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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Lesson on Racism for Mayor Bloomberg
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176075/lesson-racism-mayor-bloomberg#axzz2eKnhfUsEBill de Blasio and his family protest the shutdown of the Long Island College Hospital and Interfaith Hospital (Bill de Blasio/Flickr)
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, like most Americans, doesnt understand what racism is. Or perhaps he does and is purposefully pretending to be obtuse to score some political points. Either way, his remarks in a recent interview with New York magazine do little more than further confuse the public as to what racism entails by reinforcing a false narrative of equivalency.
Interviewer Chris Smith suggested that the Democratic front-runner in the mayoral race, Bill de Blasio, was running a class-warfare campaign, at which point Bloomberg interjected to add, Class-warfare and racist. He attempted to clarify, saying:
Well, no, no, I mean* hes making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think its pretty obvious to anyone watching what hes been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. Its comparable to me pointing out Im Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote. You tailor messages to your audiences and address issues you think your audience cares about.
*(The no, no part was added to the article after protest from the mayors office, but it hardly changes anything.)
marmar
(77,097 posts)....... Desperate and pissed because nobody wants to vote for his hand-picked, corporate candidate.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)and see a guy with a dead squirrel on his head.
brush
(53,924 posts)Koch's third term descended into corruption, as did Sharpe James' of Newark. Coleman Young and Kenneth Gibson, who served even longer in Detroit and Newark, also stayed at the party much too long.
Bloomberg did a good job in replacing "a verb, a noun and 9/11 Guiliani" in his first two terms (some think too good with his anti-smoking and anti-big gulp pushes), but it seems almost like senility is setting in with his bizarre defense of "stop and frisk", a clear 4th Amendment violation, and this latest injection of foolishness into the mayoral race with his racist charge against de Blasio.
I don't know what's happened. It's like he's losing it right before our eyes.
markpkessinger
(8,409 posts). . . which is exactly why New Yorkers voted for term limits TWICE in two elections prior to Bloomberg's run for a third term, only to have
Christine Quinn help to engineer an exception for Bloomberg.