MONTVALE—Mayor Michael Ghassali defended the Borough Council and himself against charges that he mishandled a Black History Month event where he disinvited award-winning African American filmmaker Timothy Ware-Hill from a library children’s book reading.
Meanwhile, the borough has lost its appointed Diversity and Inclusion Committee, its seven former members waiting for Ghassali’s apology to Ware-Hill and for what they say are needed town committee reforms.
Former committee vice chair Cindy Lam Pieroni told Pascack Press that Ghassali acknowledged an email saying they were “disassociating” from the committee on Feb. 17, noting “It will be put into the record.”
Ware-Hill was to appear as a guest of the borough’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee to read “A Sweet Smell Of Roses” (2007), a Civil Rights-era picture book by Coretta Scott King Award-winners Angela Johnson and illustrator Eric Velasquez, for kids 5-8, on Feb. 22 on Zoom, but Ghassali rescinded the invitation, without input from the D&I Committee.
The book is about two Black girls going to see Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak. The event was Montvale’s sole official Black History Month event.
In Ware-Hill’s place, Ghassali invited 11-year-old Anastasia Tetteh-Briggs, last year’s Mayor For A Day, to read the book.
Ghassali had objected to a moment from a Ware-Hill project, the 7-minute “Cops and Robbers” (2020), described as “animation and activism unite in the multimedia spoken-word response to police brutality and racial injustice” in the wake of the Ahmaud Arbery incident: the unarmed 25-year-old Black jogger was chased and gunned down by two white men in his Georgia neighborhood.
The film is available on Netflix and tagged as “provocative [and] emotional,” a social-issue drama and adult animation in the streaming service’s Black Lives Matter collection.
Nearly 2 minutes in, an emotional montage includes a glimpse of scrawled writing, “F– the police,” which is given as part of background in a representation of a Black Lives Matter protest.
The narrator, yearning to live in a world in which all kids are free to play without fear, asks at this point, “May I rage for a moment for my baby who suffered? May I say… f– the system? Mother, may I… am his mother!”
The next scene, far more grounded, lingers over a clay animation-rendered Black mother grieving over a coffin, which is pulled away and leaves her bereft. The music here is the traditional spiritual “Trouble of the World,” which carries a message of hope and emancipation in heaven.
Ghassali disinvited Ware-Hill from the picture book reading, telling him that local police and others were opposed to his appearance and the potential for distraction and controversy.
In the aftermath, PBA Local 303, which Ware-Hill said Ghassali had said informed his decision, issued a strong statement saying that it did no such thing.
Its president, P.O. Brian Lamendola, on Feb. 16, said his organization “did not do any research or express any opinion to the mayor, nor anyone else, about Mr. Ware-Hill reading at the library, as confirmed in the mayor’s recent statement. In fact, the Montvale PBA supports all aspects of diversity, and wholeheartedly supports Mr. Ware-Hill’s participation in any of our community events.”
Lamendola said, “This police union is built on professionalism that aims to recognize all people equally.”
In contrast, Police Chief Joseph Sanfilippo repeatedly told us he had no comment on the mayor’s decision and his subsequent statements defending it.
Ware-Hill complained of the snub, and Ghassali’s explanation, on a nationally syndicated podcast, Higher Learning With Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay, and was interviewed by NBC New York.
He told the network in part, “I wasn’t asked to give a political speech or give my stance on my personal beliefs or Black Lives Matter. I felt like my name was being slandered because all of a sudden now I have a town saying that I hate cops when there is no evidence of that. I’ve never said those words, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe those words. I don’t hate cops.”
He said “A Sweet Smell of Roses” has “nothing to do with politics, has nothing to do with cops and has nothing to do with any films I’ve done in the past or plan to do in the present or future. It was just me literally reading the words from this children’s book … so that the little Black kids in that community can see and hear a person that looks like them.”
After this flap — and another last summer, in which Ghassali inserted state Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-39) into the speaking lineup at the D&I Pride in the Park festival against volunteers’ intent and wound up stripping committee VP Elizabeth Gloeggler of her post; and race-tinged controversy around use of the town basketball courts — committee members said they’d decided to “disassociate until significant changes have been made and a public apology is issued to Mr. Ware-Hill.”
Gloeggler told Pascack Press on April 14 she doubted Ghassali had watched the movie. “To be honest, he should have been standing up for the volunteers with his residents who called and said, ‘I don’t like this event.’ He should have had their backs like he should have had mine … These are residents; it was their event.”
According to Lam Pieroni, the D&I Committee met with Ghassali and Councilman Tim Lane on Feb. 15, “where they shared that they will issue an apology with how the situation was handled and escalated.”
She told Pascack Press on April 13 that on Feb. 16 she and committee president Amaka Auer asked Ghassali if an apology was going to be issued. “His response was the screenshot from ‘Cops and Robbers’ and ‘I am not doing anything now.’”
Residents criticize decision
Three residents asked Ghassali about the incident at the March 8 meeting of the governing body.
Matthew Solomon asked why the governing body was not using the D&I Committee to show that Montvale is “welcoming of all people.”
He noted the mayor and council “are happy to receive the positive glow of the D&I Committee … but diversity isn’t just platitudes about the language that we speak and inclusion is sometimes riskier than celebrating different foods that cultures eat.”
He said, “Responsibility isn’t just about stop signs and taxes” and that being responsible is about being responsible for decisions and the way that Montvale is viewed by other towns “and you are failing in that responsibility,” Solomon said.
He said, “Repeatedly since this D&I Committee has been formed, the mayor and council have failed to serve all of the families of Montvale.
Jodi Sullivan told the mayor and council in March that the controversy was “an embarrassment … it was unnecessary to have gotten to that point.”
She asked the mayor and council to “rethink their stance on that committee” and to “work together with them to make Montvale a place where tolerance and understanding is the norm rather than novelty.”
Another resident said she felt the disinvitation was a “knee-jerk reaction.” She said most adults can distinguish between content appropriate and inappropriate for children and asked, “Why wasn’t he [Ware-Hill] given the benefit of the doubt?”
She said because Ware-Hill is a writer on a children’s Disney TV series, “he clearly understands the difference between what’s appropriate for adults and what’s appropriate for children.”
She asked why he wasn’t given consideration for understanding the difference in material appropriate for both audiences.
“It was given,” Ghassali said.
Moreover, he said he did not know that Ware-Hill was the cousin of a D&I member and that he has a written apology prepared for Ware-Hill over his handling of the incident. He said he’d called the filmmaker five times, left two voicemails, and sent one text message since the disinvitation — and has not heard back.
“I’m not calling him again,” Ghassali said.
He acknowledged that police brutality is real, wrong, and unacceptable, and said that message “needs to come out and needs a conversation and action to stop it.” He added, “Not all police are bad.”
The mayor repeated his objection to the moment from Ware-Hill’s film that sparked the disinvitation and asserted, “The media does not want to show this frame from the movie ‘Cops and Robbers’ at the time stamp 1:45, because it’s ‘too disturbing.’”
That’s not so from our experience. As an editor’s note in our Feb. 18 story “Montvale in spotlight as mayor disinvites Black History Month reader; volunteers call for apology” explained, “We are not printing the screenshot here, believing the reader is better served by watching the entire work, which provides the artist’s context and keeps that moment in perspective.”
Ghassali showed that screenshot to residents at the March 8 council meeting — it appeared on delayed broadcast via Montvale TV — and said that if this is content the borough wants to expose kids to “then we have a bigger problem than just reading a book.”
Ghassali said he believed that children, after hearing Ware-Hill speak, would be curious about what movie he had made. He said both children and adults would be curious about “Cops and Robbers.”
“And I don’t want my kids, or my friends’ kids, to go and see that movie. Because it’s one-sided, and god bless Netflix and God bless the Disney Channel [Ware-Hill is a writer on a Disney series], for having him; they’re more progressive than I am. But that’s not the role model for the kids. For the adults, 100%, we can have that conversation. But not with the kids and that’s the whole story,” said the mayor.
Ghassali said the Montvale Public Library had not approved of Ware-Hill as guest reader prior to him being announced by the Diversity & Inclusion Committee. It was not clear why the guest reader needed the library’s approval.
Ghassali said that the Diversity & Inclusion Committee annual budget increased from $2,000 to $7,000 this year, indicating his and the council’s support for a lively slate of events.
Ghassali said Ware-Hill’s “invitation is still open for him to come in and we have a conversation [about policing and race in America]. It’s an important message that he has and that we want to hear, but not with kids.”
Film too graphic?
We were unable to reach Ware-Hill for comment. In a July 2021 interview with Alternative Press, he is asked, “How would you respond to critics who think your film is too graphic?” He replies, “I would say that’s subjective. I would say it’s no more graphic than the videos that we’re traumatized by every month of new Black killings, and if you feel it’s too graphic, then maybe it’s not for you, and that’s fine as well.”
His interviewer also asked, “Do you think you could use this film as a way to help explain racial profiling and police brutality to young children?”
Ware-Hill replies, “Absolutely, I think it can be. There is strong language within the film, but the language isn’t as strong as Black kids being killed by cops. Think of Tamir Rice — he was a baby. Go even further back and think about Emmett Till. I think it can be used as a tool for kids to learn.”
He says, “The sad reality is the talk that every Black kid gets from their parent/guardian that happens at a young age because it has to happen at a young age. So this can be a tool for little Black kids, but it can also be a tool for white kids to show this is what your peers go through, and a white kid can help use this as a tool to become an ally and help make significant change happen.”
On April 11, we asked Ghassali for the letter of apology he said he’d prepared. He replied, “I am not going to comment anymore on this story. Let me know if you have any questions on anything else.”
The March 8 Borough Council meeting video is online.
— With John Snyder