Rudy Giuliani is an unapologetic race monger who seems to despise African American men in elected leadership positions.
Last week, Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, sank to an all-time low when he blamed President Barack Obama for high crime rates in the Black community, a vicious fight in a Brooklyn McDonald’s, and the shootings of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri.
It’s perhaps the most absurd racially-charged allegation that has ever been uttered by Giuliani – and he’s expressed a litany of ridiculous notions over the past 20 years. He often spews racist sentiments while wrapping himself in the proverbial American flag.
In a radio interview with John Gambling on AM 970, Giuliani said Obama is ignoring “enormous amounts of crime” being committed by African-Americans.
“It all starts at the top,” Giuliani said. “It’s the tone that’s set by the President.”
Giuliani said about “70 percent” of crimes in New York are committed by African-Americans and said Obama is at fault.
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“And if an African-American president stood up and said – I hate to mention it because of what happened afterwards – the kinds of stuff that Bill Cosby used to say. The kinds of stuff that Imam Pasha says at the Malcolm X Mosque: This is our responsibility,” he said.
What kind of tone is Obama setting? And how can Giuliani legitimately blame Obama for the behavior of others?
I would argue that the president sets a tone for racial conciliation and cultural understanding. And Obama has mentioned – on a number of occasions – that Black people must take responsibility for violent behavior in our communities.
Did Giuliani conveniently overlook Obama’s remarks – or does he just prefer to lie because he thinks he’ll get away with it?
So let’s put Giuliani into some historical context.
In 1992, during the New York City mayoral race between Giuliani and former mayor David Dinkins, more than 10,000 police officers, overwhelmingly white, rallied at City Hall in one of the ugliest, racist and repugnant demonstrations I have ever witnessed.
Cops, many drinking beer and packing guns, carried signs that read: “Dump the Washroom Attendant” and some with the N-word scrawled on cardboard. I heard cops using the N-word while reporting the story and, at one point, a City Hall security officer suggested that I step inside City Hall for my own protection.
These were police officers, men who took an oath to serve and protect. Enter Giuliani. During the raucous rally, Giuliani stoked the crowd with fiery rhetoric, never denouncing the cops for their racist behavior.
Here’s how The New York Times reported the story in 1992:
“A handful of people, then hundreds, then thousands, broke through police barricades and surged onto City Hall’s steps. From there, the protest degenerated into a beer-swilling, traffic-snarling, epithet-hurling melee that stretched from the Brooklyn Bridge to Murray Street, where several politicians helped stoke the emotional fires. The protest would have been noteworthy even if it had been any rally gone a bit too wild. But the protesters were the police.”
“Rudolph W. Giuliani, a likely candidate for Mayor in 1993, was present throughout the demonstration and led the crowd in a rousing condemnation of Mayor Dinkins’s treatment of police issues.”
Giuliani hasn’t changed over the years. In 1992, he embraced racial behavior to criticize David Dinkins, New York’s first Black mayor, and 23 years later, Giuliani is using race to blast Obama, America’s first Black president. His contempt for Black men in high-profile political roles is quite apparent.
The good news is that Giuliani will never be the Republican nominee for president and he will never occupy the White House. Since his national platform is shrinking, Giuliani’s racial rhetoric is nothing more than white noise. And I’m tired of listening to it.
What do you think?
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