I am a Rochesterian. I am proud of our area’s radical history and believe in the potential of its citizens to return upstate New York to its place as the epicenter for revolutionary political movements. We are the home of Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Emma Goldman, and Harriet Tubman. A movement to abolish an entire economic system began here. White and black people joined together from the city of Rochester and surrounding suburbs to construct the underground railroad whose purpose was to disrupt slavery. A new constellation of bold progressives is needed to uproot capitalism.

I was born at Strong Hospital. My father is an immigrant from India and my mother is Irish-­American from South Buffalo. Being biracial has provided me a nuanced perspective on race issues. Broadening this perspective has been the fact that I have lived half my life in the suburbs of Rochester and half in the city of Rochester. I have been running for the office of Monroe County Executive all my life but not in the traditional political sense.

I have gone door-­to-­door in the neighborhoods hardest hit by the war on the poor, not to sell them some election material, but to see what they needed help with and connect them to neighborhood recreation centers and social services. As a Youth Outreach Specialist for Charles Settlement House, I spent years learning the prideful stories and at times pitiful struggles of our County’s economically poorest citizens. For over a decade, as a school teacher and substitute teacher in City of Rochester, I have taught children in every elementary, middle and high school in the district. I share the immediacy of their calls for change NOW, into this election.

As a member of Rochester Against War, I will speak to the devastation four decades of war; the Cold War, the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, and now Drone Wars have had on our generation. As a member of Rochester International Socialist Organization, I will be applying a Marxist, class-­based analysis to current political, economic, and social institutions with the intention of educating Rochester citizens on alternative and socialistic solutions to current problems. And finally, as a victim of police profiling, a member of the Coalition for Police Reform, and a participant in the Black Lives Matter movement, I will push for a radical departure from the way we do policing.

Aside from trying to lower my own carbon footprint by biking to work in all seasons, composting, and recycling, I have joined the Green Party. The primary way I will address climate concerns is through constant effort to unseat capitalism, which I believe to be the root cause of environmental destruction. Without a victory over capitalism we can not have a sustainable victory for the environment.