Thursday, December 1, 2016

Alphonso David: Black, Gay, and the Third Most Powerful Man in New York


Alphonso David knows something about political instability, popular upheavals and the fear that comes after. David has served as Governor Andrew Cuomo's chief counsel since 2015 and has worked under the man in various capacities for almost a decade. But he was raised in Liberia; his wealthy family, targeted for belonging to the doomed political establishment, fled the African nation when he was ten during a violent military coup. David has lived freedom — and had it taken away.

"I've lived in a country that was democratically elected and went basically to a dictatorship," he told the Voice. "I don't take our democracy for granted."

Donald Trump's presidency has much of the country unnerved, David included. He is a Democrat, after all, a black and openly gay man negotiating a new reality of triumphant white nationalism. But as the man tasked with turning Cuomo's ideas into law, David projects calm. New York — now a deep blue island in a sea of red — will be leaning on its local leaders to guard against the most savage incursions of a Trump administration, and it will be partially up to the governor's cerebral fixer to get the job done. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Village Voice

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