ADAMS PULLS RACE CARD ON PRESS CORPS

ADAMS IN ALBANY, WHINES,  USES RACE EXCUSE

IS ALBANY ADAMS’ AFGHANISTAN?  

Yesterday, February 15, 2022  NYC Mayor Eric Adams returned from his “hat in hand” trip to Albany where he had gone to seek desperately needed help on bail reform legislation essential to control  the surging crime wave in New York City.  Sadly,  his  trip was a failure.  But he created an Biden-like Afghanistan disaster at his presser then next day, by pulling the race card on the reporters.  Irked by the critical newspaper headlines, the Mayor blamed “white reporters and editors”,….. “who don’t look like me” …and charged that the press saw him and the city crime wave only through a white “prism”.  

Adams traveled to Albany where  he sat down with NY state leaders hoping to modify the state’s so-called “bail reform” laws which now permit violent repeat offenders to go right back onto the street and commit further even more heinous crimes.  With recent statistics on crime in NYC  surging out of control (39% up in January, 41% up in February so far) and mostly from repeat offenders,  his trip was seen by fearful New Yorkers as a sign of hope. But those in Albany apparently see NY City crime (using Mayor Adams’ metaphor) through a black “prism” and offered  Adams no help. 

When the Mayor’s efforts in Albany were revealed, his rebuke by Albany legislators was dutifully reported in the local press.  Even the Daily News, which tends to “look the other way”  when Democrats “screw up”, gave “ hizzzonor” disappointing front page headlines in big, bold letters.  Irked by the widely negative reporting, the mayor,  who left his tough talk, earthy aphorisms, braggadocio  and “manspalinin’ ” back in City Hall when he traveled to Albany, where he fell into line as a loyal and obedient  Democrat.   Adams claimed his trip north was a collegial  “success” with  (according  to him) a  “black”mayor, sitting down for useful dialogue with (in his own words), other black colleagues such as NY State  Senate majority leader , and the NY State Assembly leader.  Perhaps there was a great deal of self congratulations going on, but that did not constitute “success” for the City the new mayor now heads. 

But Adams did not sway the Albany leaders,  and in effect, they sent the Mayor home with a pat on the back and a note pinned on to his lapel which read: “Tell your ‘mommy’ we are “holding the line” on bail reform”.  The Mayor’s “good friend” in the Governor’s mansion,  added insult to that injury by adding  a “PS” ro his lapel note indicating that she had   “no plans” to put bail reform on the legislative agenda this session.  

Back at City Hall, facing only the often friendly and compliant  NY press, the Mayor’s sharp tongue, and tough-guy routine returned.  There, confronting press members he whinged and whined about “white reporters and editors” who were “writing things (about him) and seeing things only through their (white) prisms”.   

Mayor Adams doesn’t get it. There are no “black” or “white prisms” with violent crime—only suffering human beings.   Ask the family of Christina Yuma Lee, a 35 year old Asian business executive who was found stabbed to death in her China Town apartment, allegedly by a career criminal who followed her to her door and forced his way into her building.  This perpetrator  had been arrested seven times in five years, and each time the system returned him to the street to prey on other victims.  

Those in Albany who it seems can only see crime (using the Mayor’s own metaphor) through the “black prism” are the real problem. (And after Albany we are now not so certain just where our Mayor stands.) 

At his press meeting Mayor Adams revealed how well he can bully, threaten, and push around the weak and compliant City press corps.  One thinks that, if while in Albany, rather than a cozy chat with colleagues of similar backgrounds , he had confronted these legislators with some of that same passion and anger he directed at the press, he may have come home a conquering hero,  rather than a loser who is, only after a mere month in office,  looking weak and uncertain. Let’s hope this is not his “Afghanistan” moment. 

 If the City and Adams are to survive,  the Mayor must forget about who is looking through what “prisms”, black, white, or rose tinted.  Adams was elected by a big plurality as the mayor,  not of any ethnic or racial group, but of the entire, turbulent and troubled City. As a candidate  he promised to control rampant crime—- the existential issue for this City.  Now is the time to do just that .  We all go down together, if he fails.