Letter To The Editor: Ossining Candidate's Remarks 'Repulsive'

To the Editor:

It is with a mixture of horror, fury and disgust that I learned this week about Ossining Trustee Candidate David Kezafrika’s Twitter statements espousing racist hate speech and violence against women. The repulsive tweets as first reported by the Northern Westchester Examiner include, “Why do some of the good looking on the dating sites all have kids?! It’s bad enough that they are Hispanic and black. It says a lot about those minorities. Guys have to put up with even more.”

“Stop letting ni—gas hit just because they bought you a meal,” and

“Rape an atheist till the B—ch say Our Father #SeanP.”

Yep, that’s a rape “joke”.

Unfortunately, the public announcement of these statements three weeks before election day raise more questions than answers.

Why did the Working Families Party not properly vet their candidate and what does this say about other WFP candidates? As a WFP voter, I am disheartened and disillusioned. To be a viable third party, I expect WFP to perform their due diligence. This was an epic fail on their behalf and it is one I will not soon forget.

So far we have only heard public statements renouncing these comments from Trustee Levin, Mayor Gearity and Trustee/ Mayoral Candidate Herrera. Village Trustees Quantel Bazemore and John Codman have yet to respond publicly to Mr. Kezafrika’s statements. Will they make a public statement or sweep this under the rug? Do Mr. Codman and Mr. Bazemore think that rewarding this type of misogynistic and racist rhetoric with election support is in the best interest of the young men and women of Ossining? They are watching too.

Mr. Bazemore as well as Mr. Herrera are apparently personal friends of Mr. Kezafrika. Mr. Kezafrika is credited for taking the photos on Trustee Bazemore’s website. Were Trustees Herrera and Bazemore aware of Mr. Kezafrika’s numerous hateful tweets? Do they not follow him on social media? If so, did they not think it important to talk to their friend about his alarming views? Cleaning up social media profiles is Electioneering 101 in these times. That fact that this wasn’t done indicates a sophomoric campaign at best or complicity at worst. Imagine if these three were to gain control as a voting block over local village government. Would they continue to turn a blind eye to each other’s indiscretions? Are current Trustees Herrera and Bazemore allowing their personal friendship to cloud their past and present decision-making? Most voters agree that the best interests of local government are paramount to chummy personal friendships. It is alarming to think that this is an already existing pattern of behavior.

Further, Mr. Kezafrika also represents District 6 for the Ossining Democratic Committee. The ODC released a strong statement condemning Mr. Kezafrika’s comments. But will he be removed from his post as District 6 Representative? How long has the Democratic Committee known about these hateful statements which, according to the article, have been shared among a select few for months?

This election season in Ossining has been quite electrifying. I for one was excited to see some competition in the Trustee race, which for a the past few election cycles has had mostly unopposed candidates. When Mr. Kezafrika announced his candidacy, I was impressed by his work history; he has a Masters in Engineering and promised, if elected, to make Ossining a safe, walkable Village. Wonderful!

Sadly, that balloon has been burst and Mr. Kezafrika has no one to blame but himself.

In the Examiner article, Mr. Kezafrika attempts to distance himself from, well, himself, by stating that his public Twitter statements are “no way even reflective of my character as an Ossining resident and a person.” He continues, “I don’t generally talk like this or have these types of views.”

This begets the obvious response: if you did not agree with these statements, even a little bit, why would you share them in the public sphere? Some might argue that everyone says dumb things once in a while on social media. But this type of talk goes too far. Deep within every post one makes is a nugget of truth, an implicit acceptance of what you are putting out to the rest of the world. Ask yourself: Would you make a racist joke or a rape joke on your social media account? Do you find these things funny or horrible?

Mr. Kezafrika’s deflections and excuses are reminiscent of Donald Trump’s “Locker Room Talk” moment. Mr. Kezafrika would do himself and the Village a favor to own who he is and make a conscious effort to truly change. I’d suggest he start today by withdrawing his candidacy for Ossining Village Trustee. It is disheartening to see this kind of bad behavior in our local government. I sincerely hope that this episode inspires some new faces to step up and challenge the incumbents, two of which are up for reelection in 2019. Ossining deserves better.

Your neighbor,

Erika Boetsch

Ossining

SEE: Ossining Candidate Faulted For 'Offensive' Tweets