Mayor Eric Adams held a summit to generate solutions to hate in New York City.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Generally, we New Yorkers try to get along.
00:05Of course, we've gone through periods where tensions and differences boil over, and we
00:11need to take stock at how we are doing.
00:16I submit this is one of those moments.
00:20We've witnessed too many, too many acts of hate and hate violence in New York City, both
00:27protected and unprotected.
00:31We need to address this escalating pattern.
00:35In February 2004, in Staten Island, the Daily News reported, and I quote, a man was bashed
00:43in the head with a metal bat by a stranger who called him a, quote, dirty Jew.
00:52The man attacked was wearing a yarmulke.
00:59Muslim women wearing hijabs have been physically attacked.
01:04In some cases, the attacker has attempted to remove the hijab.
01:11During COVID, and more recently, attackers assaulted Asian men and women, telling them
01:18to go back where they come from.
01:21Too many women, including a 13-year-old girl accompanied by her mother, on a recent Saturday
01:28afternoon at Grand Central Station, was punched in the face by a man for no apparent reason.
01:38Manifestations of stereotyping, prejudice, and bigotry, revealing racism, sexism, anti-Semitism,
01:48Islamophobia, homophobia, unfortunately continue.
01:55We gather here today to attempt to discuss hate and hate violence.
02:02How does it occur?
02:04Why does it occur?
02:07Can we realistically ameliorate it?
02:10And if yes, can we reach a consensus on an action plan?
02:16We're not here just to talk.
02:19That is, I submit, our challenge today.
02:22We need, we must, speak up in opposition to hate and hate violence.
02:29Otherwise, our silence can be interpreted as condoning hate and hate violence.
02:37Let me conclude with the following story.
02:41It was a Sunday morning, September 15th, 1963, at Birmingham, Alabama's 16th Street Baptist Church,
02:53with four African-American girls, Aidy Mae Collins, age 14, 14, Denise McNair, age 11,
03:04Tara Robinson, age 14, and Cynthia Wesley, age 14, died as a result of a horrific church bombing.
03:16My mentor, Charles Morgan, a Birmingham civil rights lawyer, was scheduled to speak the
03:23next day at the Birmingham Young Men's Business Club.
03:27In his speech, he condemned the specific act, but also focused on the people of Birmingham
03:34and the climate, the climate that forced this act to have taken place.
03:41Mr. Morgan said in part, and I quote,
03:45Every person, every person in this community who has in any way contributed to the popularity
03:52of hatred is at least as guilty as the demented fool who threw the bomb.
03:59Who did it?
04:01Who threw the bomb?
04:03The answer should be, we all did it.
04:07There is a time to speak.
04:09There's a time to act.
04:11Now I submit it is our moment in New York City to come together, people of goodwill,
04:19you all, to begin to build bridges across racial, religious, ethnic, gender, sexual
04:28orientation, and economic lines to develop and implement a citywide campaign to abate
04:36hate.
04:37Hopefully, today, we can achieve that goal.
04:41We will have, and we will hear presentations from many speakers, then we will discuss the
04:47presentations with the aim of determining by 3.30 this afternoon whether we can reach
04:55a consensus on an action plan that might consist of the following, town hall meetings
05:01conducted by the City Human Rights Commission and the State Human Rights Commission.
05:07People from both of those agencies are here this afternoon with the assistance of New
05:12York City civil rights and social justice groups.
05:15Second, can we get the community boards, all 59 in the city, conducting hate and hate violence
05:22forums?
05:24Third, can we get the churches, the synagogues, and mosques to conduct hate and hate violence
05:31forums?
05:32And finally, can we get the block associations and the tenants associations conducting similar
05:39hate and violence forums?
05:42And again, thank you all for being here today.
05:45But now, it gives me great pleasure.
05:50First I want to thank the mayor for believing that this is an issue that is of critical
05:57importance to the city.
05:59I want to thank him for sponsoring this and thanking him for encouraging us to speak up
06:08and be in opposition to all forms of intolerance.
06:13So now, it's a great pleasure to introduce to you my longtime friend who is now the 110th
06:21mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams.
06:33Thank you so much, Norman, and really thank all of you for taking the time to come out
06:39this morning to have what I believe is one of the most important conversations and discussions
06:47we could have, not only in the city, but throughout the entire country.
06:52I want to thank my Commissioner of Human Rights, Commissioner Palmer, who's here to show just
06:58how serious this matter is to all of us.
07:01Many years ago, when I was a younger man, I played JV football at the beginning for
07:10Bayside High School, and we had an amazing coach there, Coach Nelson.
07:16And if you know the history of high school sports in the city of New York, you know that
07:23Bayside had one of the most formidable varsity teams in the country.
07:29I tried out for the JV, I never was able to make that, and I didn't even make the varsity.
07:36But we started losing, season after season.
07:40And Coach Nelson brought the team together and stated that it's time to go back to basics.
07:46We saw the success throughout the years, but it's time to just learn how to run again,
07:53how to throw again, how to pass again, how to catch again, how to be a team again.
07:59And I believe that's where we are right now, not only as a city, but as a country and possibly
08:06as humanity.
08:09We have been engulfed in all of the things in our successes, from AI to computer technology
08:16to our ability to solve major problems, from quantum computers to EV vehicles, all of these
08:24things that we have invested in and continue to evolve.
08:28But we have not evolved in kindness.
08:31We have not evolved in the hate that we're seeing, and in fact, it has been hidden under
08:37the surface and it has engulfed us as a human race.
08:42And it's time for us to pause for a moment and have a true reflection on where are we
08:47going and what does the future look like.
08:50Hate has become so pervasive and comfortable, and we have normalized hate.
08:56And if we're honest with ourselves, in some way, we all have a role to play in it, as
09:02I think Norman eloquently pointed out, as in the church bombing.
09:08And I have to ask myself, as I said to my colleagues over and over again, what was my
09:12role?
09:13What did I do to contribute to some of the hate that we're seeing?
09:17When I sit down with my staffers that are Jewish, they state they're afraid to ride
09:23the subway trains, they're afraid to move about the city, they have to take off their
09:29Yama cars before entering a place.
09:32And then I sit down with my Muslim brothers and sisters, and I hear the woman tell me
09:36they have to remove their hijab because they are attacked.
09:39They are afraid to go to their mosque.
09:42When you do an analysis, we have a 79% increase in attacks and hate crimes against Jewish
09:48residents and double the number of attacks against Muslims.
09:53Our Sikh brothers and sisters are under attack merely for wearing a turban.
09:57If you look at our LGBTQ plus communities, you're seeing the levels of violence towards
10:04them as well.
10:05There is no community that escapes the hate that we're seeing.
10:08If it's almost as though hate has become the modern day COVID that is moving throughout
10:14our city and country and the globe at a pace that is alarming, and as almost as we may
10:20feel sometimes, what can we do, let's throw up our hands.
10:24I say no.
10:25I say, let's go back to the basics.
10:28Let's learn how to shake hands again.
10:29Let's learn how to smile at each other again.
10:32Let's learn how to hold the door for each other again.
10:34Let's learn how to have a decent conversation with each other again and don't look to prove
10:39someone is wrong.
10:40Let's be a deep listener so we can understand so we can be understood.
10:45And let's understand as human beings, there's nothing written in our anatomy that state
10:49we must agree all the time.
10:51What we must not do is be disagreeable.
10:54I was so happy to stand near the councilman minority leader when we responded to the attempt
11:01to take former President Trump's life.
11:06And he said something that really resonated with me and I say over and over again, it's
11:11okay to be angry.
11:13It's not okay to hate.
11:16Anger motivates us to change.
11:18Anger motivates us to want to do something different.
11:22I was angry that I was undiagnosed dyslexic and did not get the support that I needed,
11:27but it motivated me to do dyslexia screening in our schools.
11:31I was angry that mom did not get the food that she deserved to feed the family instead
11:36of feeding the chronic diseases that were pervasive in our community.
11:40But it motivated me to have healthy foods in our schools.
11:45Motivation through anger can allow us to do some very important things, but hate is to
11:50destroy.
11:51And what we are seeing is hate.
11:53We're seeing hate through social media that's spreading and really has become the Trojan
11:59horse among our children.
12:01They sit in their bedrooms, in the basements, in their classrooms, and being fed with algorithms
12:08that are having major impacts on their emotional and their mental stability, in some cases
12:14their physical stability.
12:17We're seeing many of our tabloids and papers and podcasts and radio shows is finding that
12:26if we could say the most harmful things, we would get the most attention.
12:31It has driven us to see who could be as hateful and as shocking as possible.
12:38And we're watching it in our schools and our college campuses.
12:41We're watching it in our place of businesses.
12:44There's no longer any filter on how do we say things in a very polite manner.
12:50People are looking to make you feel painful and to hurt.
12:55And that is becoming what is driving all of us.
13:00And I'm going to do my part.
13:02Last year, we did something called Breaking Bread, Building Bonds, 1,000 dinners across
13:06the city.
13:07At each dinner table was 10 people that came from a different ethnic, religious, or cultural
13:13background.
13:14And they did something revolutionary.
13:16They talked to each other.
13:17They shared a conversation.
13:19They talked about what it is to be a Sikh, what it is to be a Muslim, what it is to come
13:24from the Caribbean or the African diaspora.
13:27And they left the room becoming ambassadors for love instead of ambassadors for hate.
13:35And all of those small things are the basic principles that will allow us to win again.
13:42We're far from being perfect as a country or as a city or as a human being.
13:46In fact, I say we're perfectly imperfect.
13:50But there's a level of dedication that we can bring to this conversation.
13:53And this is the beginning point.
13:56And I take my hat off to Norman when he called me.
13:58This was so important.
14:00And it tugged at me what I watched, what is playing out, not only in the Gaza now, but
14:06what has played out on October 7th and was playing out in the Sudan.
14:12And what is playing out in Haiti, what is playing out in the West Coast of Africa and
14:17what's playing out with Hezbollah, what's playing out in South and Central America.
14:23You're seeing the level of hatred that I don't have never witnessed in my lifetime.
14:30And if we do not do what we're doing today, gather in our local gatherings, in our precinct
14:36council, in our block association, our civic meetings, in our mosques, our synagogues,
14:41our Buddhist temples, our Sikh temples, on our job spaces, if we don't become intentional
14:48and focus on the dismantling of hate, then we'll never be the champions that we once
14:54were.
14:55This is the greatest country on the globe, no other place is dream attached to its name.
15:00That dream should not be a nightmare that is rooted in hate.
15:03I am committed, and your presence here today tell me that you are committed, and I'm excited
15:08about what the future holds as we start the process of uniting our city, and it cascades
15:14throughout our entire country, and I think it cascades throughout the entire globe.
15:19It starts here in New York, one of the most diverse places on the globe.
15:23If we can live together in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Bronx, Staten Island, then we can
15:29live together across the seven continents of the globe.
15:33Thank you very much Namin.
15:40Okay, the next part of the program we're going to have eight individuals who are going to
15:52come up here.