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CityAndStateNY.com
June 13, 2022
The honeymoon is over New York’s Black leaders rate how Eric Adams has done in his first five months. By Jeff Coltin
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LOT OF PEOPLE have thoughts about Eric Adams. “8.8 million people in this city, 30 million opinions.” It’s a line he often repeats. He’ll hear any of them. The mayor has made a habit of meeting with just about anyone, from anti-vaxx activists to cryptocurrency billionaires. He may not be holding town halls yet, or taking weekly questions on WNYC like past mayors, but he does make himself available for questions from the press most weekdays. But the mayor doesn’t always listen. His motto has always been: “no distractions, stay focused and grind.” He tells his team to “ignore the noise” in government, “ignore the noise” coming from the “culture of disbelief.” He was elected by people on Social Security, not people on social media, he noted on primary night. And he doesn’t care about what people tweet. “I care about the people I meet on the street.” And when New Yorkers do tell him how they feel, like in the recent NY1/Siena College poll? He says it’s nothing to listen to. “New Yorkers are hard judges and graders.” Unsurprisingly, Adams tops our Power of Diversity: Black 100 list this year. In light of that, we asked Black power players in New York City – many of whom also appear on
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
the list – to share their reflections on the man in Gracie Mansion. We reached out to clergy, activists, labor leaders, lawmakers and academics, hoping to reflect some of the diversity of Black thought in the city. And we asked: “How has Eric Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, been doing so far?” Adams may not be interested in their takes on his tenure, but we certainly were. These responses have been edited for length and clarity. A.R. BERNARD, senior pastor, Christian Cultural Center Of course, his approval rating has fallen to 29% in the last few days. I’ve served with (Rudy) Giuliani, I served the Bloomberg administration, the de Blasio administration, and this is expected. The big issue of crime is not as easy to address as people may think. We have to be careful comparing him to de Blasio at this particular time in de Blasio’s administration because we had 12 years of Bloomberg. And in spite of stop and frisk, the city was in a good place in terms of quality of life. So the big issues of prison reform, policing reform, public safety, homelessness, education, the economy – these are ocean liners. They take time to turn around. The first 100 days was the honeymoon. Now there’s a marriage to work on. And New York City
is a wife with high and immediate expectations. So I won’t give the mayor a pass, but I will give him a chance. And he’s got to prove himself beyond the pulpiteering. He brings the charisma. He brings the personality. But at the end of the day, people want to see change. So we’re proud of him. But … JAWANZA WILLIAMS, director of organizing, VOCAL-NY While I hold the complexity of what it means to be Black and in leadership in politics in this country with care, especially in this increasingly volatile period, just the same, I have a responsibility to hold anyone accountable to the full scope and gravity of their words and actions. Mayor Adams’ “law-and-order, clean up the streets” rhetoric and knee-jerk reactions to homelessness without any meaningful consideration of how these responses are most harmful to Black New Yorkers is a painful erasure of Black history. I believe that the mayor has moved in lock-step with conservatives, police, and profit-first industry, and made concerted efforts to neutralize critical voices and perspectives that challenge his political power and neoliberal policies. The mayor needs to come to Black Jesus and honor our ancestors and our commu-
