Smearing NYC

At a time when New York City is losing residents to other cities and states, a man who aspires to be mayor has the gall to tell Iowans, Ohioans and other Americans their talents and tax dollars aren’t welcome here. “Go back to Iowa!” went the Martin Luther King Day diatribe by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “You go back to Ohio! New York City belongs to the people that [were] here and made New York City what it is.”

Note that Adams isn’t aiming his ire at new New Yorkers who hail from Russia or China or Mexico or Yemen, who (bless them) also have a tendency to change the character of neighborhoods. The only ones he wants to shoo away are folks from other parts of the United States, who happen to be a vanishingly small slice of the totals settling here.

So goodbye, aspiring actors trying to make it big on Broadway. Goodbye, starving artists sharing four-story walkups with too many roommates. Goodbye, potential future leaders in local politics (including, ahem, our last two mayors). Goodbye, people in every field whose renewable energy and ambition help make this the most dynamic metropolis in the world.

Or maybe Adams is okay with Ohioans, Iowans and others becoming New Yorkers, provided the ones with white skin settle in parts of the city that happen not to be predominantly black or brown.

Which would mean reinforcing racial segregation in housing, one hell of a thing to call for on King’s birthday of all days.