Interviewer: Let's dive right into it. My first question is about the students. What do you feel that Detroit students need more of today?

Tabrian Joe: They need more opportunities, because opportunities lead to exposure. They lead to a new world. It prepares students to become well-rounded in the world.

I left the district and I got more opportunities than I did ever get I mean, in the district, than out. Opportunities are important.

Like, AP classes, art programs, music. Like, a lot of those programs were cut in during the during the emergency management. We need to get those back. We need to get those programs back and expand upon those programs, because that's a that's the education all students deserve.

We need foreign language. We need vocational. These are students that are these are programs that are going to keep the students in the district. And we want them to thrive and we want them to be successful.

And that leads to a that is what an equal quality public education is, opportunities where students can be able to learn how to critically think and make decisions on their own. Exposure to the world.

There are students that have not even been to Cedar Point, that have never left the city district, the city lines. I learned a lot when I went into off to college. I learned a lot being in BAMN I was exposed to so much in BAMN So it's just, yeah. Opportunities.

Interviewer: “As a student, I wish my school had...”

Tabrian Joe: No uniforms. And I wish I had that. I wish the school was a safe space for me as a student.

So I went to Malcolm X Academy K through 8, and I left the district because of because of my parent wanted me to get a better education. I went to University High School, and during that middle school, my middle school experience, I was bullied as a gay child. Wasn't accepted.

But it was because of BAMN that I fought and, like, defended myself and fought and embraced who I was as a person of the LGBT community and uniforms sucked.

Like, I remember growing up, like I remember there was a campaign where we called for no, no uniforms in DPSCD where we dressed up how we wanted to in front of the Fisher Building. I was a student activist where we were fighting for fighting for our dignity and fighting for ourselves.

And then I went to the university-- I was accepted to DSA. My mom didn't want me to go there. She just found out I was gay. And I left DSA summer program and went to Ferndale High School program.

And the education wasn't any better. They had opened a school for all Detroit students to come in and make money off of them. Well, and they spread that wealth over the whole district.

And when I walked into the high school, it was an old elementary school building where I'm 6’ 4” and there's doorknobs that are made for kindergartners. There was separate and unequal education.

That wasn't a safe space. Yeah, I got a good education, but it wasn't a safe space, like. So we need to we need to have safe spaces for our students and to be themselves, to be able to critically think, where our students are heard, where students are not ignored, where our students can be able to criticize something without being ridiculed. To be their authentic selves. That's what a safe space is like. We need we need that.

Candidates appear in ballot order, alphabetical by last name.

Vote for not more than 4

• Natalie Bien-Aime*

• Steve Bland Jr.

• Michelle Broughton

• Katrina Brown

• Cidney Calloway

• Bobby Christian*

• Nicole Conaway

• Vilma Escamilla Duran

• Daniel Ferguson III*

• Duane Larry Grigsby Jr.

• Bessie L. Harris

• David Harris

• C. Allan Hubbard

• Henrietta Ivey*

• Tabrian C. Joe

• Shinese Johnson

• Theodore Jones

• Georgia Mae Lemmons

• LaMar D. Lemmons

• Clement O. Lett*

• Phil Lloyd II

• Darious Morris*

• Liana Mulholland

• Tyshea Pope

• DaNetta L. Simpson

• Tawanna Simpson

• Jameel Montgomery Smith

• Calesther Smith-Arnold*

• Terry E. Whitfield

• Elizabeth A. Williams

• Theresa Williams*

* Did not participate in the CitizenDetroit candidate video series.

Ijazz Jackson*

Aliya Moore

Shawn Vaughn

* Did not participate in the CitizenDetroit candidate video series.