What’s wrong with this picture?
New York City is reeling from a 30% increase in crime, four subway murders in the past month, legions of homeless and mentally ill people sleeping on subway platforms and city sidewalks, and shuttered storefronts that have yet to reopen post-COVID.
Yet, today, Election Day, city voters are asked to approve three woefully woke proposals that have nothing to do with any of that.
The first one is for new preamble to the City Charter, which cites historical “grave injustices and atrocities” that “continue to be experienced by marginalized groups, including, but not limited to, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and other People of Color, women, religious minorities, immigrants, people who are LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities.”
The proposed preamble says “equity and inclusiveness” will be “unwavering standards,” and a city voter guide says “the city can more effectively make racial equity (italics added) central to its policymaking and planning, (and) it could help” direct funds from a proposed $4.2 billion state bond issue to “anti-pollution projects in the most vulnerable neighborhoods.”
In this instance, equity means equally divvying up resources among the races, rather than ensuring all people get an equal opportunity to succeed, as I pointed out here. This is antithetical to our founding, a silent, socialist uprising by code word, and no one is talking about it.
A second ballot proposal in New York proposes the creation of a new Racial Equity Office and a Commission on Racial Equity, which must release a biannual assessment of the city’s progress in achieving racial equity. That word appears 49 times in the 956-word abstract.
The third of three city proposals on the ballot would require the city to develop a new metric for the “true cost of living,” but “without considering public, private, or informal assistance, in order to inform programmatic and policy decisions,” to focus on “dignity rather than poverty,” as the proposal abstract says. The aim is to spur more public assistance.
To my fellow New Yorkers: are we really this bad, this bigoted and hateful?
Happily, I see members of these supposedly victimized groups living large and out loud every day here, unfettered, and free to say and do whatever they want. This is one of the most accepting, accommodating places in the world; just stay out of my face.
Our city’s population is 52.5% minorities, 41.3% white. On our police force, likewise, 53% are people of color. A year ago, we elected a Black mayor, Eric Adams. For the 51-member City Council, voters elected 31 women (a first-ever female majority), and the first Muslim, first South Asian member, first (openly) gay black woman, and seven foreign-born New Yorkers.
How did they get elected in such a racist, sexist city? In fact, how can they let this trauma continue against their own people, now that they have risen to the seat of power?
In New York, immigrants have built thousands of businesses: Greeks own diners, the Chinese own restaurants, Jewish families own bagel shops and delis, Latinos own bodegas, Koreans own nail salons, Asians own vegetable shops, Israelis own moving companies. How do they stay in business if they have to endure daily “grave injustices” from clients who hate them?
The clear answer is there are few atrocities to prevent. City police have recorded 469 hate crimes all year long; February was the worst month, with 87 incidents. A pittance, really, in a city of 8.85 million people.
Meanwhile, we hear nothing about how to tackle the real problems afflicting the people the city wants to help: surging crime and tattered ties between residents and police; the mentally ill and homeless; a shortage of affordable housing; and a rent-control system that hamstrings landlords and discourages investment in new apartment buildings.
Fixing those problems is hard. It’s much easier to rally voters around a bunch of empty words in search of a rhetorical solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Dennis Kneale, @denniskneale on Twitter, is a writer and media strategist in New York. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Wall Street Journal, the managing editor of Forbes, and an anchor at CNBC and Fox Business. Read Dennis Kneale's reports — More Here.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.