#BloombergIsRacist: Twitter Debates Michael Bloomberg's Alleged Racism

Source: Portland Press Herald / Getty

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is fighting to improve his standing on the Democratic Party stage as a presidential hopeful, but a new hashtag on Twitter unveils potentially damaging viewpoints. On Twitter, #BloombergIsRacist has been trending with users alleging that Bloomberg supported policies that oppressed others. Political podcaster Benjamin Dixon unearthed a 2015 speech Bloomberg made at the Aspen Institute in where he defended New York’s stop and frisk policy, which unfairly targeted residents of color.

“Ninety-five percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg is heard saying. He continued with, “You want to spend the money to put a lot of cops on the street. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.” Bloomberg also said in his speech that one of the ways to keep guns out of the hands of minorities is to, “throw them up against the walls and frisk them” as a means to deter anyone from doing so. Dixon wrote via Twitter that Bloomberg suppressed the release of video from the Aspen Institute speech and it isn’t known how Dixon obtained it. However, the clip itself paints a picture that Bloomberg endorsed the rough treatment of minorities in the city despite the data showing how ineffective and racist the policy was. In the midst of spending large amounts of money in his presidential campaign, it will be interesting to see Bloomberg’s reaction to the clip going viral on Twitter. Observers online have chimed in under the #BloombergIsRacist hashtag, and we’ve got those below along with Dixon’s initial tweet.

— Photo: Getty