Photos: YouTube Screenshots
Eric Adams’ tenure as mayor has been an abysmal failure, from the very beginning to the present. And Friday’s news of the 27-count indictment of six supporters of his campaign, in what is said to be a straw-donor fundraising scheme, is yet another incident that Black New York should seriously consider as we get closer to 2025.
True, Adams himself has not been directly implicated in any wrongdoing in these indictments which were allegedly perpetrated to help him get elected. However, reportedly, the criminal complaint includes this allegation by one on the fundraising parties, “(The Candidate) said he doesn’t want to do anything if he doesn’t get 25 Gs.”. Also, one defendant, retired NYPD deputy inspector Dwayne Montgomery, alleged to be at the center of the scheme, is purportedly an Adams associate. The allegation regarding getting “25 Gs”, if true, is a serious one.
Moreover, these indictments come after an already long list of scandals, crises, and betrayals connected to the Adams Administration. Friday’s indictment news suggests the fundraisers were influence-peddling pay-to-play schemes.
Even before this latest scandal, Adams himself already realized his chances of being reelected in the 2025 reelection were dwindling.
Recently, Adams made the laughable statement that there was a “coordinated” effort to stop him from being successful in his reelection campaign. “There’s a body of people who were pleased with 30 years without having a mayor that looked like me.” He also made this bewildering comment, “I know you think you can whip me and make me go from saying Kunta Kinte to Toby, but damn it, Kunta Kinte is all I know.”
Who does this brother betrayer mayor think he is fooling? Because he is masked in Black skin, does he think we don’t see what he is really doing? Are Black New Yorkers supposed to think Adams is kinfolk because he references Roots or Kunta Kinte?
This mayor has, on several occasions, invoked race to cover-up his deplorable actions—even when those actions are deleterious to Black News Yorkers. Let’s examine that, as well as some of the other despicable deeds of Adams.
Even before he was sworn-in as mayor, Adams was already sticking the knife into the backs of the Black and Latino New York communities who voted him into office as New York City’s second Black mayor.
In December 2021, Adams lashed out at the New York City Council after they sent him a letter asking him to withdraw his support for solitary confinement. In his response to media, about the disagreement, Adams made this silly statement, “When reporters report that I’m in support of solitary confinement, that is not right. I’m in support of punitive segregation.”
Needless to say, what we have here is wordplay distinction with zero difference. This cute little “punitive segregation” euphemism doesn’t change the fact that it is still solitary confinement.
Then we had the disastrous first two weeks of this failure of an administration.
Remember when, in early 2022, Adams had to explain why he was engaging in a nepotistic move to appoint his brother as deputy police commissioner? When asked about it, Adams said this, “My brother is qualified for the position, number one. He will be in charge of my security, which is extremely important to me in a time where we see an increase in white supremacy and hate crimes.”
So, only his brother can be trusted to protect him from white supremacy? The idiocy of this illogical rationale speaks for itself.
Then we had the Bronx fire that took the lives of 17 Black people, largely African immigrants, which also injured 44.
During a press conference after the tragedy occurred, Adams told a reporter it wasn’t time to talk about the safety issues in the building. Yet, at the same time, he blamed the victims of the deadly fire by saying, “If we take one message from this,” he said, it was to: “Close the door. Close the door. Close the door.”
Weird and contradictory right? However, The Intercept news outlet revealed that a slumlord co-owner, of the Camber Property Group building, Rick Gropper, was a member of the Adams’ transition team, a little fact Adams failed to mention.
Then there was Adams’ race-baiting meltdown press conference after he was rebuffed when he traveled to Albany to get the 2019 bail reform law weakened.
During, that press conference, Adams told media members this, “I’m a Black man that’s the mayor but my story is being interpreted by people that don’t look like me. How many Blacks are on editorial boards? How many Blacks determine how these stories are being written?”
Someone, apparently, failed to inform the mayor that the press isn’t an appendage of his administration. But what is even more galling is the fact that this mayor was denouncing American media for its racism—and seeking to gain backing from Black media—as he was championing the police push to reverse a bail reform measure that was enacted to address one aspect of the mass incarceration of Black New Yorkers.
This is also the same Adams who dispatched NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell to complain to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, because Bragg stated he wasn’t interested in prosecuting low-level “crimes.” Adams made the utterly ridiculous claim that Bragg’s prosecution priorities would somehow jeopardize police safety. Sewell has now departed among rumors of Adams’ alleged micromanaging, and talk about the toxic patriarchal police culture within the NYPD.
Then we saw Adams attempt to bully AOC after the murder of Jordan Neely.
Adams basically told AOC to shut up, as she was speaking out for Neely’s humanity and for justice against Daniel Penny. It was only after days of negative press that Adams then appeared before the media to try to mitigate the damage of his insensitive handling of Neely’s murder. Not long after, there was news that the Giuliani family would hold a fundraiser for Adams.
Which brings us to reports that Adams is really a Republican wolf wearing Democratic sheep clothing. Here we should ask a few questions.
First, did Adams run as a Democrat because he knew he had zero chance of winning running as a Republican? Are his Republican right-wing sentiments the reason why he takes pleasure in attacking real progressives like AOC? And as support from the Black and Latino community dissipates is he now pivoting to attract white right-wing voters?
By now, it should be painfully clear to Black New York that Eric Adams is just another political opportunist using Black people as a steppingstone in his quest for more political power. Black New Yorkers were disproportionately harmed by COVID-19, and the existing economic disparities were exacerbated. Yet, this Black-skinned mayor is cutting social programs—while crying about the need to give more money to the bloated NYPD, to control crime.
We must now seriously ask this: why would we re-elect this brother betrayer mayor in 2025?
Comments are closed.