He claimed that “the powerful” believe “only a select few are allowed freedom” in America, and that “not all are created equal.”
Zohran Mamdani, the Ugandan-born socialist who became New York City’s mayor this year, delivered a speech on Friday to mark America’s 250th birthday, using it to criticize the very nation that welcomed his family.
Sitting behind George Washington’s desk, Mamdani said that America’s 250th birthday "presents a rare opportunity for more than 340 million people to turn together, both towards one another and towards ourselves, to take measure of who we are as a nation."
Mamdani recounted New York City’s role in the American Revolution, including the Battle of Brooklyn, saying, "Independence may have been declared in Philadelphia, but it was rescued in New York City."
He spoke on the historic immigrant population of the city, with people from around the globe arriving through Ellis Island and later through other avenues, like his family, for the American dream. He said of these immigrants, "They saw merchants peddling their wares on the docks, streets being laid out on a grid, buildings rising into the clouds. They could not yet see the nativism they would face, the jobs they would be refused, the landlords who would not rent to them, and the abject labor and living conditions they would withstand."
He later added, "There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells, us makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in far away lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here, and yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional."
He said the "work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence" continues, "and it belongs to us all," including the "newest Americans" who joined Mamdani for the address.
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He claimed that "the powerful" believe "only a select few are allowed freedom" in America, and that "not all are created equal." He added, "America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit."
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"At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest, but time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces have been vanquished by the forces of progress," Mamdani said.
"As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions," he continued.
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"We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry, while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry, and oligarchs who buy elections. We see massed agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans."
He said America has a "health insurance industry that exploits the sick" and "corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model," and "we spend our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts" and 'we sell our selections to the highest bidder."
"We see America each time neighbors link arms with neighbors without asking how long they have lived here or what papers they have, as ICE invades our neighborhoods, we see America each time those young and old stand in the beating rain or the stifling heat to cast their ballots. We see America each time working people demand more, not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans."
"There are some who respond to those who ask for more from America with a simple refrain, love it or leave it, they say, but patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation, that we will not leave it. After all, who loves America more than those who have sacrificed so much to make it free?"
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