New York City’s socialist mayor is taking fire from his own side after trying to push out the black woman who chairs NYC’s Commission on Racial Equity after she went public with criticism of his administration, the New York Post reports.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote to the City Council this week seeking its approval to replace commission chair Linda Tigani with Christopher Alexander, who serves as executive director of the NAACP in New York. The request, first reported by The New York Times, drew immediate backlash from the council and from voices in the black community who said it looked like payback.
“He wants to put it under his thumb, because she criticized him,” one insider told the Post. “You can’t retaliate against someone because they are criticizing their administration.”
“The one commission that is supposed to deal with issues in the black community, and he tries to fire her,” the insider added.
The bad blood goes back to early in Mamdani’s tenure. According to the Post, his administration edited the commission’s draft report to strip out racial inequity and removed every reference to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The Post says the edits were made to stay off the radar of the Trump administration, which has been cracking down on DEI programs around the country.
The commission was created in 2022 by a ballot measure that charged it with studying reparations, tackling inequality across the five boroughs and producing a formal report.
On Wednesday afternoon, Tigani took her fight to the steps of City Hall, leading a rally of lawmakers and community members pushing to keep her in the job. “The only people that are holding the line in this decision are the black and Latino Asian Caucus and Speaker Julie Menin,” she said. “Speaker Menin understands that a removal of me in this moment is actually undermining the independence of the commission.”
Demonstrators accused Mamdani of putting up token “black bodies” during his campaign while falling far short for the community once in office. Mamdani also took heat at the start of his term for naming no black deputy mayors.
Council member Farah Louis warned that replacing Tigani “risks delaying and derailing a process that black New Yorkers have waited generations to see.”
Mamdani’s pick comes with baggage of his own. Alexander was forced out once before, resigning after he ran New York’s botched legal-weed rollout under Gov. Kathy Hochul.
For now, the ouster has stalled. Under a tentative deal between the council and the mayor, Tigani stays until next July, and the council remains open to vetting Alexander.
Asked about the turmoil at a Wednesday news conference, Mamdani said Tigani’s full three-year term is over, and that “we all owe her a debt of gratitude” for advancing racial equity in the city. “Alongside the City Council, we have agreed to extend her term to next summer, and we’re excited to work with that same council to put forward Christopher Alexander as the next Commissioner,” he said.
For a mayor who campaigned as a progressive champion, trying to sideline a black woman who dared to criticize him is a hard look to explain, and members of his own coalition are saying so out loud.
Source: nypost.com
