Much worse than any of us could have imagined, that's how it felt when Eric Adams came into office. I try to go back to that day, it was like the day after he was elected. The very first thing that this man, Eric Adams, the freedom fighter that he was, the Civil Rights leader he was claiming to be during the campaign, his first act as mayor, do you remember what it was? He expanded solitary confinement on Rikers Island. After he expanded solitary confinement on Rikers in his new city council, the majority of them actually voted to reprimand him for doing that. He came out and publicly said, "I'm not going to listen to you city council because you have never been a police officer," stating really clearly that the only opinions that actually matter when it comes to whether to lock someone up or not, the conditions of confinement, the torture of solitary confinement, the only opinions that matter are those who made a living arresting people, controlling people, taking away people's freedom. But that's the precedent he set right out the gate. He's not a black mayor, he is not the hip-hop mayor, he's NYPD's mayor.
Eric Adams was a Transit cop and NYPD Captain for 22 years. But have you ever wondered how he became a police officer? When Eric Adams was just 14 years old, he was in a gang. Believe it or not, he and his brother stole a TV set and a money order and were later arrested when Adams tried to cash that money order. Adam said that at the station two white cops took the boys downstairs and began to beat them down, kicking them in their groin in testicle areas so that the injuries wouldn't show up. But then a black cop eventually looked into the room and told the officers "that's enough." They beat Eric Adams so bad that he said that he had blood in his urine for seven days and they sent him to juvie.
Adam said that it made his brother develop a deep hatred for the cops but not him. He was drawn to the power these white men had. They beat the brakes off them two teenage boys and Eric Adams said that he thought to himself "the cops had a great hustle." But in particular, he said he was enamored by the black cop. The power that the black cop had to be able to tell the white cops to stop was the closest thing Eric Adams said that he'd seen to a black man being the equal of white folks and he liked that.
He said that he decided right then that the black cop was more powerful than the black petty criminals he had admired. That they had more clout, more juice as the kids would say and he wanted to become a black policeman so he could get in on the quote "free drinks," "the swagger," "the respect," "the fear." And that is a practice that we know Mayor Adams has taken full advantage of.
That is why Eric Adams became a black cop. In his eyes, it was the closest he could get to being the equal of a white man. It was the most powerful he could become. It was how he could instill fear. He decided he would not be a criminal when he realized that as a black cop in his neighborhood, he could instill more fear, get more respect and more perks.
This realization by Adams was his recognition that we live in a police state and he decided to buy in. It did not matter to him that the way these officers were commanding respect and power was through abusing black men and boys just like himself. If he could be the black cop in the room his takeaway was about power not just this not Blackness but Power.
Eric Adams does not care about police brutality nor does he see being a police officer as a means of protecting black boys and men who are brutalized by the police.
In March 2022 NYPD officers claimed an 18-year-old boy Luis Manuel Monsanto failed to stop for a traffic stop in The Bronx so the officers chased the boy and opened fire on his vehicle shooting him in the head leaving him in critical condition officers are actually...
never trust a blackman with no facial hair.
