Democrats in New York have had a race problem for some time, and it’s seemingly getting worse.

Are Blacks abandoning the Democratic Party in New York because their land use policies favour gentrification and displacement ?

In a rare and insightful probe into the state of Black power in New York, the New York Times revealed that Blacks are engaged in a migration out of New York due to the housing crisis and quality of life issues. The article postulated that, as a result, the Democratic Party faces a reckoning with the loss of, and the loss of confidence by, a key voting bloc, noting, in relevant part, that, “community leaders and residents alike say they have noticed real political and demographic shifts that stand to threaten the endurance of New York’s once-ironclad Democratic coalition . . . .” Indeed, the Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey, the senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, described the exodus as an erosion. The report highlighted that, even as Blacks are moving, it could be because they are being moved out : “the same trends that disproportionately harm Black Americans are also driving some of them out of New York.”

Setting aside quality of life issues, let’s focus on the housing crisis.

The Democrats’ answer to the housing crisis has been to approve non-stop luxury condominiums ; develop and implement an affordable housing lottery system, which has been called a scam ; and to seemingly collaborate with Republicans in the Project 2025 goal of ending public housing. Because the Democratic Party wants to make New York a playground for the rich, of course races, which have faced centuries of discrimination, are going to get squeezed out.

More luxury apartments have been built in New York City Council District 3 under Councilmembers Corey Johnson (D) and his successor, Erik Bottcher (D), than in any other City Council district. This was largely due to Hudson Yards, which was developed by MAGA billionaire and Trump White nationalism supporter-donor Stephen Ross and gentrification related to the construction of the High Line. The gentrification has ushered in a mega-new, wealthy White neighborhood : the Hudson Yards plantation.

The affordable housing lottery system is premised on providing tax benefits to wealthy real estate developers in exchange for a set-aside of apartments for at least some of the 99 per cent. However, it’s been shown that the affordable housing lottery doesn’t help the very New Yorkers, who can least afford private sector housing, no matter the tax abatements. In New York, up to 25 per cent. of Blacks live in poverty, at least eight per centage points higher than the National average in a City that serves as the power base of the Democratic Party and the financial capital of the World.

Since the Democratic Party enjoys super-majority control over New York Governments, it raises serious questions, when the private sector cannot construct low-cost housing for New Yorkers earning low-incomes, like, why are Democrats choosing to end Section 9 public housing through schemes known as Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT), and the Preservation Trust ? Approximately 90 per cent. of public housing residents living in New York are minorities. By shifting such a large bloc of vulnerable people, including senior citizens living on fixed-incomes, to the private sector, these New Yorkers will lose Civil Rights Act protections that treat housing as a human right. In place of those civil rights protections, these minorities will face private sector landlords known for violating anti-discrimination laws.

As a result, the leading candidate in the Democratic Party primary for New York City mayor cobbled his coälition . . . without Blacks !

When State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (DSA-Astoria) finished ahead in the first-round of ranked choice voting in the Democratic Party’s mayoral primary, he did so without Blacks coälescing behind his mayoral campaign. His presumptive win came without the support of the solidly-Black neighborhoods in New York, according to a report published by the New York Times. The lack of Black support flies in the face of the mayoral primary wins of Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, the Times found, adding that, nationally, the Black voting bloc carried the recent presidential nominations of Barack Obama, Hillary  Rodham Clinton, and Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

What this shows is that the White coälition that is powering Assemblymember Mamdani’s mayoral campaign has been willing to ditch Black power after making the political calculation that Black support was expendable in a City-wide mayor’s race.

Nowhere else can that be seen than in Assemblymember Mamdani’s support for the RAD/PACT and Preservation Trust sell-out of NYCHA public housing in New York. Returning to the Times‘ trend story of Democrats’ failed policies forcing Blacks to move-out of New York, two key issues facing Blacks are the housing crisis and the crisis of public housing. To maintain support amongst Whites and the Big Business community that are the sources of large, campaign donations, the support by Democrats, including Assemblymember Mamdani, to the sell-out of NYCHA could be the leading driver of Blacks being moved-out of New York.

The gentrification that beset Harlem and shattered that historic neighborhood’s focal point of Black power in New York is one example of how Democrats, who enjoy super-majority control over New York City Government and public policy, are complicit in a racist drive to break Black power in New York. They’ve learned to take their racist fight to break DEI to the ballot-box, and win, just like President Donald Trump (R).

The Democrats’ new model of White power politics, which is indifferent to Black issues and Black support, can also be witnessed in the transactional politics of Democratic Party powerbroker Allen Roskoff and in the obfuscation of District Leader Layla Law-Gisiko, who supports the privatisation and demolition of public housing in Chelsea and who uses an almost deliberate misreading of the law to excuse the unlawful disposition of City real property outside of the ULURP Process, respectively. The pattern of racial indifference is more than accidental, and its fingerprints can be seen in more than just the mayor’s race. Ask Councilmember Erik Bottcher (D-Chelsea).

#OpHudsonYards

Updated Anonymous Message to NYCHA Residents

Greetings NYCHA Residents, we are Anonymous.

Since we sent our last message to you, we have been disappointed in your response.

What will it take for you to fight for your homes ?

The politicians you sided with are about to steal your homes and give them away to Stephen Ross, a billionaire supporter of Trump’s White nationalist agenda.

Already, we have heard that NYCHA residents are being denied pandemic rental assistance and are having trouble getting their lease renewals. With the eviction moratorium ending today, you have fewer protections.

There’s no way that Stephen Ross is going to fix your apartments without a price. He no doubt plans to bulldoze your homes the way lands get cleared elsewhere.

We’ve also learned that many lawyers are afraid to sue Eric Adams and NYCHA to stop RAD/PACT conversions, because they know that judges won’t hold the City of New York and NYCHA accountable. Behind your back, lawyers admit they protect corruption.

The only way you are going to keep your homes is for you to fight for them.

We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was exposed for having lied about defunding the NYPD by $1 billion, which could have been one source of possible funding for NYCHA

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would use $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD budget to advance social justice. He lied. Now, NBC News has caught him increasing the NYPD budget by $200 million.

Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) was busted by NBC News in an investigation one year after the “defund the police” movement led to his promise to cut $1 billion from the budget of the New York Police Department and to use that funding stream, instead, to make “some transformative changes at the department,” in the words of Mayor de Blasio’s chief enabler, Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Chelsea).

Not only did the $1 billion cut made in June 2020 never materialise, but an additional $200 million was added to the NYPD budget in June 2021, according to NBC News.

Last year, outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council moved to cut roughly $1 billion from the police’s $6 billion budget and invest it in youth and social services. De Blasio wrote in a tweet then that “Our young people need to be reached, not policed.” But just a year later, officials adopted the city’s largest budget ever, at $98.7 billion, for fiscal year 2022, which included a $200 million increase for police spending.

Mayor de Blasio has given lip service to the promise to promote racial and social justice.

In New York City, the #DefundTheNYPD movement, like respective movements across the nation, grew out of the George Floyd anti-racism protests in 2020. Mayor de Blasio promised to use the money to help youths and other social service programs. As Mayor de Blasio’s term in office comes to an end, nobody knows what happened to his broken promises for funding racial and social justice.

Mayor de Blasio has been accused of using his bi-racial family to co-opt the language of social movements and as a political cover to defend or expand race-based policing — even as he has rejected calls to hold the NYPD accountable for homicides and other acts of brutality committed by the police. As NBC News noted, Mayor de Blasio said, “Our young people need to be reached, not policed.” But that turned out to be another one of his lies. In a review of Mayor de Blasio’s two terms in office, the New York Daily News reported that Mayor de Blasio leaves behind a legacy of corruption and neglect on housing issues.

Fight For NYCHA have long argued that sources of Government funding could be found to fully-fund NYCHA. For decades, the racist divestment of public housing led to a gargantuan deficit in NYCHA’s capital repairs budget. Our funding ideas were workshopped and packaged as a People’s Budget that has been updated over time. One of the items in our People’s Budget was to defund the NYPD by $2 billion and to use that money to bond the capital repairs at NYCHA.

Duplicitous politicians and nonprofit groups continue to say they care about NYCHA, but then they corruptly take advantage of the lack of funding to benefit their donors. As Mayor de Blasio begins to reportedly wage a campaign for New York governor, he has awarded the RAD/PACT conversion at Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea to the Trump billionaire backer and Hudson Yards developer, Stephen Ross.

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Cea Weaver was exposed for gaslighting a NYCHA tenant association president over de Blasio’s ongoing schemes to sell-out NYCHA with Section 8 vouchers

Cea Weaver played the part of “a dumb blonde” when it came to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s use of Section 8 vouchers to end public housing as we know it.

Over Labour Day week-end, NYCHA tenant leader Melanie Aucello called-out the alleged misrepresentations and gaslighting by the DSA housing policy leader, Cea Weaver, about the use of Section 8 rental assistance vouchers to end Section 9 public housing in New York City, according to a report published by the Real Deal.

In response to Aucello’s entreaties, Weaver asked Aucello to table the NYCHA talk, but Aucello wasn’t having any of it, according to the report.

And then the name-calling began.

As revealed by Fight For NYCHA, Weaver and a group of New York State legislators, which appeared to include State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Bushwick), State Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-Bed-Stuy), Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes (D-Red Hook), were on the cusp of agreeing to support passage of the controversial Blueprint for Change for NYCHA last spring that would have convert all non-RAD/PACT public housing apartments into a new entity that would have effectively brought about the end of all Section 9 public housing in New York City. The Blueprint was stopped after Fight For NYCHA, in a coälition with others known as NYCHA Is Not For Sale, exposed the hypocrisy of DSA leaders supporting the end of public housing.

And if Weaver hadn’t insulted Aucello, personally, and all NYCHA residents, generally, Weaver then resorted to obfuscation and gaslighting, cliaming that Weaver never supported the Blueprint but instead was supporting some other policy, leaving Aucello fuming and demanding to know when had Weaver ever denounced Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) over his schemes to sell-out NYCHA public housing with “RAD/PACT/Blueprint.”

Weaver never answered the question.