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LA Green Party Candidate Says Jill Stein's Actions Not Good for Greens

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Created: 27 July, 2016
Updated: 17 October, 2022
4 min read

The Greens Presidential Nominating Convention is not until August 4, in Huston, Texas, where one of 5 candidates will win the national ticket. Greens currently have ballot access in 22 states.

In an ironic similarity to mainstream Republican and Democratic campaigns, Stein is considered a shoo-in for the Greens, and there is a push to knock her "entitled" campaign out of the winning.

Sedinam Moyowasifza-Curry, a Green presidential candidate from Los Angeles, CA, says that she wants Stein to step aside because, Stein "has not been a good Green candidate."

She contends that many Greens are mad about Stein trying to win Sanders' supporters, and asking Sanders to head the Greens ticket.

Some Sanders supporters are aligning with Stein, starting hashtags such as #JillNotHill, and slogans like, "Green is the new blue." Cornell West, who was on Bernie's platform committee, has endorsed Jill Stein, but everyone in the party is not happy with Stein's cooperation with the Sanders campaign. Sanders has asked his supporters not to vote Green.

"We have a national ticket. Stein has broken that, and we need to bring it back," Moyowasifza-Curry said. She asserts that she is a better leader for the Greens than Stein.

"I outreach," she said, "I’ve never pushed non-Greens or Republicans to join us. I'll join with people who are already on the outside, and bring our nation to another level. [Stein] spends most of her time chasing after Bernie people."

"Why would you do that?" she questioned. "They are going to go with him! That is not real. My behavior – I am transparent. I show up. I show solidarity."

Moyowasifza-Curry's main goals for the Greens are to increase black, brown, and indigenous leadership, and support health care, education, and fair wages for everyone.

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She believes that only "non-European" leadership should be supported over the next 30 years in the Green Party because "that is who the future of the party is going to be." Non-European citizens need to be provided the opportunity to gain leadership experience, she explained, if they are going to be prepared to lead the country.

Sedinam is Pan-African, and a socialist, though her socialist ideas sound more like ethical capitalism, based on cooperative business models, and social welfare. She attests that her devotion to Pan-Africanism does not conflict with her American identity:

“I am the best of what America can be. I am the best of what an American is, because I accept the differences of who we are, and I respect it, and I will give my life to uphold those truths.
There is no conflict between my ethnicity, and my commitment to mother Africa, because, , the US was built on our blood. I have to acknowledge that the US would not be who we are without the sacrifices made by black people. It would be wrong of me, as an American leader, to not acknowledge the wrongs we have done -- not only to Africans, but Native Americans that we occupy, as well as every ethnic group that has come here to help bring invention, creativity, knowledge, and insight, to make this wonderful pot of gumbo. Everybody has come here to make this country better... I want to take the good of everybody and do better."

Sedinam argues that the U.S.'s original sins are classicism, and capitalism:

"I am a socialist. I think capitalism is barbaric and has gotten us in the mess we're in with our earth. It does not work to our advantage in the long term. We must repudiate this system, and create one that does not…harm our planet.”

"I went back to school to take masters classes in Chicano Studies," Moyowasifza said, "because, based on where I want the world to go, and our nation, I think it is important to be connected with the future. I can’t depend on other people to do that.”

Her undergraduate degrees, from California State Long Beach, are in African American studies, and Criminal Justice.

Sedinam accused Green Party administrators of unjustly favoring Stein. In January 2016, the Greens cancelled a Presidential Forum, according to Moyowasifza-Curry, because Stein did not want her on the ballot. Every Green candidate signed a petition to include Sedinam in the January forum, except Stein, she said, and then the event was cancelled.

Despite the treatment she has received, Moyowasifza-Curry says she has garnered ample support from other Greens in the party. Sedinam has raised $20,000 in her campaign.

In contrast, Stein met a $1 million goal on July 22, in her 10-day Clean Money campaign. It is hard to say that Stein does not have support. With Stein rising in national polls, it is also hard to say that Stein is not growing the Green base.

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If Sedinam doesn't get the nomination, she won't run in the next election. She plans to grow grapes on a vineyard in Ghana, where she worked for 2 years with the National Commission on Children.

Her political future will be "recruiting and training people of color to run at every level."

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