Mamdani economic advisor is reparations activist who says 'devaluation of Black lives' ingrained in US system

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani disclosed a new economic and workforce improvement transition club that will be headed by among others reparations activist Darrick Hamilton who argues the U S market system and governmental policies related to it are racist Hamilton who went to Oberlin College and later the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill is the founding director of the Institute on Race Power and Political Financial system at the progressive The New School university in New York City Hamilton's academic biography at The New School calls him a pioneer in the field of stratification economics which is aimed at looking at how race and ethnicity are embedded into inequality in instruction economic and medical outcomes Mamdani released Monday the creation of more than transition advisory committees made up of more than people to help advise his incoming administration including the Committee on Economic Progress Workforce Maturation which Hamilton will help lead MAMDANI'S TOP INCOMING AIDE WAS CHIEF ARCHITECT OF RADICAL PROPOSAL OVERHAULING NYPD Since our nation s inception the immoral devaluation of Black lives has been ingrained in America s political business sector and has manifested in a persistent unjust and enormous racial wealth gap Hamilton informed Congress in Our unjust racial wealth gap is itself an implicit measure of our racist past that is rooted in a history in which whites have been privileged by a administration complicit in political and economic intervention s that have afforded them access to tools and iterative and intergenerational accumulation Hamilton also sits on the New York State Neighborhood Commission on Reparations Remedies where he advises members of the New York State legislature on approach recommendations for reparative justice as it relates to the historical and present-day consequences of slavery and discrimination One proposal Hamilton is known for is socioeconomic-based Baby Bonds which would essentially establish racially conscious trust funds for children The Baby Bonds would be given a certain amount of seed funding depending upon determined need and would grow until the kids become adults and can use the money Hamilton has argued that one-time reparations payments do not go far enough and efforts such as the Baby Bonds proposal should be taken to help Black folks garner ownership of means of production in American society Meanwhile Hamilton has been criticized for allegedly wanting to add Black immigrants to reparations policies as opposed to making them exclusively for the descendants of slavery Yvette Carnell a prominent activist and co-founder of the American Descendants of Slavery ADOS movement has also called Hamilton clueless and accused the scholar of kowtowing to whichever politician is in power The racial wealth gap is such that the typical Black family has about cents on the dollar as a typical white family Hamilton mentioned during a podcast episode on Freakonomics Radio That history of racial disparity as it relates to wealth-building certainly didn t end with slavery Hamilton added There was the Homestead Act There was the G I Bill There was a system of sharecropping There s a system of Jim Crow There is a system of redlining It was government-facilitated UNEARTHED ANTISEMITIC ANTI-ISRAEL POSTS FROM MAMDANI AIDE SPARK GOP OUTRAGEDuring a separate appearance on The Black News Channel Hamilton also stated he is not one to compromise on agenda either when demanded why Democrats are consistently compromising with crazy people I don't like the word compromise because one thing we know is that when we think about race the group that is typically the first to be compromised are the issues related to those that are largest part marginalized which in the United States' context has been Black people Hamilton noted during the Black News Chanel interview We need establishment to start doing good Hamilton continued because when people realize the administration can do good it creates a momentum a movement forward that makes it harder for us to turn back Other folks tapped for Mamdani's new Committee on Economic Rise and Workforce Rise include Gustavo Gordillo co-chair of the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and Deyanira Del R o executive director of the New Business sector Project which she has reported on the record is dedicated to building an economic activity rooted in racial and gender justice neighborhood equity and ecological sustainability Not long after Mamdani won his voting process and began nominating members to his transition crew he faced backlash for staffing his band with aides from former NYC mayoral campaigns ranging from Bill de Blasio to Michael Bloomberg to Eric Adams Mamdani also tapped a longtime Biden adviser to help lead his transition that garnered criticism The polls have barely closed and already the incoming mayor is urgent one of his core promises to shake up the status quo and usher in a new day New York City started a downward spiral under the de Blasio administration and now specific of its main players are returning to the halls of power Republican strategist Colin Reed advised Fox News Digital And former FTC Chair Lina Khan became synonymous with her hostility toward businesses large and small during the Biden administration and one of the ringleaders of Bidenomics Neither Mamdani's squad nor Hamilton responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comments in time for publication