Saturday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the U.S. government has “exacerbated racism” across our country.

Mamdani said, “I think that we need to have a vision that encompasses all of these things. We have to have an understanding of the impacts of class, and we have to have an understanding of the impacts of race. You know, we cannot divorce the racial inequities we see across the city, which are so stark in just the measurements of median household wealth and income from the political choices and decisions that have been made over many years. And, you know, I even think about there was a policy that Rudy Giuliani had implemented of a tax lien sale. We found that the city was six times more likely to sell tax liens in a black neighborhood than in a white neighborhood. That’s, you know, that and the impact that it has on homeowners, one of the reasons why we put a pause to that sale.”

He added, “I think it just speaks to the many ways in which government has exacerbated racism across not just the city, but, frankly, across our country through its political choices. And it’s time to actually address it. And it’s time to actually address it through not only acknowledgment, but frankly, through affirmative policy. ”

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