Hawk Newsome: BLM leader calls Eric Adams 'White man in blackface', says he turned NYC into 'warzone'
Things aren't going great for New York Mayor Eric Adams at the moment. The Big Apple's second Black Mayor has been surrounded by controversy since taking office, and it seems he is facing massive opposition. The latest to take Adams to town is Hawk Newsome, a Black Lives Matter (BLM) leader who controversially called Adams a "White man in blackface."
This isn't the first time Newsome has slammed Adams. In November 2021, after a meeting between the two at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Newsome emerged and controversially said "There will be riots. There will be fire, and there will be bloodshed." The reaction was in response to Adams' policing plan, which involved reinstating the NYPD's plainclothes cop units. Adams has been struggling with policing, with NYC facing a massive surge in crime despite numerous efforts from Adams and his NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
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The showdown in November worsened but eventually died down. However, it's clear that he was not done with Adams at all. Newsome had some strong words for the Mayor over the death of 12-year-old Kade Lewin, and they certainly weren't kind.
'This city is a war zone and he can’t stop it'
"Don’t listen to what Eric Adams says, he gives great press statements. He’s the master of the press conference," Newsome told Fox News' 'America’s Newsroom'. He added, "Some kid dies, he hugs their mother. He’s holding up sneakers, he’s crying. But what we elected him for — the city of New York — was to keep the city safe. This city is a war zone and he can’t stop it." Controversially, Newsome then dubbed Adams a "White man in blackface, and a very conservative-minded white man at that."
The BLM leader was referring to the death of Kade Lewin, who was shot in the head and killed while sitting in a parked minivan with his family. The grade 7 student was killed in late March, with his killers still on the loose. Controversially, Adams did not attend the public service for Lewin, instead opting to attend a meeting on gun violence.
Newsome also told Fox what he planned to do about the city's gun violence issue. "We're going to organize people in our communities to go out and preach a message of love and unification in the streets. We're going to take control of our cities because the government has failed us for decades," he slammed. For good measure, Newsome added, "We have to fix this problem ourselves because we believe that poverty is the mother of crime."
He also defended the Defund the Police movement, saying it's about "taking money from the police and putting it in community centers, job opportunities, and after-school programs." While overall crime is indeed on the rise, Black Americans are disproportionately victims of gun violence. FBI data reveals that 7,484 Black Americans were killed in 2019, which shot up to 9,941 murders in 2020. In contrast, 7,043 White people were killed in 2020.
