She sees things in black and white.
NYC Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams preached about her desire to “unite people, despite our differences” during her State of the City speech this week — but her choice of words proved divisive, critics said.
The DEI-obsessed Queens lawmaker threw out plenty of left-wing buzzwords in her 24-minute speech Tuesday: “diverse” or diversity” seven times; “equity” or inequity” and “racism” three times; and “of color” four times.
Adams, the city’s first African American speaker, also made it a point to use the word “black” 10 times.
And while she never mentioned embattled Mayor Eric Adams by name, she repeatedly ripped his administration.
“The dignity and trust in government leadership has been shaken in our city, and it must be restored,” said the speaker.
“Adrienne Adams loves to preach about unity, but her rhetoric is anything but unifying: it’s divisive, hypocritical, and steeped in double standards,” said one Democratic colleague.
Mayor Adams’ camp ripped the speaker for demanding diversity and unity among New Yorkers while simultaneously ripping the reputation of NYC’s second black mayor and creating further division among top city leadership.
“You can’t have it both ways, and it’s hard to imagine New Yorkers won’t see right through that,” said mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak.
The speaker, a champion of NYC’s controversial sanctuary city status, has claimed the mayor wants to cooperate with President Donald Trump on policy matters to avoid prosecution on federal corruption charges. In her speech — a precursor to her formally announcing her mayoral bid Thursday — she raged that Trump is on a “cruel crusade against immigrant families.”
Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic consultant, said he believes the speaker’s address “wasn’t really about uniting people” but rather trying to link the mayor to Trump and draw black and “white liberal” voters away from the mayor.
“It’s not a bad strategy, but I think she’s entering the race too late to overcome two very well-known candidates: Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Adams,” he said.
When asked to respond to the critics, Speaker Adams’ spokesperson Mara Davis said it’s the speaker and other council members’ job to “hold the mayoral administration accountable when it is falling short of effectively serving New Yorkers.”
“We must be honest about that and when any mayoral administration fails to deliver results for our city. Speaker Adams’ address spoke to concerns held by New Yorkers, because she was elected to represent them without fear or political favor,” she said.