I spent this morning and afternoon at the jails on Rikers Island, observing conditions in the facilities & speaking with incarcerated individuals and staff.

Many who I spoke to have been detained there for *years* already without a trial. One man had been there for over 6 YEARS. Just as it was a year ago, the population is too large for the inadequately staffed jails. People with serious, chronic health conditions are not able to go to the medical clinic for weeks or longer because officers aren’t available (or refuse) to escort them to the clinic.

I’m not Palestinian, nor am I Arab American, nor a Muslim. So I will never know what it’s like to be denied entry to Israel or Palestine on that basis, as @RashidaTlaib & @IlhanMN have been.

However, this is my passport, stamped in 2014 when Israel denied my entry at the border. I had traveled to Israel & Palestine multiple times previously, and returned in July of 2014 to visit friends in the West Bank and assist in a community development project there. I was detained for ~10 hours at Allenby. I was ultimately denied entry for my anti-occupation views.

It’s quite an experience to be forced last week to publicly disclose my own account of being assaulted, to then learn that day about several others who were also assaulted by him, followed immediately by the news cycle we’re now in about survivors, doubters, and #WhyDidntIReport I was assaulted by him in November of 2013. A week or so later he texted me saying: “Please don’t tell anyone about this.” He literally said those words to me. #WhyDidntIReport? Let me count the ways.