Three brilliant students from Cristo Rey Brooklyn High School, 710 East 37th Street, grilled nine of the 10 candidates running in the 45th District City Council special election last Friday for the seat left open when Jumaane Williams (D) ascended from City Councilman to Public Advocate.
Seniors Makayla Guisse, Remsfield (Remi) Papillon and Ashley Noel moderated and directly asked the majority of questions towards the candidates with subjects that they came up with including how to control recruitment of teens to local gangs that promote themselves locally through social media and has led to several classmates being “jumped.”
The candidates in attendance were NYC Health + Hospitals Senior Director L. Rickie Tulloch; Black Lives Matter Brooklyn Founder Anthony Beckford; Community Board 17 Member Xamayla Rose; CUNY Student Senate Vice Chair for Legislative Affairs Hercules Reid; Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club Young Democrats Jovia Radix ; Community Board 17 former Education and Land Use committee chair Victor Jordan ; Brooklyn Young Democrats Co-Founder Anthony Alexis; East Flatbush Village Inc. Founder Monique Chandler-Waterman; and Instagram celebrity Adina Sash, a.k.a. Flatbush Girl.
Sash, provided perhaps the most innovative answer on how to counteract combat gang recruitment on online platforms is to use those very same platforms to beat the recruiters at their own game.
“We need to combat them with their own hashtags, with their own marketing approach that can counteract it,” said Sash. “We can flag certain posts, we can get certain accounts shut down, and we can create greater standards for penalizing accounts… but ultimately, it would just come down to more people being made aware of the violence, and more people being able to combat it digitally using the same metrics.”
While Sash’s answer was innovative on this question, she also stumbled a bit on the “popcorn” round,” which asked the candidates quick, but telling questions such as their favorite subject in high school, their favorite eatery in the district and their favorite subway or bus line in the district.
In this round audience members learned, among other things. that Rose graduated from the school where the forum was held, although back then it was the Catherine McAuley High School, Alexis favorite subject was science, although he too had to deal with gangs when he was in high school, Victor’s last meal was at the McDonalds on the way to work and that Beckford’s favorite subject was music.
The second question, building off of the previous question, involved securing job opportunities for high schoolers as a way to keep them away from criminal activity.
Chandler-Waterman said that the question resonated with her personally, as someone who grew up in a rough environment where economic opportunities were scarce. Her upbringing was her motivation for founding East Flatbush Village Inc., which currently hosts several after-school programs that help high schoolers stay away from violence and develop valuable skillsets.
“Growing up, there were a lot of hardships that I went through, and I want to make sure that my children don’t have to go through those hardships,” said Chandler-Waterman. “We’ve partnered with organizations such as OBT and Workforce One to help with resume building, on-site hiring, and making sure that our community members, our youth, not only have the right skill set, but also the right mindset.”
At the conclusion of the evening, Janelle Williams, one of the adult moderators, along with KCP Senior Editor Kelly Mena, commended both the candidates for showing up and the high school students who came up with the questions.
“This isn’t our first candidate forum, but I believe this is the first forum where the moderators and the questions came from young people, and we’d like to recognize them this evening,” said Mena.
The election is slated for Tuesday, May 14.
