Mayor compares housing activist, who fled the holocaust, with plantation owner

The first question during a community conversation with Mayor Eric Adams in Washington Heights on Wednesday night was about the housing crisis in New York City.

Not satisfied with his answer, a woman in the crowd stood up, accusing the mayor of being controlled by the real estate industry and criticizing two years of rent increases for rent stabilized apartments. Mr. Adams was not satisfied.

“First of all, if you’re going to ask a question, don’t point at me or be disrespectful to me,” he told her. “I am the mayor of this city and treat myself with the respect I deserve to be treated.”

Then he took it a step further and compared the woman, who is white, to a slave owner: “Don’t stand in front like you’re treating someone who’s on the plantation that’s yours.”

The woman, Jeanie Dubnau, an 84-year-old housing activist and molecular biologist, said in an interview afterwards that her Jewish family had fled Europe during the Holocaust. She said the rent increases were a “disaster” for seniors and she believes the mayor attacked her for not having a strong defense to allow them.

“It was a complete departure from what I said because he has no answer,” she said.

Mr. Adams, the city’s second black mayor, has often expressed concern about racism when he feels attacked. During the 2021 mayoral election, he argued that his competitors, Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia, had joined forces to prevent “a person of color” — particularly a black or Latino — from becoming mayor. When blamed for the Democrats losing the 2022 New York midterm elections for instilling fear of crime, Adams said his critics offended the black and Latino communities most affected by gun violence.

More recently, he has twice compared himself to Kunta Kinte, a character on the 1977 television series “Roots” who was beaten for refusing to accept the slave name Toby.

“I know you think you can hit me and make me say Kunta Kinte in Toby, but damn it, Kunta Kinte is all I know,” the mayor said at a Juneteenth party at Gracie Mansion after criticizing on the abrupt departure of his police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, who announced her resignation earlier this month.

Mr. Adams too recently claimed there was a “coordinated” effort to prevent him from winning a second term. When asked who was coordinating that effort, the mayor again compared himself to Kunta Kinte, saying, “There is a group of people who were content with 30 years without a mayor who looked like me.”

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said in a statement that “anyone who believes this mayor isn’t fighting for tenants hasn’t been paying attention.” He added that the Adams administration was making “extensive plans to build more homes, faster and across the city, which is the only way to really solve the affordability crisis.”

Ms. Dubnau, who lives in Washington Heights, said she was not trying to be disrespectful to the mayor and simply wanted her voice heard at a tightly controlled event.

“I didn’t have a microphone,” she said. “I had to speak loudly so everyone could hear what I was saying.”

The rent increases — including 3 percent increases on one-year leases — will affect about two million people living in rent-stabilized apartments. Housing advocates have said they were too high at a time when many New Yorkers were struggling, but Mr. Adams has defended them as necessary for small property owners facing rising costs.

She said she was surprised the video of her exchange with Mr. Adams went “absolutely viral,” adding that she hoped it made people realize “how he’s more pro-landlord than any other mayor we’ve had recently.”

The mayor prides himself on being a lifelong New Yorker; Mrs. Dubnau said she’s lived here since she was 8. So were her parents lived in Germany when her mother was pregnant with hershe said, and fearing persecution, they fled to Belgium, where she was born in 1938, and then to France, before finally moving to the United States.

The tantalizing exchange took place during a community talk called “Talk to Eric,” one in a series of performances the mayor has made around town. During the panels, the mayor invites top officials from his administration and fellow elected leaders to answer questions from the public. Wednesday’s event also included Representative Adriano Espaillat, a powerful leader in northern Manhattan and a political ally of the mayor.

The first question came from a local community board member who asked about housing insecurity. Mr. Adams responded that housing was one of the three biggest problems in New York City, along with public safety and the migrant crisis. He criticized state lawmakers in Albany for failing to address the housing crisis during their recent legislative session when Ms. Dubnau began interrupting.

Before she started confronting him, Mr. Adams argued that he has no control over the Rent Guidelines Board, which approved the rent increases and whose members he appoints.

“I make appointments – they make the decision,” said the mayor. “Everyone knows I don’t run the board.”