I have great respect for Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and his devotion to advocacy. However, I must publicly disagree with the narrative he and other Black elected officials in New York have been advancing.
Listening to Williams’ recent remarks, one message stood out: Black Americans should stand with our brothers and sisters in the South because, in their view, what is happening there will eventually happen here.
There is another, more fundamental question Black New Yorkers and Black America should ask.
What gives Black elected officials in high-tax, high-regulation cities like New York the moral authority to lecture Black communities in the South about what is best for them? In the very video of Williams’ speech, Jamaal Bowman stands right there. It’s kinda hypocritical to warn the South about voter suppression and political threats while staying mostly silent when New York State Democrats gerrymandered Bowman’s congressional district 16 and Mondaire Jones’s congressional district 17. Where was the unified press conference and fierce pushback from these same officials when Democrats did the same thing right here in New York?
Read: Black Voters, Blue States, and the Coming Power Shift Black America Must Prepare For
Furthermore, the recent Supreme Court ruling on voting provisions did not strip Black voters of their rights. Southern states held elections as recently as May, and there has not been a single credible report of any Black person being denied the right to vote as a direct result of that decision. Claims of widespread disenfranchisement appear more rhetorical than reality-based
Leadership is not conferred by title, zip code, or the passion of speeches. It is measured by the strength of the arguments, the evidence presented, and, most importantly, the measurable outcomes that policies produce for the people they claim to serve.
Black communities in the South are fully capable of determining their own interests. They do not need New York politicians speaking as if they possess superior wisdom or moral authority.
What concerns me even more is the story that Black people are being “forced” into the South or that the region represents only oppression. This ignores decades of voluntary migration flows. Large numbers of Black Americans have left states like New York, Illinois, and California for the South in search of lower housing costs, lower taxes, better job opportunities, higher homeownership rates, and improved quality to life for their families.
Read: New York Is Pricing Out the Black Middle Class — And Black Leadership Won’t Say It
If New York is losing Black residents while Southern states are gaining them, New York’s elected officials should first examine why. Why are Black families deciding they can no longer afford to stay? Why are Black entrepreneurs finding greater success elsewhere? Why are Black retirees leaving in significant numbers?
Instead of instructing the South, perhaps they should scrutinize whether their own policies—on taxes, housing, public safety, and economic development—are driving this exodus.
Black America must judge every political message, from any leader, by the same standard: outcomes.
- Stronger Black families?
- Higher Black homeownership?
- More Black-owned businesses?
- Safer neighborhoods?
- Better educational achievement?
- Greater generational wealth?
These are the metrics that matter. Justice is not proven by rhetoric or symbolic actions. It is proven by whether Black people are living better today than they did yesterday.
If we truly care about the next generation, our responsibility is not simply to pass them a baton of activism. It is to pass them stronger families, thriving businesses, safer communities, quality schools, economic ownership, and real generational wealth.
That is the legacy Black America should demand from every elected official—regardless of whether they serve in New York, Georgia, Texas, Florida, or anywhere else.
