that pertain to the adoptee or in which they are mentioned) to assist with researching their genealogy, medical history and the truth regarding the circumstances surrounding their adoptions and, if applicable, their time in foster care.
- Strict financial penalties need to be enforced when birth/adoption records have been lost or destroyed while under the care of agencies, hospitals, lawyers, etc. that have assumed the responsibility of storing these vital records.
- Full reparations for historical injustices in adoption.
Akeem Browder for Mayor
Akeem is an electrical engineer by trade and a longtime activist. His older brother was Kalief Browder, who at the age of 16 was charged with stealing a backpack and spent over 1000 days at Rikers awaiting trial before he was finally released with charges dropped. Kalief later committed suicide. (See Spike TV The Kalief Browder Story). Akeem is President and Founder of The Kalief Browder Foundation and founder of the Campaign to Shut Down Riker’s Island. He has lobbied successfully to improve criminal justice sentencing and programs in New York.
Larry Sharpe for Governor
On the Libertarian ticket, im 2018 adoptee Larry Sharpe is running for governor. A self-described bleeding heart libertarian, Sharp was born in 1968 and is a victim of New York’s closed adoption and sealed records system.. Earlier this year he told Reason magazine:
New York, again the progressive state that it is, would not allow me to find my parents because, well, because. We fought many times, lost every time. The judges kept saying, ‘We made a promise to those people and we can’t break it.’ It was 50 years ago and we now know genetics matter in health. So this is now life and death. And you think some promise to someone 50 years ago matters? What is wrong with you?… When I’m governor I’m going to change that.”
Just imagine what Sharpe would do with NY A503B, one of the worse “adoptee rights” bills ever passed, now awaiting Andrew Como signature (or not).
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In 2013, adoptee rights organizer Ron Morgan wrote of James Lane’s first run for Public Advocate:
“…it is CRUCIAL for us to support candidates who understand, embrace and advocate for Adoptee Rights. James Lane is a Late Discovery Adoptee running for New York City Public Advocate. James Lane deserves our support.
Don’t sit on your hands while so-called experts and self-described advocates use their positions of POWER to pontificate about our rights!
This is NO JOKE, people. As adoptees our future is in our hands.
New Yorkers: When you go to the polls tomorrow Vote the Bastards In! Vote for James Lane, Akeem Browder, and in 2018 Larry Sharpe. Stand up for your rights. No one else will.
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Governor’s election isn’t until 2018.
With respect to “Libertarians and Greens run adoptee equality candidates in November” and the general lack of adoptee rights Libertarian candidates, I do recall a male adoptee activist in the 1990s running as a Libertarian, but I can’t at the moment remember where or what his name was. He had his own website, and an essay or paper he’d written with an unfortunately infantilizing title or subtitle like “I Want My Mommy,” though I think it may have been otherwise uncompromising – though perhaps he later threw in with deformers?
Oops! Thanks, Toff. My bad! I have corrected the info on Larry Sharpe.
Back in the day the Minnesota LP had an adoptee rights plank in it. Later the Texas Republican and Democratic Parties had one too. I always thought that was a big joke, but there were people who worked hard for that and believed it would make a difference. It didn’t.