SouthernWorldwide.com – New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered a powerful speech on Friday, just ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, targeting ICE agents, Elon Musk, and the concept of “supremacy” within the United States.
Standing alongside eight recently naturalized U.S. citizens, Mamdani’s address, themed around America 250, drew upon the historical significance of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. He then pivoted to a critique of contemporary American society.
Mamdani specifically criticized the “world’s first trillionaire,” a title achieved by Elon Musk following the successful IPO of SpaceX. He highlighted the stark contrast between immense national wealth and the struggles of hungry children.
“We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more,” Mamdani stated, without explicitly naming Musk. He also pointed to dominating monopolies and oligarchs influencing elections.
The mayor decried the actions of “masked agents terrorizing our streets,” describing a scene where they consume food prepared by undocumented neighbors before detaining them in unmarked vans.
“We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few,” he elaborated.
Speaking from George Washington’s desk, Mamdani lauded the contributions of immigrants. He asserted that they have persevered through “riots aimed at their very existence” to build lives in New York.
“Over the years that followed, despite laws enacted by the federal government to bar their entry, despite sweatshop fires that killed hundreds of women, despite riots aimed at their very existence, immigrants made homes here in New York City, and they helped to make New York City,” the mayor declared.
He emphasized the enduring legacy of Americans who have championed the idea that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness extends to all. This principle, he noted, fueled the Great Migration of Black Americans, drew Puerto Ricans to New York after World War II, and welcomed countless others from around the globe.
“And it is what brought my family to this city when I was seven years old,” Mamdani added, reflecting on his own immigrant experience.
Mamdani did not mention his family’s own affluence during the speech. His father was a distinguished Harvard academic, and his mother is an acclaimed film director.
“My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America, the promise of the beautiful patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals,” he recalled.
The mayor also criticized those with “power and influence” who he believes have historically shaped American narratives.
“There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it. American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free. It is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West. Is why children in faraway lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here. And yet, the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth, that they were anything but exceptional,” Mamdani argued.
“For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best.”
He continued by listing diverse groups who have historically faced discrimination, including Puritans, Sikhs, Quakers, Muslims, and Jewish people, all banished for their beliefs or practices. He also mentioned peasants and serfs from impoverished backgrounds who were treated as inferior.
“It sent immigrants from whom power was something someone else had,” he stated. “We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place.”
Mamdani shared his personal journey as a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. Born in Uganda in 1991, he moved to New York at the age of seven and currently holds dual U.S.-Ugandan citizenship.
“Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power. The power to determine what America means,” the mayor addressed the naturalized citizens present.
“The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy where only a select few are allowed freedom,” Mamdani declared. “Where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another.”
Mamdani also accused ICE of conducting raids in New York neighborhoods.
“We see America each time neighbors link arms with neighbors without asking how long they have lived here or what papers they have as ICE invades our neighborhoods,” he asserted. “We see America each time those young and old stand in the beating rain or the stifling heat to cast their ballots. We see America each time working people demand more not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans.”
He countered the “Love it or leave it” sentiment, stating that patriotism is not about ignoring flaws but about engaging in “righteous dissent.”
“But patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent,” Mamdani proclaimed. “It is every March led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it.”
Mamdani concluded his speech with an inspiring call for America to realize its full potential.
“What power each of us holds to bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they looked upon these shores. The greatness that for 250 years has been America. Thank you. God bless America. God bless New York City. And happy Fourth of July,” he ended.
