Latest news with #bigotry
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Right-Wing Republicans in Congress Attack Mamdani With Islamophobic Comments
Representative Andy Ogles, a hard-right Tennessee Republican, on Thursday used Islamophobic language on social media to refer to Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, and said he should be deported. Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, implied that Mr. Mamdani was somehow tied to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which occurred when he was 9. That came after Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, reacted on Wednesday to Mr. Mamdani's apparent victory with an edited image of the Statue of Liberty clothed in a burqa. The responses to Mr. Mamdani's electoral triumph were the latest examples of how far-right Republicans in Congress have become overt in their use of bigoted language and ethnically offensive tropes, in both casual comments and official statements. Mr. Mamdani, a three-term New York State assemblyman who is all but certain to win the Democratic primary for mayor, was born in Uganda and has lived in New York City since 1998, when he was 7 years old. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2018 and, if elected, would become the city's first Muslim mayor. There is no credible evidence to suggest Mr. Mamdani is not, or shouldn't be, a U.S. citizen. But his shock win put him on the national radar, and some Republicans in Congress are now seeking to undermine him using a strategy similar to the racist one that Donald J. Trump employed against former President Barack Obama by questioning whether he was born in the United States. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘Australia's biggest bigot': Premier Chris Minns' surprise sledge in parliament at Mark Latham
NSW Premier Chris Minns has slammed former Labor MLC Mark Latham as 'Australia's biggest bigot' in a surprise spray in state parliament. Mr Minns unleashed on the one-time One Nation NSW leader during question time on Thursday after he was asked about the blockage to reforms. The Premier summed up the challenges as he saw them in 'three words' – The Legislative Council – and claimed it appeared Mr Latham was 'calling the shots'. He accused Mr Latham of repeating 'old tropes' on his 'odious Twitter account' when referring to the Dural caravan 'hoax' and anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney this year. 'It may not shock people in the gallery of this parliament that one of Australia's biggest bigots doesn't like hate speech laws, but that doesn't mean they're not justified. 'I want to correct the record for members in the gallery and in the public, there were 14 incidents involved of anti-Semitism related to the Dural caravan inquiry. 'There were 367 anti-Semitism attacks in NSW over the past two years, 367 wisely ignored by the member in that other place, Mark Latham.' Mr Minns claimed there was a 'coalition emerging' between the Greens in the Upper House, the Legislative Council, the Coalition, and One Nation. He claimed they were 'voting together day after day' to 'platform one of the most shameful bigots in NSW', referring to Mr Latham. 'At some point, members of this parliament and the other house have to stand against this bigotry,' Mr Minns said. It comes amid mounting tensions between the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council, in particular over the Dural caravan inquiry. Five staffers from Mr Minns and Police Minister Yasmin Catley's office were at risk of arrest this week after they failed to appear before the inquiry last week. They have since agreed to appear on Friday before the inquiry, which seeks to establish who knew what and when about the explosive-laden caravan. Proceedings were interrupted briefly by a protester who was later seen being escorted by security from the parliament complex.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Zohran Mamdani pledges to combat bigotry if elected NYC Mayor after MAGA spirals into ugly Islamophobia
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City Mayor, vowed to combat bigotry if he's elected after supporters of President Donald Trump 's Make America Great Again movement spread Islamophobic comments following his primary win. In an electoral upset, Mamdani, 33, who started his campaign as a little-known assemblyman from Queens, won the Democratic primary for mayor against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Tuesday night. Right-wing members of Trump's base spiraled following the win from Mamdani, who is a democratic socialist and has advocated against the Israeli government. Trump ally Laura Loomer, who is Jewish and has called herself a 'proud Islamophobe,' wrote on X Tuesday night, 'Muslims destroyed NYC on 9/11 and now a Muslim Communist is about to destroy the entire city for eternity.' Charlie Kirk, founder of pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA, wrote on X: '24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.' Mamdani addressed the antisemitism that New Yorkers and Americans across the country are facing in the wake of Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and said he would ' root out bigotry across the five boroughs' during an interview with MSNBC's Jen Psaki Wednesday night. Mamdani mentioned conversations he's had with Jewish New Yorkers. 'I spoke to a Jewish man in Williamsburg not too many weeks ago who told me about the fact that he now locks the door that he used to keep open for years because of a fear of who may come in,' the mayoral nominee said. He continued: 'I spoke to a friend of mine after October 7th who told me about going to his synagogue for Shabbat services and hearing the door open behind him and turning around with a tremor, going up his back, not knowing who was walking in and what they wished for them.' Mamdani mentioned his proposal would create an 800 percent increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs, 'because ultimately we cannot simply say that antisemitism has no home in this city or no place in this country. We have to do more than talk about it. We have to tackle it, and that's what we will do through this funding and through this commitment, we will root out bigotry across the five boroughs.'
South China Morning Post
30-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Mark Twain was wrong. Travel is not as fatal to prejudice as hoped
Mark Twain, in his bestseller The Innocents Abroad, commented on travel as the great unifier: 'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.' Advertisement A Hong Kong government investing heavily in tourism promotion to charm its way back into the good books of communities worldwide after our 2019 street riots and clumsy management of the Covid-19 shutdown would earnestly endorse the sentiment. But the evidence suggests Twain's intuitively persuasive argument is tragically wrong. Despite global travel at record levels – an estimated 1.4 billion international tourists were recorded last year, with 357 million jobs or 10 per cent of all jobs globally being connected to the travel and tourism sector – bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness seem alive and well. Two centuries of increasingly intensive international travel ought to have driven steady progress towards peace and international cooperation. Instead, we see ruinous wars and conflict , a rising tide of nationalism and opposition to immigration , as well as a surge in protectionism. US President Donald Trump's tariff assault on a world he claims has been 'ripping off' the United States for decades shows that not only tourism but also international trade provided little inoculation against bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Advertisement Why have we been so spectacularly wrong? First, many international tourists are poor ambassadors against prejudice. A family taking a limousine from Bali's airport to their exclusive resort is unlikely to notice or wish to note the poverty they drive through.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘What else could Cyril have done?' South Africans praise calm Ramaphosa after White House ambush
Many South Africans are praising President Cyril Ramaphosa's calm demeanor as President Donald Trump's multimedia ambush unfolded in front of the world's press. He pushed back gently whenever he could, but he didn't raise his voice or show anger, displaying his decades of negotiation experience. 'What else could Cyril have done?' asked veteran journalist Milton Nkosi. 'You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think they were caught completely unawares. How on earth could you have planned for that?' said Nkosi, who's a senior research fellow at the Africa Asia Dialogues think tank. On social media and across South Africa's broadcast outlets, consensus seemed to quickly form that Ramaphosa did the best under the circumstances. He remained 'calm, collected and humble in the face of bigotry and lies,' posted one user on X. 'You were a leader today. Went to build not to fight.' Ramaphosa brought his own White billionaire to the meeting – luxury goods magnate Johan Rupert, who's behind brands like Cartier – who told Trump that violent crime affects all races, but his words fell on deaf ears. Rupert even threw tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was also in the room, a bone. 'We have too many deaths. But it's across the board,' Rupert said. 'It's not only White farmers. It's across the board. We need technological help. We need Starlink at every little police station. We need drones.' One White South African called Rupert a traitor to his fellow Afrikaners in a social media post. Another prominent White South African, agriculture minister John Steenhuisen, also tried to convince their Oval Office host that he had been misled. The most dramatic part of the scene was when Trump called for lights to be dimmed and screened a four-and-a-half minute montage claiming to show evidence of a White genocide. It included far-left opposition leader Julius Malema singing 'Kill the Boer, kill the farmer' as a crowd chanted along. Officially named 'Dubula iBhunu' in the Xhosa language, the song emerged in the 1980s to fight the unjust system of segregation. South African courts have ruled that it doesn't mean a literal call to kill White farmers. The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2024 that any 'reasonably well-informed person' would see it as a 'historic struggle song, with the performance gestures that go with it, as a provocative means of advancing his party's political agenda.' Trump confronted Ramaphosa on why he had not arrested Malema for it. Malema, leader of the the Economic Freedom Fighters party, responded in his typical fiery way on X: 'A group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me,' he said, disputing the claims of a genocide. 'We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency.' Malema was expelled from Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC) party more than a decade ago and came third in the most recent election. Most of the information that Trump used to try to prove that 'White genocide' is happening in South Africa has repeatedly been disproven. Some South Africans have said that they believe that the information is 'AfriForum propaganda' – referring to a White Afrikaner lobby group criticized as being a White nationalist group. Its chief executive told CNN the group was pleased with how the meeting went. 'It shows that the South African president and the ANC leadership cannot just simply sweep real problems that we have in the country under the carpet and think they will disappear,' Kallie Kriel said in a voice note. CNN has looked at data from the South African police and has found no evidence of a 'White genocide.' A video played by Trump purported to show thousands of White farmers buried along the side of the road – but Ramaphosa said that he did not recognize the video, and that there was no evidence it showed what Trump claimed it displayed. It was the toughest public test yet for Ramaphosa, a skilled dealmaker who led negotiations for Nelson Mandela in talks that ended apartheid. 'It is absolutely absurd to sit and watch the president of the most powerful country in the world telling the man who negotiated to end apartheid, who was locked up in solitary confinement, that there's White genocide in South Africa, which is a lie. That is crazy,' Nkosi told CNN. It was a good day for South Africa's White nationalists. The president of the United States repeated their talking points from the bully pulpit of the White House, giving them the highest-profile validation they could have ever dreamed of. The South African delegation expected a confrontational meeting, but nothing could have prepared them for the ambush that awaited them.
