The
TANGERINE
VOL. LXXVIl, ISSUE 1
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024
UTICATANGERINE.COM
Center for Faculty Excellence opens
MLK Jr. documentary by Utica alum
Sport highlights over break
NEWS | PG. 6
FEATURES | PG. 9
SPORTS| PG. 10
Congressional candidate Dr. Clemmie Harris seeks to reframe gun debate ◊
DIANA SIDOREVICH, MANAGING EDITOR
Dr. Clemmie Harris, assistant professor of history and director of Africana Studies set to square off with three other Democratic candidates running for the NY-22 Congressional seat, wants to address the mainstreaming of political extremism. Harris said political extremism is an existential threat to the democratic structure of the U.S. as well as the nation’s political and civic institutions and is directly tied to gun violence. Harris is a centrist Democrat whose policies represent moderate and progressive political interests including calling for a ban on the domestic sale of assault weapons, background checks on the sale of every handgun and a restorating of racial and ethnic consideration for affirmative action policies. A native of Buffalo who now resides in the Syracuse area, Harris is running against Jacob Addington, Sarah Klee
Hood and John Mannion. The Democratic candidates agree on many points, but Harris said his background in military service and career in law enforcement qualifies him to address gun violence above the other candidates. If elected, the former combat trained drill sergeant for the U.S. Army Reserve hopes to re-conceptualize the gun debate from a conversation centering around the Second Amendment to a conversation with public safety, public health, mental health, economic health and education as a foundation. Harris was first approached to run for Congress in 2007 by a former New York State Police superintendent. His background and attendance at the University of Pennsylvania qualified Harris, but at the time, he did not believe that was his calling. “I believed my calling was as a professor of global Africa or Africana and I believed it was my calling to be a scholar of
/ Photo courtesy of Dr. Clemmie Harris American democracy through the lens of the long, Black freedom struggle,” Harris said. That changed in May 2022, after a racially motivated massacre at a Buffalo supermarket. Harris’ mother and aunt scheduled a visit to the supermarket where the shooting occurred that day, but providentially changed plans and avoided a mass shooting in their hometown, at
the store they regularly shopped at. “That was a pivotal moment,” Harris said. “I began to ask myself, given all that I have done as a former combat trained drill sergeant, as a former road trooper and criminal investigator, as someone who helped shape New York state policies…and CON. ON PAGE 4