Overview

#BloombergIsRacist is a hashtag which trended after audio leaked of Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg advocating for New York City's controversial "stop and frisk" policy during his time as Mayor. The policy was controversial as critics believed it led to racial profiling and unfair targeting of black people in the city. In the audio, Bloomberg argues for sending police to minority neighborhoods because "that's where the crime is," and saying the way to get guns out of children's hands "is to throw them up against the walls and stop and frisk them.” This led Twitter users to spread the hashtag criticizing Bloomberg's record.

Background

On February 10th, 2020, Twitter user and podcast hose @BenjaminPDixon^[1] posted audio of Mike Bloomberg speaking to the Aspen Institute in 2015 in which Bloomberg defends the controversial "stop and frisk" policy implemented by New York City cops during his time as mayor. Bloomberg argued stopping and frisking kids was the way to make sure they did not have guns and argued that sending cops to minority neighborhoods was justified because minority neighborhoods have more crime.

Developments

The clip began spreading on Twitter with the hashtags #BloombergIsRacist^[1] and #BloombergIsARacist.^[2] Throughout the next two days, Twitter users criticized Bloomberg for his defense of Stop and Frisk and his record and his viability as a candidate. Twitter user @ThiaBallerina^[3] tweeted that Democrats were sick of candidates with flaws akin to Donald Trump, gaining over 570 retweets and 1,900 likes (shown below, left). Trump himself tweeted the video calling Bloomberg a "total racist," but deleted the tweet (shown below, right).

The Bloomberg campaign responded to the negative press with an apology. The Mike Bloomberg Twitter account tweeted, "I have apologized for taking too long to understand the impact of stop and frisk on Black and Latino communities. I inherited stop and frisk. In an effort to stop gun violence, it was overused. I cut it back by 95%. I should have cut it back sooner" (shown below, left). The apology was not enough for several Twitter users, who pointed out that Bloomberg's record contradicted the facts. Twitter user and Bernie Sanders staffer Brianha Joy tweeted that "Stop and Frisk" started after he was elected mayor, so he did not "inherit" it (shown below, right).

Another clip of Bloomberg talking about the policy on WOR surfaced on February 11th, in which Bloomberg said he believed "we stop whites too much and minorities too little" (shown below).

CNN questioned where Dixon got the audio and attempted to smear Dixon for being a Bernie Sanders supporter (shown below).

Search Interest

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External References