Hawk Newsome, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, said on Thursday’s Fox News program “America’s Newsroom,” that Eric Adams, New York City Mayor was a “c**n” as well as a “white man in blackface.”
Bill Hemmer, co-host, got the ball rolling.HEMMER: This is the subject. White lives are also important, I think. Everyone’s life is important here. The mayor claims that not everyone will respond the same way. What would you tell him?
NEWSOME! The way you put White lives in there was so smooth. The problem with Black lives being oppressed and not receiving justice is that nobody cares. Nothing happens. If something happens to a White person, the world moves. Let’s go back to Eric Adams. Although Eric Adams is a Democrat, he speaks conservative and Republican talking points. We have a name to call someone like this. This is the kind of person we would call a c**n.
HEMMER: Whoa!
NEWSOMEE: He is a Black man – he’s a White man in blackface, and a very conservative-minded White man, at that.
According to Merriam-Webster, the above c-word term is “offensive” and can be used as an insulting or contemptuous term for Black people.
The Racial Slur Database explains its origins:
This probably refers to the Portuguese term for slave pen or barracks called “barracoons”. It could also be a shortening for “raccoon”, as raccoons are known to steal. Perhaps Dr. Carleton Coon believed that blacks were less developed than whites in the 1960s.
Adams being called “a White man wearing blackface” is clearly an insult. Newsome is known for making controversial comments and has previously criticized the national BLM organization’s purchase of luxury homes.
According to the NY Post, Newsome was reported as wearing a bulletproof vest and smoking a cigar while he walks through Bronx neighborhoods. He threatened violence against New York if Adams, then Mayor-elect, implemented his plan to restore plainclothes anticrime cops. He said that there would be riots outside Brooklyn Borough Hall. “There will also be fire and bloodshed.”
One wishes that he would use less inflammatory language in an interview, despite his previous rhetoric. Why can’t he just state, “I strongly disagree with how Mayor Adams handles crime?” It’s not fair for anyone to lower the level of the conversation so that he uses personal insults and slurs. While Newsome might have valid points and interesting ideas, most people won’t hear them due to his incendiary rhetoric. This doesn’t advance the debate, in fact, it hinders it.
