magnificently impatient
gets the people going/ a song about gathering against all odds*
Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor of New York City. i attended a rally for him yesterday, on a rainy and gray afternoon, with hundreds of other people. among the speakers were comedians, musicians, and other politicians who have endorsed him. it was on.1
his campaign has knocked more doors than any campaign in history. yesterday they acknowledged the people who have never gotten involved in politics before who were in the room, who have been spurred. he’s getting the people going.
one of the speakers was city council member Chi Ossé. he shared about harnessing people power to defeat the real estate lobby to pass the FARE act which requires that landlords pay broker fees instead of tenants.2
“they said it couldn’t be done, and we said watch us”
this is what can happen when we have dykes for president and by dykes for president i mean college dropouts for city council. i mean openly queer, Black, practicing buddhist, former club promoter, in the streets during the uprisings of 2020, member of gen Z for city council.3 i hadn’t known that Chi Ossé is the youngest member of city council ever. that man was born in 1998 lol. he got elected at age 23! and i digress.
Chi Ossé also described New Yorkers as “magnificently impatient” which pierced me. it felt so true and it felt so affectionate. and don’t we deserve leaders who notice the beauty in what so often gets knocked? don’t we deserve leaders who remind us of our power, who—with their vision, energy, commitment, principles—motivate us to use it? like Chi, like Zohran.
the thing about people who are impatient is that they want things. and the whole wanting of things usually leads to making those things happen. and while the abysmally corrupt establishment squawks about the obstacles and impossibilities, and the hand wringers indulge in despair, these dogged leaders and the people in motion ring the doorbells and move towards the how.
I have extra copies of seeking exhale volume iii……..email your address to skallison.27@gmail.com if you want one in the mail!
“And then if you're lucky, and I have been lucky, everything comes back to you. And then you know why one of the freedom fighters in the sixties, a young Black woman interviewed shortly after she was beaten up for riding near the front of an interstate bus—you know why she said, "We are all so very happy." It's because it's on. All of us and me by myself: we're on.” — June Jordan, Civil Wars Intro
https://www.culturedmag.com/cult-100/chi-osse
*how musician Ali Sethi who performed at the rally introduced his music!!!
https://www.bylinebyline.com/articles/chi-osse-city-council-nyc-creative-communities