The astonishing racism in NYC’s mayoral race

Throughout Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City mayor, he’s faced a barrage of attacks that have only gotten worse since he handily won the Democratic primary two weeks ago. And this isn’t just happening at the local level; New York City’s mayoral race has drawn attention from across the country, and politicians and pundits have been fearmongering about Mamdani from afar. Here’s just a sampling: On X, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shared a photo of the Statue of Liberty dressed in a burqa shortly after Mamdani’s victory, saying, “This hits hard.” US Rep. Brandon Gill, of Texas, criticized Mamdani for eating with his hands, saying, “Civilized people in America don’t eat like this.” US Rep. Andy Ogles, of Tennessee, who referred to the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor as “Zohran ‘little Muhammad’ Mamdani,” called for Mamdani to be denaturalized and deported. And shortly after Mamdani’s primary win, David Frum, an Atlantic staff writer, posted on X, “Well, at least we can retire that faded and false line, ‘antisemitism has no place in New York City.’” It’s also not just conservatives. In an interview on CNN, US Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said, “I don’t associate myself with what [Mamdani] has said about the Jewish people,” without expanding on what, exactly, Mamdani has said. (While Mamdani has criticized Zionism and the Israeli government, he has not said anything negative about Jewish people.) Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s Democratic senator, falsely claimed that Mamdani had made “references to global jihad” in a radio interview. She later apologized to Mamdani, according to her team, “for mischaracterizing Mamdani’s record and for her tone.” Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigotry is, of course, not a new feature of American politics. But how emboldened public figures clearly feel to make such brazen and openly racist statements seems to have reached a fever pitch. Since when, for example, is it acceptable to call on deporting American citizens? Here are three reasons why the racism against Mamdani in particular has been so extreme: 1) Trumpism has ushered in a new age of bullying The kind of rhetoric directed at Mamdani is a product of an era of politics where hate speech and cruelty have become normalized. That has made public figures far more comfortable saying things in public that they might have thought twice about before. Stephen Miller, a senior Trump administration official, said that New York City is “the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration. Even the president’s son retweeted a post that said, “I’m old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it,” adding, “New York City has fallen.” It’s no longer shocking to see members of Congress, pundits, and business leaders criticizing entire peoples and cultures within the US as un-American. In addition, President Donald Trump has pushed anti-immigrant rhetoric since he launched his campaign for president in 2015, and has only become more extreme in return to office. In this new era, meanness is not only politically rewarded but openly embraced and promoted by the White House and a variety of official online accounts. Trump’s White House, for example, has turned videos of deportations into memes, taken dehumanizing photo ops, and used AI-generated images to make light of genuinely cruel policies. This kind of politics has made hate speech all the more acceptable. Part of the reason the attacks on Mamdani — who was born in Uganda and is of Indian descent — have been so widespread is precisely because this type of rhetoric gets spewed from the very top of American politics and government on a regular basis. Since Mamdani’s recent rise in New York City politics, there have been calls to deport him despite the fact that he moved to New York with his family when he was 7 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 2018. Trump himself has threatened to arrest Mamdani, saying, “Look, we don’t need a communist in this country.” That we are now at a point where we’re talking about deporting citizens is a new low, but it is a direct product of Trump’s style of politics, which has ushered in a new era of online bullying, extreme xenophobia, and open racism. 2) Mamdani is a victim of anti-Palestinian racism As I wrote last year, anti-Palestinian racism specifically targets people because they support the cause of Palestinian liberation — even if they aren’t Palestinian themselves. This is why crackdowns on college campus protests were so extreme, and why the Trump administration has detained and attempted to deport international students, including non-Palestinians, simply because of what they have said about Israel. Mamdani isn’t Palestinian, but has been a vocal critic of Israel and has a history of organizing and advocating for Palestinian rights. Like many activists in pro-Palestinian spaces, Mamdani has been baselessly smeared as antisemitic. That’s why comments like Frum’s have cropped up since Mamdani won his primary: By supporting Palestinians, Mamdani is inherently viewed as a threat — not just to Israel but to Jewish people as a whole. Frum, for example, later posted on X about the NYC primary, “[...]people with zero (or worse) regard for Jewish life and Jewish safety scolding actual Jews about how wrong and stupid we are about Jewish life and Jewish safety.” But this has nothing to do with what Mamdani has said about Jewish people. In fact, Mamdani’s platform also includes addressing antisemitism in the city by dramatically increasing funding for hate-crime prevention. Anti-Palestinian racism is still an acceptable form of bigotry that we often see displayed in American politics and media without receiving the kind of pushback that other forms of racism do. It also results in amplifying other forms of racism when its victims come from other marginalized groups. “Like many other forms of hate, there can be intersectionalities, and that’s also true when it’s allies of ours who are speaking for Palestinian human rights,” one expert told me last year. “If it’s a Black ally, we will see anti-Black racism. If it’s an Indigenous ally, we will see anti-Indigenous racism. [If it’s] queer allies, trans allies, we will see homophobic and anti-queer rhetoric.” 3) Islamophobia is broadly acceptable Anti-Muslim bigotry has long been a constant in American politics, and it has been especially potent since the War on Terror. Former President Barack Obama, for example, was accused of being Muslim — as though that would disqualify him from public office — even though he is a Christian. Since Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were elected to Congress in 2018, they have been routinely victimized by smear campaigns and hate speech that has specifically targeted their identities. Tlaib, for example, has been accused by her colleagues in Congress of engaging in “antisemitic activity” and “sympathizing with terrorist organizations.” And at a fundraiser, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called Omar the “jihad squad.” Now, Mamdani is seeing his own Muslim background be weaponized against him. He has been said to come “from a culture that lies about everything,” that he is uncivilized, and that he is a threat to people’s safety simply because New York might have a “Muslim mayor.” There are still several months until New Yorkers head to the polls to vote for a new mayor in the general election. And unfortunately, this kind of open bigotry against Mamdani is likely to only get worse as Election Day nears. But while the attacks on Mamdani might seem like just one attempt at bringing down a candidate in a local race, their ultimate effect is much more damaging: They will make US politics all the more toxic and will only further normalize this kind of extreme bigotry against Muslims and immigrants in America.

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The astonishing racism in NYC’s mayoral race