Q&A

1.) How are you connected to this movement?  

I came home 2021 and I started with Exodus transitional community as a case manager, and through them I took a seat as their solar ambassador with Renewable Rikers. And then I moved on to working for myself, and I stood with the connections of Renewable Rikers, and I met freedom agenda through them. 

2.) Why should Rikers close?  

It should close for sheer fact that you're away from your community, from your people, from your legal team, from any kind of assistance, oversight, or holding these officers accountable. And I feel having every borough with its own facility, that it can usher in some oversight, and some real accountability for stuff that is happening in Rikers Island. It's a blanket thrown over a lot of stuff that's happening over there and on that culture of out of sight, out of mind, only in the minds of people in suffering and the heads of people that are incarcerated. 

3.) What is your vision for a more just and equitable post-Rikers New York City?  

My vision would be that the incarcerated would have the help they need and the assistance they need in these new facilities. I've been going to the BJJ meetings, and I've been looking at them, and they offer fresh, new, possible things for the incarcerated to engage. My main thing is that they'd be closer to their family, closer to all their legal offices. And it's a win - to exit Rikers Island and then to use that landfill of toxicity for something that really could work on itself and power the city with renewable energy.