With the departure of Sen. Amy Klobuchar yesterday, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Sunday, African-American Democratic voters are now left with five choices as to who they will support for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. One of those choices, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, has spent $463 million on his campaign, according to Federal Election Commission figures, in part, to reach Black voters in particular and convince them that he has a plan would benefit them most; and, most importantly, that he is the only one that can defeat Donald Trump in November.

Since he launched his campaign last November, he has picked up the endorsements of several high profile African-Americans including Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill), Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and another former New York City mayor, David Dinkins. In an attempt to reach Black voters, a reported $3.5 million has been spent on Black media alone.

But the billionaire businessman has not been without his critics. He has been widely criticized in recent weeks for comments that many say were racist, including one from a resurfaced interview in which he said: “Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city.” Bloomberg issued an apology for what he said, but the comment has dogged his campaign, nonetheless.

During an exclusive conversation with BET.com on the eve of Super Tuesday, Bloomberg dissected his “Greenwood Initiative,” a plan designed to address Black wealth building and homeownership, as well as current controversies that have encircled his campaign like his tepid response to the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” activity during his mayoral tenure and the group of attendees that turned their back on him Sunday at a church in Selma, Alabama.

Bloomberg on Brown Chapel AME Church attendees turning their backs

For our first question, the Democratic candidate addressed how he felt when a group of churchgoers turned their backs to him in protest while he spoke to a Selma, Alabama congregation on the 55th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” demonstration in 1965. It is unclear specifically why the protestors made the gesture and it has not been addressed publicly by the church’s leadership.

During his speech at Brown Chapel AME Church, he talked about voter suppression and the struggle for civil rights. But about ten minutes into his address, a group of people in attendance silently stood up and faced the rear of the church. They kept standing until Bloomberg’s remarks were over.

BET News: At the Brown Chapel AME Church over this weekend in Selma, Ala. You were there to speak about Bloody Sunday that took place in 1965 at the commemoration of 55 years. But during that presentation, a group of churchgoers there actually stood up and turned their backs towards you.

Michael Bloomberg: I think it was six out of probably 2000 people in the room.

BET News: Well, what would you say to people, because there've been so many things that have been said over the last few months, what would you say to them to get them back on your side, to convince them to support you?

Bloomberg: Well, you're not going to have everybody on your side no matter who you are, or what you say, or what your positions are. And one of the nice things about America is that you can speak your mind and protest and they didn't yell and scream and try to break up my speech. They just stood with their backs turned.

This is not the first time that I have been at a place where they did that. Although I will say the other times were at college campuses, college graduations, and they were protesting the president of the school rather than me. So this time they were protesting me. That's okay. Generally I would say I didn't bother because it was in a church. If it'd been any place else, I would have said, thank you for making me feel at home. And that always gets a big laugh.

Bloomberg on police accountability, the justice department and the stop and frisk controversy

Regarding the New York Police Department’s “stop and frisk” practice, which actually began prior to Bloomberg taking office as mayor in 2002, he has done an about face. As recently as a year ago, he defended the police action of temporarily stopping, detaining and questioning and searching citizens for weapons or contraband. 

At its height, during Bloomberg’s tenure as many as 685,000 people were stopped, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. About 605,000 had committed no crime, 350,000 were Black, 223,000 were Hispanic. But in November, he called the policy a “mistake” and said he didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the Black and Latino communities.”

In this clip, he takes a forward spin, pledging to appoint an attorney general who would lead a Justice Department that would in turn take responsibility for police department oversight.

BET News: Now at the height of the New York city police department stop and frisk activity, which you've talked about before, as many as 685,000 people were stopped, reportedly. You've since apologized for what happened, but would you appoint an attorney general who would hold police departments accountable, for things like police brutality and police misconduct?

Bloomberg: Absolutely. I think we should, regardless of stop and frisk, we should have a justice department that provides some oversight. When at the local level you, people don't act, consistent with American values. You know, the justice department that we have today is weak. But having said that, you want to give everybody a fair hearing, and if you believe, let's say a local trial or the way a local police department or government runs, that justice is not being served....the classic example is when a cop shoots somebody.

Invariably, everybody says that the cop didn't act in the right way, we have to do two things: One, you’ve got to make sure that the police do what is consistent with our values and legal as well. And number two, you've got to make sure that if the cop didn't do anything wrong, that the justice department does a complete investigation and say it's not because we want our cops to be out there and willing to protect us. That's what keeps us from suffering.

BET News: Sounds like you're saying that the justice department needs sort of a top down shakeup.

Bloomberg: I'm not close enough to know, but from what I read in the paper, it certainly does.

Bloomberg on reparations to African Americans 

Last month, Bloomberg said that he would get behind undertaking a study exploring monetary reparations being paid to the descendants of Black Americans who were enslaved over the course of centuries. He also has said publicly that he supports H.R. 40, which is a commission to study reparations that was introduced in Congress in January 2019 by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex). His campaign rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren also has supported the bill.

Bloomberg stopped short of saying that he would call for reparations, emphasizing that he believes education and wealth building is most important for African Americans to achieve social and financial equality.
Here, he discusses why he supports the study, but also why he is unconvinced that reparations would ever be meted out fairly or correctly, then begins to segue into his ideas for what could work economically for the community.

BET News: Now, a 2019 Gallup polls show that, 29 percent of Americans supported monetary reparations for the descendants of those who were enslaved. Given consistent economic inequalities and systemic racism, what's your stand on this and would you support it even if the majority of Americans do not?

Bloomberg: I made a commitment to look at a study to have a study done, but I think that the ways it'll probably come out is we are better off spending money to improve education because without a good education you have no economic opportunities and you're just not going to be able to share in the great American dream. I think we have to invest in things like the Greenwood Initiative of improving the opportunities to own a house, to have a business, a Black-owned business, and economics in neighborhoods where people live so that they can share and get those jobs and get those services. Home ownership is dramatically, disgracefully low among African American communities, but those kinds of things, that's I think where I would come out. But I've said I would listen to a study. 

The trouble with reparations is it would be maybe impossible or very difficult to decide who gets what. It would be very unpopular in this country, and you have to be realistic and you have to promote things that you have a chance of doing. I think unfortunately our ideologies can take over, and we wind up yelling and screaming at each other and don't do anything. I'm a doer. 

Okay. I think we should fix these problems. If you take a look, we've had 300 years of discrimination in this country. We've had a period from reconstruction through today where we have promised that we would make everybody equal, give everybody the vote, let them vote when they want to vote, have economic opportunity, all of those kinds of things. And yet I look and I still see the average Black family in America has one-tenth the net worth of the average white family. So when somebody says that we're going in the right direction, maybe, but it's a slow pace. I won't see it my lifetime. Well, you know, that's unacceptable. 

Bloomberg on increasing Black homeownership

According to a study done by ProsperityNow.org, between 1983 and 2013, the wealth of median Black and Latino households decreased by 75 percent (from $6,800 to $1,700) and 50 percent (from $4,000 to $2,000), respectively, while median White household wealth rose by 14 percent (from $102,200 to $116,800). If current trends continue, by the end of this year, median Black and Latino households stand to lose nearly 18 percent  and 12 percent, respectively, of the wealth they held in 2013. In that same timeframe, median White household wealth would see an increase of 3 percent .

Bloomberg believes his Greenwood Initiative is an important step to address those gaps.

BET News: That kind of leads us into my questions about the the Greenwood Initiative. It proposes a million new homeowners, yet despite record low unemployment and you know, higher wages, black homeownership levels, as you said, have dropped each year.

Bloomberg: You can do some things about this. Let me give you a good example, right? If you don't have a branch bank in your neighborhood, there's a very high probability you will not have a checking account. If you don't have a checking account, you can't get a mortgage. If you can't get a mortgage, you can't buy a house. So the fact that home ownership is drastically and disgracefully low, surprise, surprise! That's one of the things you can do. There are a whole bunch of things. There are federal programs that we pass laws. Congress is great at this. They pass laws, they do a press conference, then nobody enforces the law and they probably don't fund it. 

Okay, if I were the victim of all of this, I would be awful annoyed -- is a nice way to phrase it. I would turn to my congressmen and my senators and say, “no mas,” you just can't keep doing this. You're promising us again and again and again, a better future and you never delivered.

BET News: So then what concrete steps would you or your administration take to address this gap?

Bloomberg: You have to make financing better available. That's not just having banks have local branches. I think redlining has stopped mostly in this country, but the fact that they don't have a branch in your neighborhood, they're not going to understand the neighborhood. And it isn't [that] they're redlining, they just don't know what you're talking about when you say I want to live on this street. If they don't know where the street is, they're not going to finance you. It isn't that they're looking and saying, I won't finance somebody who is of a certain ethnicity or orientation, or religion. You have to have local services provided if you want them to understand. 

BET News: So then is the answer more Black banks in the community, and would your administration support that?

Bloomberg: Yes. But also branches of the bigger banks. When I was mayor in New York, we supported a lot of Black-owned banks. The one that I'd supported the most was Carver [Federal Savings Bank], because I knew the people that started the bank. But there's lots of small banks, you can get them going, but the branches of the big banks are so important because that's where all the money is, the resources and the expertise and we've got to pressure those banks to open in neighborhoods, and I can tell you how to do that. You have local elected officials...you have them at the state level and you have the federal government, you know, we do regulate the banks and we do audit them. So you can certainly pressure them to do some of these things.

Bloomberg on increasing Black business

While Bloomberg was New York City mayor, minority and women-owned enterprises were only just 2.7 percent of city businesses and the poverty rate was disproportionately high for Black residents. There are also similar nationwide wealth disparities between Blacks and whites. According to the Brookings Institution, the net worth of a typical white family is at $171,000, while for Blacks its about $17,000. 

Bloomberg discussed his historical analysis to drive his point across about why the Greenwood Initiative is so crucial in his plan to get more Black businesses running, thereby boosting Black wealth.
BET News: The Greenwood Initiative also proposes increasing black business ownership by creating 100,000 new Black-owned businesses in the next decade. But by the end of your tenure as mayor of New York, Black poverty was as much as 21 percent. So how would your administration increase black entrepreneurship?

Bloomberg: I don't know how many of your viewers know what Greenwood is. Let me just quickly describe it. I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma maybe four months ago, and somebody told me about Greenwood, which I had never heard about, and I read every history book, particularly American history, and never once do I remember it being mentioned. What it was is a small town, very wealthy, all, virtually all African American outside of Tulsa. It was called “Black Wall Street.” It had nothing to do with Wall Street. I don't know where the title came from, but I don't think it had anything to do with it. But regardless...in the middle of the night in 1921, a white mob came through at night, burnt the town to the ground and killed 200 people. So when I had heard about this, the next time I was in Tulsa, I went to see it and there's a church that survived, or at least, I mean it was rebuilt on the same site or something like that. 

I got to see what happened and you could see the pictures and those foundations where buildings had been. And I decided this was where I wanted to enunciate my policy on how you make improved conditions for different groups, Blacks, Native Americans, different things for each group, because it's where they are, and the size of the problem is different, and I use that as a venue. And so I gave a speech in Greenwood and it set out an objective of a million new homes. I think it was to double the number of black businesses and triple the...amount of wealth and keep in mind tripling sounds like a lot. But if you go from down 90 percent and you triple it, you're only at 40 percent or 30 percent. 

So there's a long way still to go, even then. But what I tried to lay out is a concrete plan where we have specific things that I think are doable. It would take four or five years, maybe a little bit more, but not something that's gonna be pie in the sky for 20 years from now with no funding, and another thing where the politicians can give things to their friends. That's just not the way I ran New York City. I can tell you, if you lived in New York city, most people you'd never get 100 percent, but most people would say when Bloomberg administration started a program, they actually got it done. 

Bloomberg on what his marijuana policy would be

During the Democratic debate, Bloomberg reiterated that more research should be done regarding the physical effects of marijuana, particularly on young people. But also says it makes no sense to jail someone for a small amount of the substance. According to the ACLU, marijuana arrests account for as much as half of all drug arrests nationwide and Blacks are 3.73 percent more likely to be arrested than whites.

Bloomberg said he supports decriminalizing marijuana and expunging records and commutations of at least some sentences. He also told BET.com there are ways the states must handle the changes in marijuana laws and he also speaks about how the federal government should handle it.

BET News: You've said more science is needed regarding, marijuana and how it affects people. Yes. But you've also said you support decriminalization. 

Bloomberg: Look, you shouldn't give people even a desk ticket or run them through the system or throw them in jail because of a small amount of marijuana. If they're a dealer, then I feel very differently about it. But it depends on the state. Some states have have already legalized it. The horse is out of the barn. You're, you're not going to put that back. [So] decriminalize it right away as the first thing to do. But I also think that states should go very carefully because doctors and scientists say they want to do a lot more testing before they would say it does not harm. 

Initial evidence seems to say that particularly boys rather than girls in their late teens, early twenties, that their brain is hurt by marijuana and if you use enough of it that you can have your IQ permanently reduced for the rest of your life. I mean, we're playing with people's lives and health and economic viability. We should be careful. 

BET News: If states have a certain role in a way they should go, then what roles should the federal government take in this?

Bloomberg: Well, at the moment there's a federal law...but nobody pays attention to it. I think it's legally a federal federal law.

BET News: It's schedule one right now. But would you have that changed?

Bloomberg: Yeah, sure. And I would be convinced if the doctors and scientists said it does not hurt people, then I think you start looking at states that have it as a higher rates of automobile accident, higher rates of domestic violence, places where you would look that drugs might influence people to do bad things. 

And you know, I wouldn't just automatically say yes. This is real science you can do. And I know everybody says, oh, I want to be free to go smoke a joint. And you know, when I first came to New York and in my twenties did I smoke a joint? Of course I did, but it was nowhere near as strong as it is today, and the science wasn't done. If the science shows that there's a real problem, then you know, I'd be hard pressed to understand why we should let young people ruin their future.