“Wazzup New York City?!” future hizzoner Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced at the Haitian concert, Bayo, in Brooklyn. “We are going to fight to get Haiti off the travel ban! We are going to stand up for Haiti because you taught the world about freedom!” 

My friend leaned close, turned the cell phone up. The shaky video panned inside the Barclays Center. Inside a churning sea of New Yorkers cheering, spinning shirts like helicopter blades, saying the Haitian, “Ohh-Ohh!”

My friend is Haitian and said Trump wants to deport her people. Mamdani can help stop it. The video paused. On my lap, the image of Mamdani on the Jumbotron, hand above his head like a lightning rod and surging toward him, a rising wave, New York, all of us, like a perfect storm. 

I sighed. Nowadays, President Trump is on TV, on our cellphones, on newspapers. He growls from the White House. He threatens our lives. He threatens war. He, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court are like an impenetrable castle. It’s felt hopeless. Until now. Until Zohran Mamdani. 

The people are rising again. We, New York, the birthplace of Trump, are finally ready to bury him. He uses divide and conquer. He uses hate and fear. We have the power of unity; it’s an awesome force holding the city together. Our unity is fueled by a need that cuts through religion, race, class, legal status. We need each other. New York thrives because every day, we see each other and we help. 

Looking up from the phone, I see neighbors and strangers talking, kids wobbly on bicycles, men giving a dead car a jump. It’s easy to see how Zohran won. He bet on the street, on the people. His victory is not enough. Already, the wealthy are lining up to defeat him. We need to do more than vote. We need a political revolution. The question remains: How badly do we want to be free? 

Street Signs

“Who the fuck is Quran?” I scrunched my mouth and held my hands out like why care. 

“Zohran,” he said. “With a Z. Zohran.” 

“Bro, I’m teasing you,” I motioned with my beer. 

My boy was all in on Mamdani. He was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He called and knocked on doors. Was this a man-crush? I saw Mamdani in a TikTok ad. The mayoral candidate had Golden Retriever energy, buoyant, jump on your chest and lick your face energy. 

We walked down Tompkins Avenue in Bed-Stuy as he gestured manically about the “new” New York that Mamdani heralded, like a mad scientist in a Hollywood movie. He was tall, Indian, always had a book in hand or pressed to his chest like a shield. I just couldn’t go there. I burnt out my gay-adjacent political man-crushes on Obama and Bernie. True believers saw what they needed to see. They saw Jesus walking across the Hudson. I saw another over-promising politician who will let us down.  

Cynicism protected me. Yet every step we took, the street was telling me to look again. Written on sidewalk chalk, I saw, “Save New York! Vote Zohran!” and “Don’t Rank Cuomo.” When I saw a poster of Zohran, it was untouched, pristine. When I saw one of Cuomo, it was trashed, ripped or devil horns drawn in magic marker on him. Zohran on streetlights. Zohran in windows. Zohran pamphlets at cafes and on cars. So many pamphlets that it looked like Valentine’s Day in Bed-Stuy with everyone carrying a red flower. 

I knew then, in a subconscious way, Zohran was going to win. The street chose him. The people spoke months before voting. New York wanted Zohran because Zohran saw us, and through him, we saw ourselves. We are stronger than racism. We are better than homophobia. We fight against classism. We call out scapegoating and fearmongering. We sacrifice ourselves to save each other’s lives. We did during 9/11, Hurricane Sandy and Covid. We did during the blackouts. We do it every day.  

The Street knows. The Street sees through our masks. It sees the Muslim teen skateboarding in a full hijab. It sees Hasidic men making it rain at the strip club. It sees half drunk Rastas, arms slung over pink-haired gay gentrifiers singing “True” by Spandau Ballet. It sees our kids, playing as the parents watch and play referee. It sees us struggle to keep our families together as the bills go unpaid and keep our jobs when the trains are late. It sees us try to give our children a better life when we can barely afford today. 

Toward the end of the campaign, Mamdani walked from Inwood Park at the top of Manhattan to the Staten Island Ferry, shaking hands, hugging, smiling and taking photos, giving dap. The video of his 15-mile trek went viral. He strode the Street and embraced the People. He put his body, and life out on the line to say, “I know who we really are. We are not the Concrete Jungle, Dog-Eat-Dog city that Mayor Adams portrayed. We are not the weak, scared city that Cuomo says only he can protect from Bad Trump. We are New York fucking City. We got this.” 

Voting for the Better Angels 

Election Day, I followed the street signs, the “Vote Zohran!” chalk, the pamphlets, the smiling neighbors playing his ads on cellphones, waiting in line. I went in the voting booth and filled in the circle next to Zohran. Outside, in the bright sun, I felt a weight drop from me. Fear.

I rubbed circles in my chest. The simple act of voting reminded me that all the right-wing propaganda was bullshit. It wasn’t real. We are real. We are more real than ideology. The power of New York is that it forces us to deal with the truth, the ugly truth and the handsome truth of real people. It is why 24 years after Islamic terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers and killed 3,000 of us, we can elect a Muslim Democratic Socialist. Zohran is New York, a city that only works because we recognize our common humanity. 

Trump lost in this election. Hate lost, too. I stood in the park, in the distance was the Freedom Tower. Next up, we win the mayor’s race. We take the streets back from ICE. We honor the working class with an affordable city. We show the nation and the world how it’s done. We got this. 

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