Zoran Mamdani, the winner of the Democrat primary for mayor of New York, has something in common with me, and it’s not just the vowel at the end of our names.
To digress for a moment, we certainly aren’t in sync on economics, although both of us are anti-capitalists, in a certain sense.
While Mamdani is an avowed communist, my beef with “capitalism” is that I just don’t like the word.
Why? Because both market economies and socialist economies rely on capital—that is, on what is saved from production for further investment. In that sense, both are capitalistic.
I prefer to say that I believe in property rights, free exchange, and the private ownership of the means of production.
Market economies and socialist economies differ on how much capital they create, who owns it, and the degree of coercion involved in allocating it. In a truly free-market economy—which is not what the US has today—there is minimal coercion. In a communist economy, there is maximum coercion.
Mamdani likes coercion. I don’t.
So, where do we agree?
We agree that the government’s official racial classifications are ridiculous. I’m speaking of these seven: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, and Middle Eastern.
The seven are not discrete or homogeneous. Not only is there a lot of diversity within each of the classifications, but there is a lot of cross-over between them. For sure, the hundreds of unique ethnocultural groups in the world don’t fit neatly in the seven. As such, the seven are anti-diversity.
Mamdani recognized this in his brilliant campaign, but his opponent, a SAWP (stupid ass White person), didn’t. For example, Mamdani understood that everyone crudely clumped together in the Asian classification is not the same in ethnicity, religion, mother country, values, and issues. Accordingly, he tailored his messaging and campaign to specific groups.
An article in City Journal gives the details of his tailoring and can be found at this link.
Highlights:
His mailers were in different Asian languages, such as Urdu, Hindi, Nepali, Tibetan, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Bangla.
One campaign ad was in Hindi. To quote from the article, it featured “scenes from Bollywood movies, and plastic cups of mango lassi, which he used to illustrate ranked-choice voting.”
Another quote: “Two days before the election, Mamdani and Shahana Hanif—a Bangladeshi member of the New York City Council from Kensington—filmed a similar ad in Bangla. In that ad, they use Bengali sweets, called ‘mishti,’ again to explain ranked-choice voting. Mamdani defeated Cuomo by 35 percentage points in this Brooklyn neighborhood, home to ‘Little Bangladesh.’”
Still another: “And throughout his campaign, Mamdani visited the Sikh Cultural Society and Baba Makhan Shah Lubana Sikh Center in South Richmond Hill, which has been nicknamed ‘Little Punjab’ and has a large Sikh population. He won the neighborhood by seven percentage points.”
Being of Italian ancestry, Andrew Cuomo should’ve understood that all Asians aren’t the same, just as all Whites aren’t the same. Apparently, he forgot that Italians and other ethnic/racial groups in the White classification were not seen as White by the Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Assimilation and cross-ethnic marriage have made the differences less pronounced, but there are still big differences between sub-groups in the White classification. Examples: the White working class versus the White college class, urban Whites versus rural Whites, White Cubans versus White Mexicans, White Armenians versus White Turks, and White Persians versus White Jews.
Cuomo lost because he forgot his ancestry and became a SAWP who believes that human and political diversity can be reduced to seven classifications.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
Wow. Please go away.
You both live in gilded mansions in the foothills?
“…he forgot that Italians and other ethnic/racial groups in the White classification were not seen as White by the Anglo-Saxon Protestant majority in the early decades of the twentieth century.”
Try explaining that to kids. I grew up in a period where every European immigrant group was it’s own “race” – the Italians, the Irish, the Poles, etc., and all were discriminated against. I’ve even shown my kids work signage from late 19th Century New Orleans where the Irish (Catholics) were offered less for work than recently freed slaves – something they could scarcely fathom from the Deep South.
Nevertheless, it’s been drill into their impressionable minds (thanks, UofA) that _anyone_ with less melanin content in their epidermis, regardless of their background, hardships, or economic fortunes, automatically has a leg up on their more pigmented countrymen, regardless of _their_ background, hardships, or economic fortunes.
It seems that Democrats are very successful at selling racism, and when the intolerance du jour starts to fail they re-brand and re-strategize accordingly, but they stick with what they know, and why not I guess if it’s a successful meal ticket.
Cheerios vs FRUIT LOOPS… processed holes