Copyright New York Daily News
The Rev. Al Sharpton blasted the Islamophobic hate speech peppered throughout the city’s race for mayor as Muslim Democratic frontrunner Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani made a campaign stop in Harlem on Saturday, claiming the divisive language will only pit New Yorkers “against each other.” “I am outraged at the ugly Islamophobia that has been used in this campaign,” Sharpton told members of the National Action Network at the House of Justice in Harlem with Mamdani by his side. “To act as though every Muslim is a terrorist and connecting (him) to something as ugly as what happened to us on 9/11 is an insult to the intelligence of all New Yorkers.” During his speech, Sharpton introduced the audience to Rev. Travis Boyd, the pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in the Bronx. Boyd’s mother was killed in the towers on Sept. 11, 2001, when he was a child. “That little boy, who was a victim of 9/11, says that you can’t use my mother’s death as a political prize,” Sharpton said, turning to Boyd. “Who you gonna vote for Tuesday?” Sharpton asked him. “Mamdani,” Boyd said to a round of applause from the audience. The race for mayor — in which Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, is the frontrunner — has been laced with Islamophobic phrases and imagery, the Queens assemblyman and his supporters claim. Last month, former Gov. Cuomo, who’s running as an independent candidate, laughed and appeared to agree when radio personality Sid Rosenberg said that Mamdani would be “cheering” for another 9/11. Mamdani immediately lashed out against his opponent’s gaffe, saying Cuomo’s goal was to “smear and slander.” “Don’t play us against each other,” Sharpton warned Saturday as the heated race enters its last three days. Mamdani said the Islamophobic rhetoric surfacing from supporters of Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa was “desperate.” “It is still so unbecoming of a city that we all love and that we call our home,” Mamdani said Saturday. “This kind of naked bigotry and racism is something that many of us have come to expect from Washington, D.C., but to see someone so unabashedly running on that same kind of a vision for this city is the same person who does not know what the people of the city are looking for.” With three days to go until the next leader of the city is decided, Mamdani leads the pack of candidates, although a poll released Friday night shows Cuomo catching up. The National Action Network doesn’t endorse political candidates, and Cuomo addressed NAN at its national convention during the campaign. But Sharpton did note that Mamdani was the only mayoral candidate that consistently “showed up” to NAN events as the campaign drew on. “(When) we got down the road, we said, ‘It’s time for us to march on Wall Street.’ Only one candidate showed,” Sharpton said. “When we honored our culture at Lincoln Center just about a month and a half ago, honoring Stephanie Mills and honoring Babyface and others, only one showed. Here we are on Saturday. It’s the Saturday before election day, only one candidate showed up.” “This is not just a campaign stop,” Sharpton said. “He’s been here.” Mamdani thanked Sharpton and NAN for taking him “from 1% in the polls to being on the precipice to being the next mayor.” “You have shown a belief (in me),” he said. “You have shown a faith.”
