I’m a third-generation Brooklynite, born and raised in East New York by a single mother. We lived with my grandma in NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] buildings that were called the “Pink Houses” before we eventually moved to another set of apartments, also in East New York, called Fairfield Towers. I am also the proud product of the New York City public-school system.

East New York has a rich socialist history with [longtime city council and state assembly member] Charles Barron and Operation P.O.W.E.R. [People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect], who were always organizing in my neighborhood when I was growing up. Even if you were not engaged in politics personally, that was still the air you were breathing.

My grandmother and my mother centered politics more directly through voting and community. As a child, I remember going with my mom and grandmother to vote, where they impressed upon me the importance of using my voice at the ballot box. My grandmother was really involved in her church, so I spent time as a kid volunteering in food banks and at shelters. That spirit of community and giving set the foundations for my politics and for this campaign.

Similarly, coming from a union family made a strong impression on me. For eighteen years, my uncle was the vice president of DC37 Local 924, representing city-employed construction workers. My mom was a shop steward for Communications Workers of America Local 1101, which represented telecom workers.

NYCHA is the genesis of my story, and I mention it every campaign speech, because people who come from public housing are too often forgotten. When my family first moved to the Pink Houses, from what I understand, it was mostly white people. I think the project was treated with more respect at its conception; it was something to care for.

But as the Pink Houses became more ethnically diverse, they took on a different character. As federal funding for the public housing system dried up, the have-nots and the forgotten — the people who already lacked political influence — were left without a way to fight for what they needed.

Community organizers have been fighting on this terrain for decades, but it’s an uphill battle against the real-estate industry, which has bought off the establishment with its unparalleled war chest. For too long, those in power have not shown any interest in investing in the needs of its constituents, forgoing all the positive opportunities fully funded public housing can afford people.

We need to wrest back control from large developers and put it in the people’s hands. That’s why I am very supportive of Emily Gallagher’s green social housing proposal, which would establish the Social Housing Development Authority to build affordable public housing.

After decades of attempted quick fixes and austerity, this offers a long-term, sustainable solution to combat housing insecurity and the climate crisis. It also promotes use of union labor, which is a necessary component of any socialist legislation, and it’s encouraging that the Building Trades Council has endorsed Rep. Gallagher’s bill.

We also need to focus on the New Yorkers being pushed out of their homes because the jobs that they have are not offering enough, rent is increasing, and there’s no recourse or protections for tenants. Evictions are on the rise, driving working-class and lower-class families out of their neighborhoods.

The district I’m running in is 77-percent renters, and it has been devastated by predatory landlords. We can address this by fighting for things like the good cause eviction bill, which offers stronger tenant protections and rent stability.

Passing this legislation can also have an impact far beyond New York. Like with passage of the Build Public Renewables Act, our state can lead the way in this country and show that you can deliver real change that puts people over profits.

The difference is reflected in the policies we fight for, like good cause and green social housing, and in campaign finances, which often drive policy. I do not accept any money from the real-estate industry. I expect they will dump tons of money to attack this campaign, which is fine, because I welcome their hatred.

The other key difference is how we fight for them: through organizing the working class. Look at the Housing Justice for All rallies in Albany, for example. Socialists understand that individual politicians will not win transformative change. To reimagine housing in New York, millions of people need to apply pressure at the ballot box, in their workplace, in their neighborhood to demand more. Having people in office who embrace that is why campaigns like this are so critical.

Having grown up in the projects while the United States waged endless war abroad and the Great Recession devastated the working class, it feels like my whole life has been a moment of radicalization. Capitalism makes you beat yourself up and think you’re not grinding hard enough and that’s why you’re not successful, even when you know that you’re doing everything you can and are somehow still falling short.

It was so illuminating when Bernie Sanders ran, because I realized I wasn’t alone — the policies that I believed in had wide appeal. Through following that campaign, I learned about DSA specifically. Not long after, I heard about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign to challenge Joseph Crowley. It caught my attention, and I actually attended an early meeting for her campaign.

I was in the midst of the contract negotiations for my union, so I did not have the opportunity to get involved in that campaign. But I remember feeling so impressed to be sitting in a room packed with volunteers to support a candidate with a shared identity: a young New Yorker of color, who believed in radical change that could only be accomplished with a mass movement.

When she won, it was a moment of clarity. Not only did DSA and other organizations support her to give voice to a new style of politics that was activating so many young people, but she actually won. That was what solidified DSA as an organization for me. Since AOC, DSA has built on that success by electing people like Jabari Brisport in Bed-Stuy, who I’m proud to run alongside.

It’s being connected to a movement that makes it possible to deliver real, tangible wins. I am not running this campaign to advance a personal career, or with the notion that I alone can fix decades of misgovernance. I’m running because I’m an organizer who has developed my politics through working in the community with my neighbors, and now I’m hoping to carry that message to Albany.

One voice is not enough to challenge the establishment — it will take an organized, multiracial working-class movement. Since launching this campaign, we have already seen people try to slander me with personal attacks. Instead of contending with the politics that this movement represents, they want to attack me as an individual who’s carrying this message.

It’s because Jabari and DSA pose a threat to the foundations of the establishment — namely the real-estate and charter-school industries. DSA offers a genuine alternative to Democratic Party politics as usual, and that terrifies them. No longer are we going to allow special interests to impede progress in this state.

The same people attacking Jabari have attacked my character and questioned the integrity of our campaign. I have been attacked for being a salesperson, as if to suggest that because I’m a salesperson, I’m not qualified to be engaged in politics. I was a parent-teacher association president for three years; I stepped up when my school was in crisis when the previous principal of the school left. During remote schooling, I fundraised for the children who didn’t have tablets, for teachers to get printers, and for students who needed winter clothes.

My opponents have also tried to act as if I just dropped in out of nowhere, despite the fact that I’m a third-generation Brooklynite who has lived here my whole life. I was doing these things before I ran for office. This campaign is a culmination of my service in the community.

Yes. I don’t doubt she had good intentions when she won this office, but you can’t disentangle the money she receives from her positions. It has made her hostile to the voices of tenant groups and housing activists, people on the ground pushing for a bill [good-cause eviction protections] that would massively benefit this community. Yet she still chooses to stand with the real estate industry, and she uses the Democratic Party and the black political establishment to shield herself from criticism.

Likewise, you can’t disentangle the donations I’ve received from my platform. I won’t owe lobbyists anything when I win. I am able to remain uncompromised because I haven’t accepted that money, and I keep emphasizing that the district is 77-percent renters, because that’s who will elect me.

Education is really important to me. Like I said, I’m a product of the New York City public-school system; my wife was a teacher for over eighteen years, and our children attend public school as well.

Their schools have lost funding, which leads to their classmates going to different schools. It’s a vicious cycle where the underfunded, under-resourced school can’t provide the things that the parents want, so the parents are forced to look for alternatives like charter schools, which siphon dollars and students.

People are being forced [to do this because] they want to do best by their child, and I don’t fault them for it, but it’s not sustainable. Unfortunately, my opponent is someone who has accepted money from charter schools.

Health care is another key issue. We need single-payer health care, because our current system of employer-provided coverage and a means-tested public option is not good enough. I’ve had jobs where I have a supposedly strong plan, but still end up paying excessive out-of-pocket fees because the marketplace says I have to. We need to disentangle health care from that.

The National Guard stuff is ridiculous and performative. I grew up in East New York, which is not a neighborhood that’s known for being a safe place. I know people want to feel safe, but they also want to know that the laws are applied equally, which has historically not been the case.

We know that overpolicing our public spaces and militarizing the subway is only going to lead to more misery and arrests, especially for people of color. Just look at stop and frisk.

We need to address the public by foregrounding community engagement, and it starts with addressing the weakened social-safety net that has devastated New Yorkers and exacerbated material stress on communities. Cutting library hours or staff for public pools, like Eric Adams has done, is counterproductive. The long-term answer for public safety — which socialists have been advocating — is affordable housing, adequate health care, and well-funded schools.

I am proud of the way that DSA and other organizations have engaged in the fight for a cease-fire and Palestinian liberation, and in particular organizing the public to challenge the establishment to stop this massacre. From mass rallies and marches to phone banks and political education to, most recently, the Uncommitted campaigns in Democratic primaries across the country, more and more people are clear in their opposition to this slaughter. This moment is very reminiscent of the way people, and black leaders in particular, fought against apartheid in South Africa.

I’ve never seen such a ridiculous use of the word “solidarity.” I’d be ashamed to take dark money from the backers of genocide and the real-estate lobby, but apparently my opponent doesn’t share this concern.

We’ve known all along that AIPAC and friends were going to come for us because of our movement’s principled stand for human rights and liberty for all. But that doesn’t make the meddling in local elections by out-of-state millionaires and billionaires any less shameful. I’m accountable to the people of Brooklyn, and our people deserve representatives that can’t be bought.