good evening i'm lou goldstein and welcome to open source open source will be a weekly show that's dedicated to discussions about politics nationally and in our state and tonight i'm very fortunate to have on the show lisa who is the green party lieutenant governor candidate running in the vendor and lisa thank you so much for coming on and no thank you for giving us some fair coverage if it's hard out here in the streets well we've invited both major candidates to come thirty well i like to think i'm a celebrity but of course it's all in my head before this life called politics i for a living and a media expert i'm a t v show host and t v personality i have my own local sh tried to be creative it's online now too but it's we shoot in new york and then from there over the years i became a producer so my career went from being on camera to behind the camera because i also felt like those images that people of color don't like on television can't be changed unless we change them so i started to produce documentaries initially but now i produce feature films and i direct as well i don't only do produc direct topics or issues around people of color or marginalize folks you know it could be some fun stuff too but definitely i was sadly from those things and so over the years because of my career as a media expert i've been invited to be on  appear on other people's shows as a political commentator a pop culture commentator i've written for many publications in the same vein i'm in the area of pop culture politics and social issues so i'm always on picks dr fox for the good of the bad and so i also do those things to keep my my brand fresh and poppin good well i see one of the interesting things moving from that into the political atmosphere  well the first time i ever been on i've ever been on the tucker carlson show with some time like june sixth or twenty seventeen so about a couple months ago and so i went on tucker carlson show to have a conversation about black lives matters what they call memorial day celebration where they decided to have what you call an intentional safe space with only people of color to celebrate us and so they invited them to come on to talk about it because you know the twist on fox is always it's racist to s race is called black folks races for calling out racism it always makes me laugh so they turn down the opportunity to come on the show but since they asked me i thought i can come on the show and speak about it as an expert which i am an expert in matters of race because i'm black but i'm also well versed so i thought i could be there as an expert and speak about it from the sidelines in a way because i'm not a member of black man or officially because it began as a hash tag and then now move more into an organization but certainly i'm african american i mean bill to discuss it so i want to show normally like i do and it was like a six minute segment and i didn't know the format of the show of that in he's the host i didn't watch the show as much and we're split screen in the whole six minutes we're having our banter as one would call it but you know others might call it something else and i have my talking points and i tore into that and i said things like white privilege card and you want to use your white privilege card to get into a private party it's not something that the that was in a public setting a public building or a public school if a private party for my child i don't want the bully kid coming you can come this minute i like kids i don't want your kid to come so they had a right to that even though you didn't like it so i kind of defend their right to do it and so it was seen to i talked about how you know we have movies where this all white cast and t v shows and the it took eleven years to get a white bachelorette so i was bringing those items up to show that this is a real thing racism is a real thing white privilege is a real thing and so we need to replace as african americans if we so choose to to gather what we feel comfortable i don't do that because i could care less one way or the other but i'm not like last minute or so then that whole thing went viral with seventeen million views hit that video and so of course i got braces trolls and interestingly enough two days after my appearance i'm fired suspended but you know when black folks get suspended that equals five work in h r when we get suspended we're fired you know it's like a thing where white folks get a cold we have a we have the flu so i was suspended for my appearance and then about three weeks later fired now i don't know what the reason was maybe some white supremacist complaint i really don't know so i was a professor at the college my first time being a professor there this fall i mean the spring of twenty seventeen and then this happened literally like you know two minutes later after appearing i was teaching a summer session called effective speech so when all of this so then now it became a bigger issue because my firing became a big thing globally nationally it went viral that went viral because of media personality and now people are saying this girl had free speech she didn't think anything hateful she didn't scream you know in a crowded you know movie theater fire she did nothing wrong so now that became a bigger conversation about the right to free speech still some kind of way you know the green party talk about the report yes you've touched on about what the green party stands for yes what are some of the basic tenets of the green party and the platform that you're running on this year yeah well the basic tenant is social justice the green party has been around since the eighty's i wasn't familiar with them at that time familiar with them in the last few years just on the fringe but social justice in all ways in terms of immigration rights women's rights rights of marginalized people black and brown people in all those areas like black lives matter  and those things that we discuss a lot but people it's tough conversation so the green party ten it's pretty much wrapped around anything that relates to social issues especially when it relates to marginalized people and so the platform we have is the green party  candidates is the last or first so as the lieutenant governor when i was approached by seth i kind of said no for many reasons i don't want in politics i don't like politicians i don't like politics i mean i vote because my foremothers of forefathers die for me to have that right but i do it just out of the sheer right to do it but i was disenfranchised to me by the do i believe the republican democratic party thing and they all look alike to me there is the lines are blurred they are in the same pot of soup and so  was i became a little you know desensitized so when they approached message knowing that we had more conversations with it no and they give me different reasons with it no because i don't want to put my number in the hat to be a person that i despise which is a politician but when i my brain around the ultimate reason why the green party exists is what i've been doing all along my i've been a leader all along so i'm not really a politician i'm a leader ok i'm running for something called a political office so that now this voice i've been having my my voice is my activism i've been doing for years in my writing as a blogger in my appearances in my documentaries all of the continent create has had a healthy dose of this kind of social justice angle to it so it's just an extension of what i've been doing for fifteen or more years so it didn't seem to me like i was being a politician so when i thought about myself i said ok i can do this and as an alternate governor i will do with this there's a win win but also this  a new office about eight years we've had a lieutenant governor in the state so there's still kind of forming to be shaping it so that we would be crafting things around my voice when i become lieutenant governor that would feed what i've been doing all along that would help the least of us so the laughter first so like a bottom up approach you know what i mean so we got to we've got to make sure that people are last people of color women and children marginalized people get those breaks in consideration so they can have opportunities to thrive in not survive if you look at the word survive in the dictionary you will not get out all of the words you see are painful when you look at the right words the definition the wor survive when you get the word thrive in just reading the definition you start to soaking up they have a lot of red and you see bubbles coming up it's like oh so we want people to thrive it gives you energy you feel like your soul is taken care of so that's the only reason reason why i concerns that you know residents to stay in new jersey have to maybe talk you know briefly about some of those topics i know a lot of times when people are looking at their taxes and there's my guess is no i can't afford to live here anymore i gotta move somewhere else  property taxes so i you know you know my grandchildren will be able to that i can for what are we going to do you know realistically how can we best approach it as collectively to make property  taxes something that's realistic and workable in the state of new jersey so people aren't moving to other states yes and so that's a huge concern one of the many things we're thinking of doing this is this kind of like something we can do immedia every citizen in the state of new jersey single payer health care the majority of our property taxes goes into health care all municipalities offer their employees health care they pay their portion and the the employer pays their portion most of that money that they pay comes from your property taxes and so if we have single payer health care there's no more reason for the state to pay these private companies to give the municipal workers health care and that's where the savings comes into your property taxes i think is a round nineteen percent it would be reduced to something small like you know this they would have to pay with the six percent and we pay reduction that's for starters so there will be an immediate reconciliation of property taxes just with the single payer health care being an active that's huge and it means everybody gets health care and for those folks who are the least of us the question is asked well you know what the sense we use different terminology can say single payer medicare single payer health care if you say people that we already have medicare well yeah we do but there is a there is a qualification for that and there is an age thing for that and there is you know paperwork for that this is called no paperwork no application no age requirement there's no requirement of that you live in the state of new jersey and you get health care everyone gets it even people who don't work for  municipalities it's almost like you being double hit from your pay high property taxes you're paying for their insurance and then you work at a private company you might work a private company and you contribute to your own health care there are even when people work for a private organization and now everyone gets will and here's what i say to people all the time let's be real here i said thrive right not survive your fifteen dollars an hour is not a living wage before taxes are you serious then it's not a living wage but if that's the start then maybe  i think it's eighteen changed i haven't kept up so the eight and change minimum wage think about somebody that makes that i don't know when you might be working i don't know burger king wherever you know these health care workers so you start an eight dollars and change an hour in that you get two or three raises and you might get to fifteen you still broke as hell if you start at fifteen an hour which is still not a living wage and you get two or three raises then you might be at twenty something now we're having a good conversation so graduating  if it helps to me it helps the trajectory of you leaving out of poverty right so we're all about the left of first him old people are poor in the state of new jersey not rich or middle class but it doesn't mean that we're going to abandon the middle class we're going to save the middle class because guess what they're squeezing the middle class right down here so if we're all doing well here it's going to be a spring upwards so you're going to be able to not worry about will my grand kids lose the house just on taxes alone i had a friend whose mom had a house in upper montclair ok she got older retired fixed income he's now with them he works for he's a journalist his mom law she had a house and i think the five she lost the house and i think in two thousand and five just because she couldn't pay the taxes that's an issue ok so these are some of the ways we're going to fix these issues and it's not it's not rocket science it's called greed but the wobbly wants to be greedy these people want to feed and  sure that you know they're good i produced a documentary called soul food junkies and one of the characters in there said you know who they are you know who he is it's a problem ok so how we can create more jobs is that what we're going to create more jobs in a state when we are able to let people like small businesses most of our economy comes from small business owners and you know me like somebody like myself that's you know so far right with one work i'm saying you know about the dollars you know right when we're able to let them know you don't have to worry about paying how can any more they're going to be more generous to hire more people because even the small business owners they want to make you work part time and when you get past a certain number of hours you can't get more hours like it's going to make it work when people who own small businesses can  retain employees and you've got part timers you've got a revolving door of people never learn your business you don't get good customer service you can't provide good customer service and you lose business in many businesses close because of those small things that really are big things so that would be just  just a natural progression to what can make a small business owner offer this to individual right that's going to grow the economy making sure a small businesses are great ok now just moving on yes we have a lot for and you know people concerned about their pensions being there when they retire how can we make sure that the pension system is being adequately funded in the years to come well again not to some like a broken record the pensions are going broke for many reasons of course sometimes it's left right by the unions let's be real clear all unions are not doing their job properly did you know the idea of a union was good but sometimes great screws it up but also to back to small businesses if small businesses businesses were able to able to thrive then you then be their pensions wouldn't go broke because the business is going broke if your business is broke so it's your pension so the more we can make sure that businesses thrive and make more money then they can make sure that pension i maintained you have to make sure the small businesses are good small business is what makes america great that's what makes america great mixture and making sure they're strong and so all of these things called health care makes raising the minimum wage because think about minimum wage when you now make a good living you can now partake in going to the movie theater patronizing the small business is a big circle you can't tell me patient as a small business me when i got the money i did my own here today although i  money to fix the roads fix the bridges make sure people can travel safely from his the home so once again the more money that you can keep in the coffers of the municipalities that run like in the work you know the county runs takes care of the road so if the county didn't have that gigantic bill called health care that would be oh how they can just you know dispersed that money in the budget and also all those other things like keeping people in your state right working here i worked for many years in the york i could not afford to just be here making minimum wage and some petty cash so if you keep people in jobs here because small businesses are hiring them they won't be a moving out of the state ag or be leaving the state and taking that dollar to new york a lot of us work in new york when i worked in new york i just thought working if you're going to simmer a twenty sixteen is just really august seventh september of twenty seven saying when i'm in new york i eat there i pitch now that's my business i shop a little bit there everything's going there so let's look at the numbers of people who literally live here who work in the york keep those individuals here and that's how you change the economy and by the way let's legalize marijuana can we talk about that we talk about should we legalize marijuana for recreational use medicinal use well it's well in the jersey medicinal marijuana is legalized in as many as in the state of new jersey so it's interesting you know the big boys get to sell we legally but the local your local drug dealer gets locked up for it is usually a right but you know by going to go back to don banks have a good time get not because at the end of the day this is what also feed the economy do you realize how much money these pharmaceutical companies are making on on on medicinal marijuana  monitor what you're doing if you become an addict you need not drink at all now you have to know if this is just recreational or for you just an addiction addicted so we have to leave that to adults to make those decisions and of course we want to put an age thing on the like twenty  education myself so would you mandate that there should be a mandatory safety course for gun ownership i'm open to it so i am a politician that doesn't say i have all the answers but i'm open to that i'm open to talking about that let me just say this  i was going to prep for you know fifty three years will not fifty three is that from eighteen to fifty three so i'm ok with the you know second amendment right to you know bear arms although i'm not a republican but i do believe in gun control of some kind this is a great idea to maybe do some kind of like oh you know classes to when you getting a license when i bought my house the bank gave me a discount on my closing feet if i took a course on how to deal with homeownership it was a one day course i got the civic it so i'm not against that kind of thing i'd be open to those kinds of conversations but i want to say that i do agree with the right to bear arms because think about most of these killings that are happening and yes some of them are happening mistakes in the home children getting hold guns but a lot of the criminal activity is happening with people who are getting guns illegally and that meant necessarily cure that we have well issues of education yes you know special education funding for districts where the urban districts are s be your education policy as far as funding to school districts in new jersey ok we're grappling with that now because education's that real delicate balance issue is a big issue but i saw through a couple of things up there were we're grappling with it so we're still i mean when you look on our website have local control i think north has been trying not to but whoever whoever they are are pushing charter schools i'm not against choice but i'm not against taking away the opposite choice called traditional public schools so i would be open to seeing how we can morph and make the balance of the two but overall in the state i do feel like we want to make sure that education is first so i'm going to say for myself as the lieutenant governor i would want to be on the front lines of finding something that's going to be  palatable for everyone's children in the state of new jersey so i would be open to maybe some kind of a think tank or putting together some kind of thing where we listen to parents appointing some folks you know something like that so we can kind of make sure we hear everyone and then do it because listen i'm single service a calling for young adults and get more young adults into you know the public service arena yes actually it's happening right now the green party is that place that's been going on since the eighty's that for some reason because of social just the social justice angle  trex young people i mean i'm not young fifty three but whenever i go out campus or xrays i know black don't crack one up and i'm new to the party so as i'm going out campus thing i'm seeing all these young folks and you should see our speaking the language called the last first social justice and most of these things with the discussing are social justice issues it's not about you know education and in and taxes it's the justice of it is th the injustice of it not the fact itself we get that part so there are injustices around fairness and all of those there is an education in and even like you know incarcerating more people of color everything we discussed has an injustice element to it we want justice and all those areas housing what justice in those areas ok not just good housing but the justice of that so this is what is attracting them and we want to be able to grow more in people like you who are letting them see us on platforms and not keeping us in a closet like we killed their mama is going to be what makes them see it in a less one more ok because we're speaking their language the last or first ok run trying time we speak yes or we wrap up riff or up up anything that i missed that you want to talk about and  kaffir dale for governor dot com to see more policies but november seventh one of the when it's election day november seventh seventh as election day i'm going to touch on something people don't want to discuss with their politicians a lot of folks are wondering are they going to win and a lot of people are still in that mindset a vote for you was a vote for the republican because we're wasting our vote when you voted for let's say hillary clinton and she didn't win with a vote wasted i did a poll on my own pocket that even putting in some polls most said no i vote for who i want to vote for so don't vote because you think that they can win so you will waste the vote vote for the party or the person or the people who you feel meets your needs and that would be for most of us the green party not not all sixty one percent of the people who registered to vote in the last gubernatorial election didn't vote at all we want to encourage those sixty one percent here we are vote for us and then we win  lamp you know black i want to that too so that's what we're encouraging you and i'm that kind of person don't vote for me because i'm asking do your research like watching the show do you go around look around look at how long i've been on the social justice to it for about fifteen years i'm not just  here it's going to appear during the election didn't disappear i've been on this game a long time as a leader so i'll just vote for us because you really feel like we can help you if you don't want to that's your right as well not dogmatic about you know voting other than if vote for governor and that's our show for tonight lou goldstein thank you for watching open source and we'll have another show next week until that time stay healthy stay focused active and i'll see you next