On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said that Jewish students are “going through” the same experience as black students did in Little Rock when they had “to be escorted on campuses because they were afraid for their lives.”
Adams said, “I can feel the duality of this moment. As I stated, I understand the pain that is playing out in Israel and in Gaza at this time. I understand what Palestinian New Yorkers are going through, and, in a peaceful way, to display that. I understand what the Israeli[s] experienced on October 7. And so the duality of that moment is important.”
He continued, “But I also look back to Little Rock, AR, and what it meant for African Americans to be escorted on campuses because they were afraid for their lives. And that is what I see when I see Jewish students going through this at this moment. There is no place for hate in this city. I don’t care if it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Sikhism. We don’t have a place for that, and I don’t want to be, and I won’t be the mayor where you have to take off your hijab, your yarmulke, or your turban when you enter a place of higher education or use our transportation system or walk our streets.”
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