BLACK AMERICA SHOULD REJECT BLOOMBERG’S CANDIDACY GIVEN REVEALED RACIST STATEMENTS ON TAPE

Screenshot_2020-02-12 (33) Mike Bloomberg - Home

[Michael Bloomberg\Aspen Institute Tape]
Bloomberg: “Ninety-five percent of murders—murderers and murder victims—fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16–25.”
Photo: Facebook

A racist 2015 audio recording has unmasked the ugly side of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The recorded comments tell us what he thinks about young Black men–and should disqualify him from receiving Black America’s support for the presidency.

This week, just as Mr. Bloomberg was being endorsed by Black politicians like New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, and U.S. Virgin Islands Rep. Stacey Plaskett, this recording was going viral on social media.

The recording gives us insight into why Bloomberg strongly supported the Stop-and-Frisk policy as mayor.

The recording is from a speech Bloomberg gave at the Aspen Institute. It has been alleged Bloomberg’s team was able to gain the agreement of the Aspen Institute to conceal the video portion of this recording, knowing it would hurt his presidential political aspirations–especially, since he would need Black votes to win the Democratic Party nomination. But the audio of this speech was enhanced by Georgia journalist Benjamin Dixon, who then posted it on social media.

The recording is a damning indictment of Bloomberg’s racist feelings toward young Black men.

In the speech, Bloomberg says “Ninety-five percent of murders—murderers and murder victims—fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16–25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city [inaudible]. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed. So you want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them…”

Bloomberg’s bigoted statements are maddening, but not surprising to Black and Brown New Yorkers. Indeed, his recent epiphany regarding how wrong and racist Stop-and-Frisk policing is conveniently happened when he decided to run for president.

The Black Star News has long taken a strong stand against racist policing policy. In fact, it seems clear to us Mr. Bloomberg was talking about this publication when he said the following regarding Stop-and-Frisk, in 2013, on WOR-NY Radio “One newspaper and one news service, they just keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s a disproportionate percentage of a particular ethnic group.’ That may be, but it’s not a disproportionate percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the [crime]. In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they’re saying. I don’t know where they went to school, but they certainly didn’t take a math course. Or a logic course.”

How can Mr. Bloomberg talk about logic while advancing asinine arguments that police stop White people too much? Imagine the weird rationale that makes someone say police stop Blacks too little in America?

Mr. Bloomberg is now trying to pretend these statements are just part of his former beliefs. We’re supposed to believe he only figured out Stop-and-Frisk was racist and wrong now that he is running for president?

Last November, when Bloomberg was emerging as a presidential candidate, he gave a speech at Brooklyn’s large Christian Cultural Center saying he was “wrong” and “sorry” regarding his defense of Stop-and-Frisk. But as some have noted he was still defending  Stop-and-Frisk a few months before he went to this Black church.

Why this sudden change by Mr. Bloomberg? Are we supposed to be dumb and not see that this is nothing more than the callous calculation of a politician? We should remember Bloomberg has also changed party affiliations whenever it suits his political purposes.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg apologized for Stop-and-Frisk saying, “By the time I left office, I cut it back by 95%, but I should’ve done it faster and sooner. I regret that and I have apologized — and I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on Black and Latino communities. But this issue and my comments about it do not reflect my commitment to criminal justice reform and racial equity.”

Instead of addressing the issue of this racist recording himself, Bloomberg has enlisted the aid of certain faith leaders who assure us he isn’t a racist. Well, if Mr. Bloomberg isn’t a racist he sure sounds and acts like one on this tape.

 

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