Chi Ossé’s Revolution
The soon-to-be city council representative made rapid-fire leaps from Brooklyn resident to Black Lives Matter activist to politician. Now he’s poised to bring his agenda directly to the city’s next mayor.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GEOFFREY LEVY; STYLED BY MATEO PALACIO & CY AN.
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Chi Ossé’s campaign for New York City Council stood out for a handful of reasons: his age (22, now 23), his origin story (a Brooklynite who became a Black Lives Matter activist virtually overnight), his gumption (he pulled together a winning campaign in a matter of weeks). Another reason was the imagery: Ossé’s campaign posters featured a striking black-and-red motif, with his face, sometimes in glasses and a sweater, sometimes sporting a black beret and turtleneck á la the Black Panther Party, superimposed over bold stripes. His style reflects his role: one that merges traditional politics with on-the-ground activism; one that means simultaneously running for office and maintaining a Black Lives Matter activist collective. “I wanted the design and look...to be exciting,” Ossé says. “I needed to engage individuals that have never been engaged before.”
After announcing his campaign in June 2020, winning endorsements from the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Raymond Santana of the Central Park Five, and knocking on thousands of doors in Brooklyn’s 36th District, Ossé is now poised to win. He’d be the youngest current member of New York’s city council and the district’s first openly queer representative. And while we won’t have “official” results from the Board of the Elections until the week of July 12—New York City’s new ranked-choice voting process means tabulation is taking longer—Ossé is mentally preparing for life in office.
Over video chat Ossé is warm and accessible. In a steady yet lighthearted tone, he emphasizes meeting people in his community where they are—from sitting on their stoops to marching alongside them in the streets. As he describes his campaign, it’s evident that Ossé is genuinely committed to delivering radical equity. Here he discusses what could come with assuming office in January 2022, his relationship with NYC’s presumptive new mayor, and more.
Vanity Fair: Let’s start with the obvious: You’ve likely won. How do you feel?
Chi Ossé: I was up from 3 a.m. [on primary day] until around 9 p.m. when the polls closed. And I felt like the day went very well. I was on my way home, and a friend texted me as the results were coming in—just 20 minutes after the polls closed, we saw our lead. My team has never worked on a political campaign before, so a lot of it was like, Are we doing this right? We were at the polls on Election Day, and we didn’t really see much of our opponents or their teams. And we were like, Okay, do they have some tricks up their sleeve? But seeing the lead that we took, and watching that lead grow the way that it did, was one of the most exhilarating, most beautiful moments of my life that I was able to share with the many people that got me to that point. I’m still in that emotional space right now—gratitude.
This has been one of the best weeks of my life. I didn’t get to celebrate Pride for a large portion of the month, but ever since Tuesday, I’ve been able to tap back into my regular life a bit. I saw Madonna last night.
There is a huge difference between recognizing you can make change by being vocal and deciding, I’m going to run for public office.
Oh, absolutely. I’m crazy [laughs].
Totally nuts. When did you decide you were going to run?
George Floyd was murdered at the end of May. Black Americans, we were fed up, having seen these kinds of images and videos before. But this one hit different. I needed to unload the negative energy and pain I was experiencing, and the way I was able to do that was through protesting.
During quarantine, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. One of the biggest things I took from it was how one should always follow their omens, whether good or bad. I was protesting, then I started leading and organizing. Doing these things felt right, even if it was in a chaotic space. There was this shift. I was like, How much everlasting change is chanting and protesting on the streets going to create for Black people and my community? It was a leap of faith to ride out that feeling. I’ve had years of experience of complaining about things and people nodding their heads to that. Now I have tangible solutions for what we deserve.
We don’t often see someone as vocal as you—on the megaphone talking to the NYPD, for instance—enter the “traditional” political world.
In a past interview I said I’m not a politician, I’m a public advocate. But I’ve had some time to reflect on that statement. If you’re running for office, you are a politician. I think you’re going to have to bite that bullet. I’ll take that term because I’m running for a political seat with a high chance of winning it. But my duty as a politician is to break stereotypes. I want to make sure that myself and other candidates are working hard to break that dichotomy of what a politician versus an activist might look like.
How important do you think the issue of police accountability is for primary voters?
We hear the same buzzwords in politics year after year, but the actions we see never hold officers accountable or change the oppression that Black and brown communities face when it comes to policing. At people’s doors I brought up the fact that, yes, gun violence and crime exist in our neighborhood. But when we think about why crime happens, it’s because of poverty. I think the right wing and even moderate Democrats have fallen into this trap of thinking defund slash divest means we are getting rid of all the cops on our streets. It’s not what it means. It means that we are managing our city budget—the police budget paying for helicopters that patrol our skies every night while public school teachers receive a $50 stipend for school supplies annually—to make sure that our kids and our youth are getting the tools and resources they need in order to live successful lives without being criminalized for being impoverished.
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It looks pretty likely that Eric Adams will be New York City’s next mayor. That could potentially change, but working with him is going to be a lot different than working with, say, Maya Wiley.
When you look at the map of the voter turnout and compare it to how Eric Adams did in the mayoral race, we have a lot of overlap—people voting for both me and him. While we may not agree on a plethora of issues, I do believe that Adams will support this community. There are a multitude of Black seniors and Black people who tell me the things that Eric Adams has done for them, which is something that a lot of constituents can’t say about their electeds. It seems like he has delivered for my community, and I hope he will continue to. I just want to make sure that whoever our next mayor is gets my community. I will be holding them accountable and trying to have a decent working relationship with them.
As an activist and a young leader, what do you think local leadership’s role should be?
It’s up to the next council member to make sure people are aware their leadership is there for them to, say, let tenants know about rent relief—not just show up for a photo op. As a Gen Z candidate, I know tools like social media are at my disposal. I think that’s how we can let people know we’re there for them, and how they can get in touch with us.
We’re focusing on how you should be delivering things. When I was looking at how I wanted to run this race, I wanted the design and look of it to be exciting. In order for me to represent everybody, I needed to engage individuals that have never been engaged before. Look at the way [my campaign] packaged ranked-choice voting. Maybe we should start picking up some tips from Schoolhouse Rock!—which taught kids about our history—rather than, you know, having a busted website that was made in 2001.
What are your priorities starting January 2022?
I have larger issues that I want to cover, but at the end of the day, people want to see change immediately. And that is our sanitation problem. I don’t see it as a secondary issue; it’s coupled with poverty and crime. When we look at communities that aren’t impoverished or have less crime, there’s a lot more care taken. I believe that a clean neighborhood is a healthy neighborhood.
Our sanitation department was defunded by $106 billion last year. Within my first 100 days in office, I will be building a coalition of Brooklyn electives that will fight to refund that department so that we’re not leaving out a buffet for our rats every night. Organic waste yields a larger rat presence. We need to expand the compost program within our communities and implement a curriculum on how to compost. There’s gonna be a lot of heat on me already, just being a young person in office. This is a way to not only help clean up the community, but to show people that shit is getting done.
What’s next for public safety?
First and foremost, I am proposing to divest from the NYPD. I hope by the end of my first year, out of the city’s $6 billion budget, we can divest by $1 billion and reallocate those funds into things that actually help our communities—mental health services, public education, jobs. I’ve also seen the work that gun violence intervention programs have done when it comes to community policing. In 2017, John Jay College did a three-year study in the Bronx where they funded SOS (Save Our Streets) and Man Up and saw a significant drop in crime and gun violence. That’s the type of model I want to explore and practice in my district.
We see this a lot on the streets when protesting; we ask, Who protects us? We protect us. We need to have our community taking care of our community. I saw that over 45% of officers who work for the NYPD don’t even live in New York City. They’re criminalizing people, then they go back home to Long Island. I know there is a strong amount of support amongst my new colleagues in making sure there are resident guidelines for those that want to be in the NYPD. These should be people that are from our community, that have seen our kids grow up, seen our kids learn how to ride a bike. I believe their reactions with our kids will be a lot different at the end of the day.
What are you most daunted by in taking office?
To be frank, I just really want to do a good job. I don’t want to disappoint people like politicians have disappointed them before. There are going to be a lot of naysayers and haters who want me to do a bad job. I don’t want to give them that pleasure.