Wild Scenes from Outside the Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani Town Hall
You've seen and read about what happened inside the Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani Fighting Oligarchy town hall in Brooklyn on Saturday. But what was going on outside?
On September 6, one of the rainiest days in recent weeks in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani hosted a heavily sought-after town hall meeting at Brooklyn College in Flatbush. Given the mega wattage charge around the coming together of the 33-year-old Assemblymember from Astoria, who mounted a historic challenge in the Democratic Mayoral Primary race and won by an unprecedented margin, Zohran Mamdani, and the foremost elder statesman of the Democratic Socialist movement in the United States, Bernie Sanders, the event was a must-attend for every progressive/radical/political wonk in New York city.
With a ticket hotter than the US Open, and without the hundreds of dollars of fees to match (the event was free to attend) registration for the Fighting Oligarchy town hall was kept tightly under wraps. The announcement appeared jointly on Sanders’ and Mamdani’s Instagram accounts on September 3rd, just three days before the event, and attendees needed to enter a lottery for a chance to win the ticket. While Mamdani, who is in the thick of his Mayoral campaign two months ahead of Election Day in November, is more or less ubiquitous in the city — one can easily find him filming a video on the street, on top of a float at the West Indian parade, doing a whine, on in a park attending a fundraiser — Brooklyn-born-and-raised Sanders is a relatively rare sight for New Yorkers.
That might explain why hundreds of them turned up on a Saturday evening, braving storm warnings to make the trek to Brooklyn College, and witness what many who watched the YouTube livestream on Sander’s page described as the passing of the metaphorical torch from the elder Democratic Socialist to the younger Mayoral nominee (I would wager that the torch changed hands from Sanders to AOC at the start of the multi-city Oligarchy Tour earlier this year, but I digress). And even more stood outside the large gates at the entrance of Brooklyn College, surrounded by heavy NYPD presence, vendors with bootleg merch of a liberal flavor and straggling protesters and agitators, hoping for a chance to get in.
Unlike many of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign rallies in the past few months, where entrance to the events remains open until even after the event has started, the town hall seemed to have closed its gates 45 minutes before the starting time of 6 pm. Or at least that was what the security guards at the Brooklyn College gates lethargically repeated to the small crowd of the vociferous attendee hopefuls who had gathered outside. Some were heard saying that those who won the lottery tickets had received an email saying that attendance after 5.15 pm will not be permitted. Yet, one attendee I spoke with said that while they had received an email a day before that the event that it was at capacity and was no longer admitting people, the pouring rain seemed to have changed the seating calculus. Around 4.30 pm, 90 minutes before the event started, the person I spoke with received another email saying that if they got to Brooklyn College by 6 pm, they could get in. And that’s exactly what they did.
Many who were stuck outside had either missed one or both emails, or like myself had assumed that having a press pass would allow us in (I also did not receive either notifications). This confusion about the entry timings, the threat of the impending storm, and big ticket names inside galvanized the outside scene with its own static buzz. While inside, Zohran Mamdani was leading the attendees into a warm and fuzzy happy birthday sing-along for Bernie Sanders (born Sept 8, 1941), outside performance artist Crackhead Barney — she did an early interview with Mamdani that was later hailed as an example by his supporters on how to respond to lightning rod interrogators like Barney — had her camera turned into the faces of the guards and the attendee hopefuls alike.
Crackhead Barney is a provocateur, prank show host, popular internet personality and a character designed by a Brooklyn-based performance artist whose identity otherwise remains unknown. She has been at the site of several historic moments in recent US history, including interviewing the 2021 Capitol Hill rioters, Proud Boys rallies, the Joe Biden Presidential inauguration and the George Floyd Protests in NYC. Most recently, Barney went viral for her ambush interview with Alec Baldwin, after his acquittal from the murder charge from an accidentally fired gun on the set of the movie, Rust in 2021. In the video, Baldwin is seen slapping the phone out of Barney’s hands after she implores him repeatedly to say ‘Free Palestine’.
Outside Brooklyn College, Barney had appeared in the characteristic white paint smeared on her body, wearing shorts and a waist-length top, and was asking the guards to explain why they had forced people to stand outside, even though the livestream showed some empty seats in the auditorium where the town hall was taking place. When someone asked the guards if they could go in to the use the bathroom and was denied, she asked if she should ‘pee in front of the gates’.
As this interaction caused most of the surrounding crowd to disperse, an older man holding a full-sized American flag stood silently next to gates, mounting what seemed like a solo protest against something that was not entirely clear. Next to him was another agitator, someone I have seen outside several of Zohran Mamdani’s events, who was interjecting periodically to add that ‘Communism is killing the world’, in an apparent dig to the Democratic Socialist gathering inside, while recording the entirety of the proceedings on their phone attached to a selfie stick. It was somewhat confusing, however, that the recording protester said nothing to the group that appeared to be actual Communists, who were wearing t-shirts that identified them as such and were distributing some literature and zines to those who were interested.
When another attendee hopeful in knee length socks, a corset and a trendy miniskirt showed up and attempted to go in, the protestor with the selfie stick commented that she would not be allowed to wear that outfit under Sharia Law (a common right-wing talking point used against Mamdani’s campaign who if he wins will be New York’s first South Asian and Muslim Mayor) — the attendee later asked the agitator that her family was Muslim and to ‘shut his bitch ass up’. Adding to this chorus of people attempting to reason with the guards to let them in (which included several other journalists who were also turned away), Crackhead Barney’s live interviews with ticket holders, a group of young socialists and communists discussing the Bolsheviks, were also people hawking their pro-Democracy, pro-LGBTQ, anti-Trump buttons and t-shirts, and at least one shrewd entrepreneur selling ponchos for the rain that had just started. Not to mention the heavy presence of NYPD officers who were stationed all around the entrance, a few feet away from the gates but in clear visible distance.
For a quiet, tucked-in corner of Flatbush, it looked like a wild scene that resembled more like the Washington Mall outside the White House in DC, than the neatly laid out vast campus premises in Brooklyn. Considering the attacks on his socialist policies and Islamophobic rhetoric Mamdani has faced from the start of his campaign, and the strong emotions associated with Bernie Sanders, it is not surprising to see protestors and agitators at this event. One even made it inside, interrupting Mamdani to say, “You are a communist, this is not Cuba you fool”, before being promptly escorted outside. Mamdani in a line that he has repeated frequently indicating the success of his campaign responded by saying, “You know it’s working when it’s not enough to say it’s Democratic Socialism”.
It was bristling however, to witness that along with retorts against his Socialist policies, attacks against Mamdani’s Muslim identity have become nearly central to the opposition to his campaign. As the event ended, and the skies opened up fully, most of the waiting crowd had dispersed including the older man with the flag, save for the selfie stick agitator who had waited outside for the entire duration of the event. Their main event had just begun. They had now positioned their camera into the faces of the attendees who were trickling out from the event, and was shouting almost incessantly, “Muslims are killing Hindus”, a line they had not said so far. Most attendees who were exiting chose to ignore the comments, but some responded by asking them to ‘get help’, ‘check the facts’, and announcing that they were ‘proudly Muslim’.
It was curious to see that the agitator who at previous protests had stuck to calling out Mamdani’s support for Palestine had now moved on to align themselves with the larger Hindu right-wing led attacks on him and his Muslim identity. When I approached them to ask if I could follow their Instagram and identified as a journalist who wanted to speak to them, they brushed it off by saying “let me do my thing”.
With less than two months left in the race, and Zohran Mamdani emerging as the front runner and a crowd favorite (despite President Donald Trump’s attempts to whittle the field in favor of Andrew Cuomo), attacks on his Muslim identity are guaranteed to resurface. The only question is: this time will they stick?
“This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lauren Brown Fellowship.”
In some personal news:
This month, I received the prestigious Lauren Brown Fellowship to continue my reporting on the Mayoral race! Look out for this space for more such stories. 🎉
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Related reading on the NYC Mayoral Election:
Zohran Mamdani's South Asianness doesn't scream from the rooftops
Dispatches from NYC Mayoral Election Trail: Woodside, the Ravidassia Sikh Temple and Jackson Heights
So glad you’re covering it with such depth!
Congrats on the fellowship, love this post and photos! Looking forward to more mayoral race reporting. I have seen CHB all over the place over the past several years, I have some hilarious photos of her and NYPD at a demonstration. I think I saw her at the West Indian Day Parade, but she was very sedate so I wasn't 100% sure it was her.