It’s public record that Rudy Giuliani has a checkered history when it comes to dealing with Black people. The attorney and former mayor of New York has come under fire for being racist numerous times by Black leaders, residents and other people of color.
Examples range from him condemning Black Lives Matter as “anti-American” and “inherently racist” to his refusal to ever condemn a very racist, very public riot by NYPD police officers in 1992.
During the riot, which Giuliani reportedly helped incite, Black city council members and residents were blocked from crossing the street, the racial slur ‘nigger’ was user repeatedly and officers decried having to report to a Black mayor, among other acts.
Not only has Giuliani never owned up to his role in the riot and the officers overt racism, he also attacked current New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for acknowledging the NYPD’s racist history. In a Washington Post opinion piece, Radley Balko said it’s because Giuliani benefitted politically from the NYPD’s racism.
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In 1998, Dr. Khalid Muhammad became the latest in a line of Black leaders to face off against Giuliani when Giuliani tried to block the Million Youth March in Harlem in 1998. After winning the right to proceed with the march in court, Muhammad called Giuliani ”an ordinary cracker” who ”chose to ignore the law,” reported the New York Times.
Muhammad added that Giuliani would have ”never would’ve told Jewish youth in Crown Heights they couldn’t march.” ”He never would’ve said it to Jew mothers, or Jew youth,” Muhammad told the Times, ”He never even would’ve tried it.” Giuliani condemned the march as a “hate march,” while Muhammad said it was supposed to unify Black youth.
Giuliani also said former President Barack Obama didn’t love America because he was “brought up” differently. “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said, according to the New York Times. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country.”
Many said his comments were fueled by racism, but Giuliani dismissed those claims because he said Obama “was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people.”
