New York Times Responds After Zohran Mamdani Story Stirs Liberal Backlash
Source: Newsweek
Published Jul 04, 2025 at 9:27 PM EDT | Updated Jul 04, 2025 at 11:46 PM EDT
Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust at The New York Times, posted a lengthy thread on X, formerly Twitter, explaining the newspaper's controversial story on mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's 2009 application to Columbia University.
On Thursday, the Times published a report citing hacked Columbia documents that revealed the New York Democratic mayoral nominee identified as "Black or African American" on his college application. Mamdani, who is of South Asian heritage, was born in Uganda, where his family had lived for approximately a century, according to the article.
The decision to publish the Mamdani story, which was acquired via hacked information from a source, sparked liberal backlash on social media. Healy, in an 11-post thread, said in part, "Times journalists for decades have done deep reporting on major party nominees for New York's mayor to provide insight, context and texture about their priorities, history and evolution. Our reporting helps readers better understand how candidates think and what they believe."
Why It Matters
Mamdani, 33, is a New York state assemblyman who was born in Uganda to Indian parents. He has lived in New York City since age 7 and became a U.S. citizen in 2018. In the lead-up to New York City's 2025 Democratic mayoral primary, the Times editorial board issued a pointed critique of candidate Mamdani. While the news outlet had previously announced it would cease endorsing candidates outside presidential races, the board's editorial effectively served as an anti-endorsement.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-times-mamdani-article-healy-responds-2094926
Welcome to the U.S.'s system of racism/white supremacy that has been in place since the country's founding. They manufactured "rules" or "codes", enforced them in an inconsistent and bizarre fashion to manipulate every aspect of life, and then trip all over their creation generations later.
What does Muskrat call himself being a (naturalized U.S. citizen white) South African? He's an "African American", right?
African countries like Madagascar & South Africa have a large SE Asian population who were labeled "coloureds" along with other "mixed-race" individuals as a "category" in several SE African countries. Much of this was the result of the British Empire period that impacted countries like Uganda (where Mamdani's family hails from), which brought in other nationalities/ethnic groups that were part of the British Empire, like India. The notorious Idi Amin put an end to that however (although once he was out, the migrant flow from SE Asian countries returned).
= new reply since forum marked as read
as if he was "falsifying" the record and reporting himself as being "black" because of the selection of "African American".
And as I noted in the OP comments, it underscores the idiocy of the classification system that was put in place here in the U.S. where at different points in this country's history, there were continually-changing criteria including the "One drop rule", as well as whatever the Census Bureau decided to do during each decennial census, with constantly-changing racial criteria depending on "the era".
I.e., you had this kind of nonsense going on (example from 1930 taken from here - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/06/11/chapter-1-race-and-multiracial-americans-in-the-u-s-census/) -
From the same source, the one in 1860 -
The famous "Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)", where the plaintiff Homer Plessy was an "octoroon" (1/8th black), but was still considered "black", became the epitome of highlighting the insanity while imposing "separate but equal" as "the law of the land" (through the Supreme Court).
The RW loons have been attempting to "erase" all of this history and claim that we need to "start from scratch". Well, 249 years of this has done its damage and it can't suddenly be "erased" and disregarded as if it didn't happen, because it has been "culturally" (and "legally" ) absorbed into the very fabric of this nation's identity. It has impacted those who have been here for many generations and established their status in the nation's economic and social "hierarchy".
The newer immigrants have little or no idea about this history in this country, but are finding out real quick how things "change".
BUT he was born in an African country - UGANDA - and was naturalized as a citizen here in the U.S., and as I explained, there is this issue of how "classification" works (or doesn't work) in the U.S., and how it has been twisted into pretzels and obfuscated over the past 250 years.
I.e., the "current" Census designations offer the option of "black or African American" and if asked on some form what he was, he now has a choice.
In the past, people from India were once considered CAUCASIAN/WHITE in the U.S. until they weren't, because surprise surprise, the "rules" changed -
U.S. Supreme Court
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923)
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
No. 202
Argued January 11, 12, 1923
Decided February 19, 1923
261 U.S. 204
CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
1. A high caste Hindu, of full Indian blood, born at Amrit Sar, Punjab, India, is not a "white person" within the meaning of Rev.Stats., § 2169, relating to the naturalization of aliens. P. 261 U. S. 207.
2. "Free white persons," as used in that section, are words of common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word "Caucasian" only as that word is popularly understood. P. 261 U. S. 214. Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178.
3. The action of Congress in excluding from admission to this country all natives of Asia within designated limits, including all of India, is evidence of a like attitude toward naturalization of Asians within those limits. P. 261 U. S. 215.
Questions certified by the circuit court of appeals, arising upon an appeal to that court from a decree of the district court dismissing, on motion, a bill brought by the United ,states to cancel a certificate of naturalization.
(snip)
One of the more recent census changes was as a result of a (black) Nubian Egyptian who had been forced to call himself "Caucasian", because the idiots in this country still believed that Egypt was part of Europe.
I have been to Egypt and have obviously seen the Nubians who have been on that land since the beginning of that country's civilization before the Arab invasions bringing Islam to the area, and later European invasions (Greek and Roman), but who are rarely shown.
Mostafa Hefny
September 4, 2012 / 10:03 AM EDT / CBS Detroit
(snip)
Hefny is brown-skinned with curly hair. The 61-year-old was born in Egypt and came to the United States in 1978. When he was admitted to the country, he was classified on government papers as a white person, Hefny said.
"The government (interviewer) said, `You are now white,"' said Hefny, who said he is a Nubian, an ancient group of Egyptians considered more African than Arab, from the northern part of Sudan and the southern portion of Egypt.
A white person is defined as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa or the Middle East," according to Directive 15 for the federal Office of Management and Budget Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity.
(snip)
The Census has only NOW been changed (as of 2024) for the 2030 census to include a separate category for "Middle Eastern or North African".
March 28, 2024 8:44 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Hansi Lo Wang
(snip)
The "White" definition has changed, and "Latino" is now a "race and/or ethnicity"
OMB's decision to change its statistical standards on race and ethnicity for the first time in more than a quarter-century also marks a major shift in the U.S. government's definition of "White," which no longer includes people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups such as Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli, Jordanian, Kurdish, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian and Yemeni.
That move sets up "Middle Eastern or North African" as the first completely new racial or ethnic category to be required on federal government forms since officials first issued in 1977 standards on racial and ethnic data that the Census Bureau and other federal agencies must follow.
For more than three decades, advocates for Arab Americans and other MENA groups have campaigned for their own checkbox on the U.S. census and other government forms, and recent research suggests that many people of MENA descent do not see themselves as white, a category that the federal government previously considered to include people with "origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa."
(snip)
Kamala Harris is 1/2 (50%) South Asian - (her mother was from India) and 1/2 (50%) black Jamaican (her father was from Jamaica), but she identifies as "Black or "African American".
Similarly, Barack Obama is 1/2 (50%) black African (father from Kenya) and 1/2 (50%) white Euro-American, but he identifies as "Black or "African American".
Read this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3491181
And this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3491310
The "rules" are about to change AGAIN for the 2030 Census.
This guy is Egyptian (Nubian) and naturalized as a U.S. citizen for the past 45 years -
and every fucking Census has forced him to check off WHITE/CAUCASIAN. That will FINALLY change in the 2030 Census.
This is the history that is not taught. The system in this country has been fucked up for the entire 250 years of this nation's life.
W.E.B. Du Bois said it best and it applies to the 21st century -
But you also have those who have been here for many generations who have an ancestor (or ancestors) who could and chose to "pass for white", and disappear into society as that.
And done more recently -
The recent ancestry genetic testing orgs are finding some of these instances popping up in the progeny.
What I am saying is that this underscores a long-entrenched problem that no one wants to tackle and it is at play in every aspect of life in the United States - and that includes elections.
If Mamdani had been born in South Africa, he might have been considered a "coloured" (not "white" or "black" ).
You have many within the (black) African diaspora community here in the U.S. who don't want to use a "color" designation and generally accept "African American". They know their origin nationalities on the African continent, including ethnic groups that they descend from. But then you have those who DO want to use "color", as they have little or no records over generations, of their family's ancestral homelands/ethnic groups, and have consciously chosen to avoid the ancestral nationality debate.
Sweeping the nonsensical system under the rug doesn't help make sense of it and this is why there were attempts TO bring this all to light to "teach" and it was of course attacked.
Whether the selection was "intentional" or not is irrelevant. It IS a "truism", like Muskrat's, which is why you usually see a prepend of "white South African". But would you see that applied for those who are African-descended who were born and raised in England (and whose ancestors were there for generations), where they could be called a "black Brit" or "black European"?
I have seen the term but I am sure some might shudder at the designation. 
like having to memorize "the battle of this" and "the battle of that" and other garbage, there certainly is quite a bit that can be REMOVED to make way for some "sociology".
And so the point of this piece about Mamdani was?
