August 24, 2020
what we would now call microaggressions. Comments like, ‘You’re smarter than I would expect,’ or, ‘You’re so articulate. You’re so well-spoken for a Black person,’ or, ‘What is it like to have nappy hair?’” Those microaggressions continued through high school and in college as well. “People were shocked that I had a functioning cerebral cortex, or that I could piece together a sentence,” Torres recalled. “I would respond sarcastically whenever anyone said that I spoke white. I would simply point out, ‘I speak better than most white people.’” Torres attended Herbert H. Lehman High School, which at the time was a school of about 5,000 students in a building designed for no more than 2,000. “It was one of the largest high schools in New York City, and I was the intellectual equivalent of the captain of the football team,” Torres said. “I was the captain of the law team, something of a celebrity within the boundaries of the school.” Torres participated in moot court, in which students argue a case before a panel of judges in the face of rigorous questioning. He credits it for his ability to think critically, and on his feet. “The purpose of a trial court, mock trial, is fact finding,” he explained. “But moot court is about legal interpretation, which is much more abstract, much heavier in critical thinking, so I felt that was helpful.” Though he wasn’t ideological, and he was never a member of the student government, Torres’ peers thought the internship he accepted at the deputy mayor’s office was a good fit. He said he was viewed by his classmates as a person destined for political leadership, but that he had no thoughts about running for City Council or Congress. But, Torres explained, “I had an inchoate sense of myself as a political animal.” One day, while Torres was browsing the internet, he stumbled across the MySpace profile of a teacher who identified as gay. It was the first time in his life that he had encountered an openly LGBTQ person. Torres had never considered the possibility of coming out before. He overheard insidious expressions of homophobia in his community growing up – casual use of the anti-gay slur that starts with F, for example – and saw no LGBTQ visible presence. People hardly suspected his own homosexuality – “I might qualify as a straight-acting gay,” he said – but Torres never spoke about girls. Torres spontaneously came out to this teacher, who became a mentor to him, taking him to his first Pride parade in 2005 and to the LGBT Center in Manhattan. The sense of acceptance was new to him, but coming out is a process for many queer people. When he was a junior in high school, Torres came out publicly, in a debate about the definition of marriage. It was a seesaw of returning to the closet and coming out for many years, until he ran for the City Council in 2013. “That was
City & State New York
the definitive moment of coming out for me,” he remembered. “I came to conclude that if you are deceitful about your personal life, then you’re likely to be deceitful about your professional life.” Torres said that he never considered how he would approach his sexuality on the campaign trail. There was no special strategy, nor any intentional obfuscation. He believes that the distinction often drawn between the personal and the professional is a false compartmentalization. “Your character, your integrity, your authenticity, cuts across those artificial categories,” Torres said. “I felt I owed it to myself, and I owed it to the people that I was going to represent to be honest and open about who I am.”
“THE ASSUMPTION THERE IS THAT IT’S UNTHINKABLE THAT A YOUNG, POOR KID OF COLOR FROM THE BRONX RAISED $1.7 MILLION ON HIS OWN.”
– Ritchie Torres
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ITCHIE’S REALLY a cool guy,” said Gibson, who is friends with Torres. “For those that have the chance to hang out with him, going out to dinner and being in social settings, they see that Ritchie’s very laid back. He’s not loud. He’s very quiet. You wouldn’t think that he talks a lot.” Gibson confesses that because of his age and stature – he is slender and stands 5 feet 10 inches tall – she tends to regard Torres as a little brother. Last summer, at community parties in the Bronx, they danced with residents. “We’re all people of color, so I assumed that Ritchie could dance,” she recalls, laughing. “So I was like, ‘Come on, Ritchie, come on let’s dance to bachata, hip hop.” At first Torres was a little bit awkward, she recalled affectionately, before he eventually got the hang of it. “I said, ‘Ritchie, come on, now, you’re a Black man, you have to have rhythm!’” Because she chaired the public safety committee, Gibson was involved in what Torres characterizes as his most challenging legislative battle to date. Her committee heard the original Right to Know Act – the law that set new measures for police interactions with civilians – which was two bills, one authored by Torres and one by Council Member Antonio Reynoso.
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Not unlike today, it was a tumultuous time in New York City. Eric Garner had been killed by NYPD officers on Staten Island, and his family and many enraged New Yorkers were asking for accountability and transparency in the police department. “The Mothers in the Movement and many other advocates, (Communities United for Police Reform) and the Justice League, and civil rights organizations were demanding that we try to put legislation into law that would really change the behavior of cops,” Gibson said. The advocates wanted all traffic stops included in the bill, and the de Blasio administration was adamantly against that, wanting increased rules for police identification to only apply in limited circumstances. “We got to an impasse, where Ritchie, as the prime sponsor, had to make a decision,” Gibson said. “Do I conform to what the administration wants, which is a watered-down version of the bill, and pass that, or do I hold off and stand with the advocates and the Mothers in the Movement, knowing the opposition?” Without consulting the advocates, Torres moved forward with the revised bill. “I made a decision to broker a compromise, not with the police unions, which is a lie that’s often told, but with the administration, the mayor and the speaker’s office,” Torres said. “I felt, if the speaker is against you, and the mayor is against you, and the NYPD is against you, then there’s a limit to what you can accomplish, right? There’s only so much you can accomplish in the face of overwhelming obstructionism and opposition from the three most powerful forces in city government.” Torres said he still thinks about this often. He believes, with the momentum of the current political moment, they could have gone farther. Gibson agrees. “Was it the right decision to broker the compromise over the objections of the advocates?” Torres asked himself aloud. “Was it the right decision to even take, agree to the bill?” Torres argued that he is most effective when he’s free to operate independently, but with progressive values, rather than as a movement progressive like the rising tide of elected officials who belong to the Democratic Socialists of America. “There are some elected officials who can operate effectively as an agent of a coalition, and enact the will of the coalition,” Torres said. “I am admittedly not one of those. I operate best when I’m operating independently. So am I an effective legislator? Yes. Am I the ideal movement progressive? Admittedly, no.” For the Bronx, Torres didn’t need to be a movement progressive. In the end, being who he is was enough to make history.
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A. G. Sims is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.