Adams and Cuomo rip Mamdani for identifying as African American on college application
Source: MSN
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo are calling for an investigation into Democratic nominee for mayor Zohran Mamdani for identifying as racially "Black or African American" on a leaked college application despite being South Asian.
Mamdani identified as "Black or African American" as well as "Asian" in his 2009 application to Columbia University. He said he no longer considers himself to be black or African-American and says he is an American who was born in Africa.
The mayoral candidate was born in Uganda but is of South Asian origin, though his father's family came to Africa more than 100 years ago, he said. He justified his choices on the application by saying he wanted to capture the "fullness" of his background despite the question asking for his race and not his nationality.
Most college applications dont have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background, Mamdani said.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/adams-and-cuomo-rip-mamdani-for-identifying-as-african-american-on-college-application/ar-AA1I2e4R

Ocelot II
(125,905 posts)NoRethugFriends
(3,427 posts)I doubt he can deliver on a lot of what he's campaigned on, due to financial constraints,
but he's miles better than the rest of those running.
Pototan
(2,714 posts)Mamdani, as an 18-year-old, identified on his application as "African American". He certainly is a person of color. By way of example, a Haitian individual may identify as African American, when in fact, his ancestry is Carribean. That is certainly acceptable. It should be of no consequence that Mr. Mamdani identified as African American, since his country of birth is close enough to identify in that way.
People are making a big deal out of nothing.
Safe as Milk
(131 posts)But that he identified with African Americans is not a statement regarding genetic inheritance. Anyone is free to identify with whatever cultural group they wish. The criticism says much more about Cuomo and Adams than it does about Mamdani.
Pototan
(2,714 posts)All 4 of my Grandparents were born in Italy. I certainly can't identify as Native American without severe social repercussions. And I would deserve them.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)And he was a teenager, not an attorney.
24601
(4,088 posts)by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. Choosing any other ethnicity is strictly your choice. This situation is analogous to Musk identifying as African-American. While technically accurate, we all recognize it as morally wrong when it's done to gain a competitive advantage.
Response to 24601 (Reply #56)
AZProgressive This message was self-deleted by its author.
DrFunkenstein
(8,790 posts)I certainly can't identify as an Italian-American without looking like an idiot. And I would deserve to.
Because, like, there's no connection whatsoever.
Tadpole Raisin
(1,889 posts)exactly fit. I imagine its a much more common problem now than it was 50 years ago.
What do some questionnaires say? - mark all that apply and he did.
He checked more than one box. African-American (which he kinda is, since he was born in Uganda) and South Asian (which he genetically inherited obviously).
Though to throw a wrench into the works.... One could say that Elon Musk is more African -American than Mamdani. But I digress.
LeftInTX
(32,811 posts)But I certainly don't think of him as Japanese....
I think Mamdani put Ugandan because, it would be easier to be accepted into Columbia. Just my opinion.
It's becoming more difficult for Asian-Americans (which he technically is) to be accepted into Ivy league schools.
My grandparents would never identify as Turkish, even though they were were born and raised there and their families had been there thousands for of years. We are Armenian.
However, this is a nothing-burger when it comes to his election.
Silent Type
(10,470 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)and whose family had lived in Africa for a hundred years, shouldn't check the box that said African?
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 6, 2025, 11:13 PM - Edit history (1)
And he has no Ugandan ancestors.
The box he checked was not about geography or even place of birth.
It was a box I've checked all my life. As my parents are black, and I identify as African American.
comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)define African American.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)And he was a teenager. And yet you expect him to have an adult's, and an American's, point of view on what African means.
comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)Does he still identify that way today? I the answer is no, there is no problem, if the answer is yes, big problem.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)And they looked.
comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)When I was a kid my grandmother had a picture of her great grand sisters sitting on a porch. One was sitting crossed leg and hair braided. Her facial features would be considered native American.I thought as a majority of my family is light skin. We might have native ancestors. We never took any DNA test. So when I applied for college. I never put Native American just because I hoped or was under the impression that picture was proof of it.
As an immigrant he would have learned more American history than a native born child in mean cases.
I expect him to be respectable and not try to troll or take an unfair benefit he did not deserve. I don't know why he did it as his response doesn't make any sense.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)and then wrote Uganda next to the box -- because that's where he'd come from and his family had lived for 100 years.
There is no reason to think that he would have learned more about American social norms (i.e., not counting people with South Asian ancestry as Africans) than a native born child.
Why are you comparing a high school senior to full grown adults, who've lived in the US all their lives and have been seeped in all the cultural issues here?
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)Had enough sense not to identify as Seminole, as I was born around Miami.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)You do identify as American, which is comparable -- for a young immigrant from Uganda -- to identifying as African.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)I did not think or had been to the African continent. I bring up Seminole cause I was born on their land but not on a reservation. The box he checked was about race and ethnicity. Not geography.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)You keep assuming that a 17 year old high school student who was born in Africa would understand that that box didn't refer to geography. I don't.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)Twelve years of that seventeen year old life was in the US. He moved to the U. S. When he was five. So his formative years was in New York. I seriously doubt he remembers much of Uganda when he was a teenager.
LeftInTX
(32,811 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 8, 2025, 11:31 AM - Edit history (3)
My grandfather and great grandfather were Turkish citizens. (Women weren't allowed) My family had lived there for thousands for years.
We would have never considered ourselves Turkish, because we are Armenian.
He's from an elite background. His father is a professor at Columbia. He's not just a naive kid with a form stuffed in front of his face.
His mother is a world famous film maker. His mother made this movie the year he was born!!
His mother produced Mississippi Masala. Which in some way mirrors their lives. It's about Indian family which was expelled from Uganda and moved to the US. If you watch the trailer, you will know that Zohran certainly can't be naive about these things and he certainly wasn't some kid with a paper pushed in front of his face.
He's Mira Nair's son for god's sake!!!
Zohran isn't naive. He's savvy.
He's not just an average kid with a form stuffed in his face. He thought about this......
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)what the official American definition of the term is supposed to mean? He also checked off Indian.
JI7
(92,309 posts)markpkessinger
(8,798 posts)Not that it really matters. He was born in Uganda, as a citizen of that country, and spent the first 7 years of his life in South Africa. It was perfectly reasonable of him to check both "Asian" and "Black or African American" (note the conjunction, "or" . He also additionally identified himself as "Ugandan" in a section of the application for additional information.
What all of this really points to is the extent to which the concept of "race" in this country is entirely socially constructed!
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)they wouldn't have realized there's be anything controversial about a kid from Africa checking off boxes that said South Asian and African.
LeftInTX
(32,811 posts)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Nair
He wasn't some naive immigrant kid. His mom went to Harvard and is a Hollywood filmmaker.
Nair and Taraporevala next worked together on the 1991 film Mississippi Masala, which told the story of Ugandan-born Indians displaced in Mississippi.[4] The film centers on a carpet-cleaner business owner (Denzel Washington) who falls in love with the daughter (Sarita Choudhury) of one of his Indian clients. The film revealed the prejudice in African-American and Indian communities. It was well received by critics, earned a standing ovation at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival, and won three awards at the Venice Film Festival.[11]
Here are her films:
1988 Salaam Bombay!
1991 Mississippi Masala
1995 The Perez Family
1996 Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
2001 Monsoon Wedding
2004 Vanity Fair
2006 The Namesake
2009 Amelia
2012 The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2016 Queen of Katwe
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)Hekate
(98,530 posts)
and I am happy for the simplicity of your life. In my life Ive been accustomed to living in two majority-minority states, and for many Ive known it wasnt that simple.
For our earnest bean-counters in the US government, the motives for attempting to keep track of race change just about every generation, and sometimes every census. What race even constitutes also keeps changing, because historically the country has been obsessed with blackness and whiteness. Its gotten much more interesting given the massive changes in the US population.
Fareed Zakaria said something I hadnt been aware of, and to me it gave some insight into why certain Americans have high anxiety about replacement in brief, when I was 3 years old in 1950, America was 90% white. All minorities were seriously in the minority, at 10%. (My family moved from California to Hawaii when I was 9, and the demographics were quite different) In 2021, when Fareed gave his program The Divided States of America, the numbers had flipped to 59% white.
So now when some drooling Proud Boy or 3%er says his grandpappy told him this country used to be white, the old man might have been racist, but he was not blind. Used to be is actually true. Supposed to be is something else entirely.
America was 90% white in 1950
America was 59% white in 2021
Fareed Zakaria
#Divided America
The Divided States of America
CNN Special
Feb. - 2021
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)The box for Black or African American wasn't referring to location of birth. .
Hekate
(98,530 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)AZProgressive
(29,698 posts)He is from Africa and he is an immigrant so I don't think it is like what Elizabeth Warren did but either way it is a non-issue to me.
mackdaddy
(1,792 posts)His family goes back 100 years in Africa, And he is now an American citizen.
This whole thing seems like bullshit.
I did an Ancestry DNA it it turns out I am 1%Native American and something over 1% west African in addition to English/Scott/Swiss.
What percentage Do I have to be to identify as whatever?
Is that enough that I can use the "n" word in casual conversation?
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)We do not call or refer to Musk as African American. Even though he trolls liberals by using the term. .
comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)checked off that box (in addition to writing in the word Uganda and checking off South Asia) is when he was in high school, applying for college.
Pisces
(6,061 posts)rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)How he does in the general and if he loses the African American vote again. Will show us how big a issue it is for blacks.
choie
(5,814 posts)Cuomo or Adams? Two corrupt politicians (one most likely a criminal) with more of the same middle of the road policies? Dems voting against their interest again.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)They may chose to not vote or leave the the mayor line blank. Like mamdani encourage Palestinian voters in the primary.
I've never advocated not voting, but DU has taught me it's an acceptable form of protest.
Disliking middle of the road politics is your position. Not everyone has that position.
questionseverything
(11,057 posts)Im screaming into the wind I know but, its a binary choice
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)Not saying it's right just that can happen.
choie
(5,814 posts)choie
(5,814 posts)IS voting. And it's not just middle of the road politics that I dislike. It's also corruption and criminality.
Polybius
(20,495 posts)choie
(5,814 posts)and most likely criminal who is a trump minion. Wonderful!
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)It's worked for white politicians and we'll see if it works for him
IbogaProject
(4,634 posts)Total misdirection from the issues as the wealthy don't wish to highlight their privledge, resources and unfair advantages ontop of their greed and selfishness.
OldBaldy1701E
(8,339 posts)SunSeeker
(56,151 posts)What's Cuomo offering in that regard?
choie
(5,814 posts)Bubkis.
summer_in_TX
(3,690 posts)Mamdani Once Claimed to Be Asian and African American. Should It Matter? - The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/nyregion/mamdani-college-black-reaction.html
The data itself came from a hacked college admissions archive, leaked over a decade ago. The source goes by Cremieux Recueil online, and is followed by Elon Musk who has retweeted his posts on X. He wrote and article titled "Elites are genetically different" for a pro-eugenics Substack outlet named Aporia.
He has a history of opposing race-based admissions, and apparently believes that Mamdani was trying to get a seat set aside for an African-American through a quota. Mamdani was not admitted to Columbia, even though his father is a professor there.
A Guardian investigation points to his identity being Jordan Lasker, a grad student whose writings are about "race science" and is a pro-natalist. He spoke at a pro-natalist conference at the University of Texas under his Cremieux alias in March. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenics
It is certainly ODD that the New York Times did not provide that information to readers in their article on Zohran Mamdani and his checking boxes including South Asian and African-American both, and writing Uganda beside the latter as a 17-year-old applying for colleges. Here's all they said about the source:
Looking at the article, it strikes me how many times NYT quotes people framing that as negative.
"two [rivals] suggesting potential fraud and calling for further investigation.:
"Right-wing pundits call Mr. Mamdani a liar"
"a spokesman for the Adams campaign, said that Mr. Mamdani had misrepresented his racial identity to gain admission to Columbia University, adding: This is not just dishonest its possibly fraudulent. It may have taken a place away from a qualified African American applicant and misused a process designed to correct real, systemic inequities.
"Mr. Cuomos campaign said that Mr. Mamdanis Columbia application raised questions as to whether he was hiding other information."
Mamdani, his proposals, his funding, and his background received absolutely no scrutiny from the press, said Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomos campaign. This issue must be fully investigated, because, if true, it could be fraud and just the tip of the iceberg.
[Another candidate running as an independent] asserted "that Mr. Mamdani was the most poorly vetted candidate in history.
Although they observed that he didn't claim to be black or African-American anywhere but in those applications, they do not mention that many mixed race people have trouble completing that information on the census.
Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor for NYT said:
Kamala Harris's biracial identity was questioned too.
I can attest that there's a escandal being made out of this news story. I saw a LOT of negative comments about it online.
thought crime
(488 posts)It's a non-issue but adversaries can use it as a talking point. "he claims to be Black". And you are right; it's similar to the charge that Kamala "switched her identity".
summer_in_TX
(3,690 posts)Pototan
(2,714 posts)WTF. Doesn't that make him African American?
Polybius
(20,495 posts)I recall it fairly recently.
rogue emissary
(3,289 posts)pnwmom
(109,955 posts)South Asian, and added the word "Uganda"?
Polybius
(20,495 posts)Both were born in Africa, and I don't have a problem with either saying they are AA.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)And Zohran only checked that box once.
Polybius
(20,495 posts)Nor used for anything important. Not attacking anyone though, because technically neither lied.
comradebillyboy
(10,794 posts)in South Africa make Elon Musk an African American. In the US African American means Black. It's never meant anything else.
pnwmom
(109,955 posts)and Zohran was a teenager who had immigrated from Africa. He also checked the South Asia box, and wrote in "Uganda."
Deminpenn
(16,886 posts)out of the establishment pols.
Hassin Bin Sober
(27,150 posts)RedArkGuy
(822 posts)This is the kind of garbage Republicans tried to use to defeat Elizabeth Warren in her senate runs and which Trump hoots to the skies to this day every time he mentions her.
Cuomo and Adams should both be ashamed of using Trump tactics, but neither seems capable of feeling that.
fujiyamasan
(414 posts)But chose to cover this non story, the NYT proves once again its run by a bunch of mouthpieces for the elite.
It also shows what a joke race based admissions is.
Hekate
(98,530 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 8, 2025, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Women need not be admitted/hired, theyll only get married, then pregnant, and waste their education. African-Americans, certainly not. As for Jews, sooner or later the institutions had to recognize the exceptionalism of a tiny fraction, enough to have a quota that admitted a few of these competitors, but only a few and no more.
Ruth Bader-Ginsberg was one of only a very few women admitted to her law school one of her professors (maybe the Dean himself) made her, during the introductions, stand up and justify why she, a woman, deserved to take a mans place there. Quotas because those places belonged to men, specifically white Christian men (but not Roman Catholic, because that would mean Irish and Italians and the Pope in Rome) .
Affirmative Action, on the other hand, does not operate on a quota system. The simplest possible explanation, the easiest to grasp, came to me from a County manager. County is civil service, and requires an exam as well as a resume. The exam has a range of acceptable scores. In a county with about 50% Latinos, how is it possible for the County employment roster to have almost no Latinos?
Well, back before LBJ, there used to be no requirement for open recruitment, so a supervisor was likely to simply tell his (his) current staff that an opening was coming up, and they would tell their relatives and neighbors. Interested persons would take the exam, and if they scored anywhere along the acceptable range (even the bottom of acceptability) they were hired. Long-time employees would say it was just like working with family to which I say, No Duh.
Affirmative Action changed some laws (requiring open recruitment being one) and changed the County employment culture, too, at least in my county and at least until it was outlawed. Across the whole nation (in hiring and in education) the very concept was always tarred with the Right Wing accusation that AA was quotas for unqualified POC and women. Unqualified women and POC who were unfairly taking places that were rightfully those of white men.
The Right Wing has won. But AA, which I worked on for over a decade, was not a quota system. The Right Wing, in its insistence that AA is soooooo unfair, is simply admitting that their white sons cannot handle competition.
Grins
(8,580 posts)By whom? For what?
Now fuck off.
SSJVegeta
(1,117 posts)And Mamdanis just kinda watching them ridicule the strawman while he wins.
thought crime
(488 posts)Don't embarrass us further. Move on.
Scrivener7
(56,361 posts)appmanga
(1,206 posts)...how desperate and insulting can his opponents get? The next four months will answer that, I'm sure.
Hekate
(98,530 posts)Wondering What do they really want to hear? What am I, really?
Simply on the basis of this attempt to destroy him by a major newspaper and two dirtied-up long-time politicians, I am wishing this young man all the luck in the world.
LeftInTX
(32,811 posts)Thought long and hard about it for quite awhile. We wanted financial aid. In the end, we had to put plain old white.
Trust me, I'm pretty sure he was savvy enough to know that Ugandan would help him more than Asian-American.
He's not just a kid with a form stuffed in his face. He's the son of a ivy league professor applying to an ivy league school. I'm sure he thought long and hard about this.
Heck, his mother is a world famous, excellent movie producer: Mira Nair. Her first movie was Salaam Bombay in 1988
I'm always looking for Salaam Bombay. But it isn't available on DVD anymore.
She also produced Mississippi Masala. Which in some way mirrors their lives. It's about Indian family which was expelled from Uganda and moved to the US. If you watch the trailer, you will know that Zohran certainly can't be naive about these things and he certainly wasn't some kid with a paper pushed in front of his his face.
&ab_channel=JanusFilms
I don't think Mamdani is naive about these things.......
I think he's savvy...
Heck, he's Mira Nair's son!
He's not just an average kid!!!
Hekate
(98,530 posts)On the whole, living 3,000 miles away from New York, hes not been on my radar one way or another.
So far Ive been treating his brashness much as I did when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortiz rose to prominence, got into the House, and made some stumbles to her already-worshipful fan-base here I started saying: I watch her career with interest since they couldnt bear any criticism. Any fool could see how bright and charismatic she was, and I saw great potential and hoped that potential would not be squandered. I have been SO happy to see her progress.
As for Mamdani, I have heard a couple of things that are concerning, but not enough to write him off, especially since the entities I see attacking him in a pile-on are the NYT and two old Democratic pols who are dirtied-up. I greatly distrust that set-up (cough Al Franken cough) So, from 3,000 miles away, I will watch his career with interest, and I mean that.
LeftInTX
(32,811 posts)Mississippi Masala is a warm hearted culture clash comedy and find it fitting with "Ugandan" on his college admission application.
Salaam Bombay is the original gritty Indian realism movies.
She also made the "Perez Family", which doesn't have anything to do with India. It's a comedy about Cuban immigrants.
Here is a list of her films
1988 Salaam Bombay!
1991 Mississippi Masala
1995 The Perez Family
1996 Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love
2001 Monsoon Wedding
2004 Vanity Fair
2006 The Namesake
2009 Amelia (Biopic about Amelia Aerhart)
2012 The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2016 Queen of Katwe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Nair
Hekate
(98,530 posts)I thought Monsoon Wedding was the better film, in its way. I have a copy, which I just pulled from the shelf and realized I hadnt opened, so clearly its high time I watched it again.
Two episodes I remember so well one was the courtship of the lower-caste couple, which was so heartwarming.
But the other was the dark thread of the male relative who was grooming a little girl, and how a grown woman (same age as the bride) saw his behavior and finally stopped him by slamming her hands on the trunk of his moving car. She knew him no one had saved her from him in the long-ago, but she saved this little girl.
I havent seen Mira Nairs other films, but as you can tell, this one has stayed with me ever since.
Torchlight
(5,072 posts)GOP, for-profit media, and useful idiots will run with it, but they'll just run into another wall again.
Diraven
(1,446 posts)He checked an ambiguously-interpreted box on an application for a college he didn't even get into when he was 18, and from that one thing they conclude that it must be just the tip of the iceberg of a vast criminal conspiracy? What are these people smoking, and can I have some?
eggplant
(4,091 posts)Seriously, WTF?
mainer
(12,365 posts)When the a-holes go after you, you must be doing something right.
iemanja
(56,246 posts)Two of the biggest crooks and predators in politics.
KPN
(16,748 posts)Torchlight
(5,072 posts)Good luck to the both of you.
mcar
(44,926 posts)Not a huge Mamdani fan but Adams and Cuomo are being ridiculous.
DrFunkenstein
(8,790 posts)Despite lying to Jewish people for decades that he was "Swedish" because Holocaust survivors didn't want to do real estate business with a German.
Says everything about Cuomo and Adams that they are taking straight from Trump's playbook time and time again. No wonder Mamdani is miles ahead of them in the NYC polls.
Polybius
(20,495 posts)Cuomo: 29 percent
Sliwa: 16 percent
Adams: 14 percent
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220465546
fujiyamasan
(414 posts)If he dropped out, Cuomo would be very competitive making this a much closer race.
Mamdani did luck out that his competition are all running terrible campaigns, while he has been focused on the issue most important to NYers. Cuomo was a lazy campaigner. It sounds like he was entitled.
Polybius
(20,495 posts)I know NYC doesn't have many, but there are around 30%. Sliwa got about 28% last time around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_New_York_City#Party_strength
no_hypocrisy
(52,242 posts)Columbia more than likely examined his application before his interview. They admitted him and let him enroll. They didn't have to, but they did.
End of story.
Gore1FL
(22,547 posts)I mean, that's the next step down this path, right?
Bluestocking
(167 posts)