All Eyes on New York

The day after Zohran Mamdani showed us that running an authentic, people-centered campaign is a winning strategy and Brad Lander showed us what it looks like to win even if you don't capture the most votes, New York felt alive. People spilled into the streets, in varying levels of undress, holding their cocktails, water or paper fans. Something had happened that felt impossible a few months, maybe even a few weeks ago. New York remembered that we are New York – a city that mobilized mutual aid groups during the pandemic, that has survived blackouts and terror attacks and refuses to succumb to full-scale mall-ification. New York is still a city of neighborhoods, communities, blocks. It is not just Broadway, Wall Street and Central Park. It is all these things and more.

The day after, my teen and I saw Lights Out: Nat King Cole, at the New York Theater Workshop. Dulé Hill, forever stamped in my brain as Charlie from the West Wing, tap dances and sings in the role of Nat King Cole–a stellar performance. The play is based on the last night of Cole's television show, which aired on NBC for five seasons before it was canceled because – racism. Toward the end of the play, Hill, as Cole, describes the show as "our frontline," going on to say that this is how "we gracefully inhabit a quiet act of revolution."

It's on us – quietly or loudly, in small or big ways, gracefully or clumsily. Find your frontline. Join the revolution. Do it your way, but do it.

Pa'lante

Sayu