In 2023, organizer and former candidate for state Assembly Samy Nemir Olivares wrote an opinion piece titled “Where is Dilan?”, demanding accountability from Assemblymember Erik Dilan. Nearly three years later, our community is asking the same question. The answer is painfully consistent: he’s still nowhere to be found.
We are in what feels like a different world today than we were in 2023. Only one year into President Donald Trump’s increasingly fascist second term, we are organizing to survive in a world that feels as though it is closing in on us.
The federal government has deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the National Guard, and even the Marines to occupy major U.S. cities. Federal agents are brutalizing and disappearing our neighbors. Billions of our tax dollars and American-made weapons are being funneled to Israel to support genocide. Our government is kidnapping heads of state and engaging in an unsanctioned and indefinite war in Iran.
Earlier this month, our neighbor, Chidozie Wilson Okeke, was detained by federal agents on the streets of Bushwick. Brutalized to the point that he needed medical attention, he was brought to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center—a safety net hospital that provides critical care to many with limited access to insurance.
The Bushwick community mobilized quickly, and hundreds showed up at the hospital to demand the release of our neighbor. Protesters were met with violence and Okeke was taken by federal agents, as has happened to thousands of people in communities across the country.
In this critical moment, neighbors showed up. Medical professionals showed up. Faith leaders showed up. Elected officials showed up. But Erik Dilan was nowhere to be found.
Bushwick’s response that night demonstrates the strength of our solidarity. We are a beautifully multi-ethnic, multicolored, multilingual community, and yet we understand that there is more that connects us than divides us. We know that we are strongest when we stand together. We know that the forces that oppress us are systematic, and we know that only organized resistance will defeat fascism. As an organizer in Bushwick, I am hyper aware of this legacy’s deep roots. This community’s solidarity and resilience powered organizers before me to find their way through blackouts, gang violence, overpolicing, and more.
When Olivares called for Dilan to take action on the issues facing our community in 2023, they were met with silence. Our need for affordable housing, justice for our immigrant neighbors, and real public safety remains unchanged, in part because Dilan has done nothing in the three years since his narrow re-election to make good on the faith that was placed in him.
We cannot continue to trust elected officials who demonstrate apathy—complicity, even—in our struggle. Erik Dilan has held power for decades. Twelve years in City Council followed by twelve years in the Assembly is an entire generation. In that time, he has made it abundantly clear that he is not fighting alongside us. Instead, we find him time and time again working against us.
As we organize to keep people in their homes, he accepts hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the same developers who profit off of our displacement.
As we mobilize to protect each other from ICE, he stays comfortably quiet until a primary challenger forces him to pretend he was with us the whole time.
As we call foul on overincarceration, forced prison labor, and human rights abuses, he refuses to champion meaningful reform, despite being uniquely positioned to help as chair of the Committee on Corrections.
As we demand that our state budget tax the rich to pay for the investments our community has been starved of, he puts his head in the sand, relegating us to out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
Dilan’s absence is neither abstract nor victimless. After Okeke was detained, representatives from across the city came together outside Wyckoff Hospital to demand justice. Where was Dilan?
The week before, elected officials from across the borough stood on Broadway to pledge funding for long-overdue repairs. Where was Dilan?
The week before that, community leaders and residents from across the district raised money to support the East New York Liberation Center. Where was Dilan?
The answer is always the same: Dilan was nowhere to be found and, as a result, we all suffer.
Bushwick and East New York deserve more. We deserve representatives who are present, not just during election season, but in moments of crisis. We deserve neighborhoods we feel safe in, where we can afford to grow old and raise families. We deserve lives free of ICE intimidation and fear mongering. We deserve leaders who love this community—and who act like it.
Christian Celeste Tate is running for Assembly District 54 against Erik Dilan in the June primary election.
