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The line snaked around the block. And around another block. And down an avenue. And then down a few more blocks, eventually coming within yelling distance of its beginning.

The queue resembled the mythical Ouroboros serpent which eats its own tail in a representation of something that in its continuity, can never be extinguished. There is perhaps not a more apt metaphor to describe the political career of Senator Bernie Sanders, who has for decades maintained a consistent, anti-imperialist stance on issues facing the United States.

But metaphors are played out. And Bernie Sanders is in the Bronx. Get excited.

Sanders’ rally two nights ago drew an incomprehensibly large crowd. Initial NYPD estimates stood at 10,000, but the official numbers nearly doubled to 18,500 attendees crowded into St. Mary’s Park.

It was one of his first of many New York appearances ahead of the 19 April New York primary, which will no doubt be a close contest with Hillary Clinton.

Clinton is relying on her adopted state of New York, for which she served as a two-term Senator, to obtain the 247 Democratic delegates up for grabs and propel her toward the Democratic nomination.

However, if she intends to rely on the inevitability argument, or the lesser evil argument, or her Wall Street donors, she don’t got a chance.

But don’t start booing Clinton. As Rosario Dawson told the enormous crowd last night: “We’re better than that."

The New York City native and renowned actress opened the rally, calling out Hillary Clinton for as yet refusing to debate Senator Sanders in New York.

“We very, very much want a debate, which [Sanders] already agreed to. Considering that in 2008 there were 26 debates, and [Clinton] held Obama’s feet to the fire saying that she would debate ‘Any time, anywhere,’” said Dawson before listing off Clinton’s various incidents of racist language, specifically toward marginalized communities.

Clinton called undocumented immigrants “illegals,” she called “our children who needed care Super Predators,” and she called those on welfare “deadbeats.”

“I’m excited about the fact that I don’t have to vote against someone, I get to vote for someone,” added Dawson to raucous applause.

She catalogued some of the local issues like stop & frisk and gentrification that disproportionately affect African American and Latino New Yorkers, positioning Sanders as an ally of those 65% minority voters in 2015 who were endangered by these policies.

She broadened her scope to contrast Sanders’ vote against the Iraq war and Patriot Act with Clinton’s vote for it; the corporate control of mass media; civil liberties at stake with net neutrality issues; and someone who doesn’t think that regime change in Honduras, Syria or Libya is “good foreign policy”.

*Video courtesy of Alejandro Diosa.

Filmmaker and Brooklyn native Spike Lee then took the stage, making an exalted case for voter turnout. He proclaimed that the “rigged election” process resembles the infamous 3 Card Monte scam which has ripped off many an unsuspecting tourist on the streets of New York City.

He implored the audience to talk to their parents about Clinton’s actual record on social justice issues.

Multiple Grammy winner and community activist Residente acknowledged the U.S. imperialist ownership of his native Puerto Rico. “The U.S. gets more out of Puerto Rico economically than Puerto Rico gets from the U.S,” Residente said, despite the fact that Puerto Ricans cannot vote in U.S. elections and Puerto Ricans in the U.S. receive a “colonial education” that denies them the history of their own country.

He praised Sanders’ expression of support for Puerto Rico’s debt relief and his stances protecting LGBT and human rights.

He especially regarded Sanders for speaking out against the countless Latin American dictatorships propped up by the U.S. “which left more than half a million people dead or disappeared”.

Sanders has consistently expressed disdain for the U.S.-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Salvador Allende in Chile, and subsequent rise of the repressive Augosto Pinochet regime in the 1970s.

Bernie Sanders’ speech was a homecoming. It was a radical, working class speech presented before the legendary yet still troubled South Bronx. It is a speech that although given only 11 miles from Wall Street, could not have been farther away.

You can watch Bernie Sanders’ address from beginning to end here, but I implore you: watch Rosario, Spike and Residente first.