New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing firmly behind his newly appointed Chief Equity Officer, Afua Atta-Mensah, despite a fresh furor over her past social media posts that targeted “white liberal women” and referenced “taxing the white meat.”
Pressed by reporters at a briefing on Monday, the mayor dismissed concerns that the inflammatory language should have disqualified her from the top City Hall post. Instead, Mamdani doubled down, calling Atta-Mensah a “brilliant addition” to his administration and confirming that his team was fully aware of her online history before she was hired.
“The vetting process is a complete one that presents all of this information to us in advance of any hiring decisions,” Mamdani said.
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The controversy erupted late last week after the New York Post and the New York Young Republican Club unearthed a series of deleted posts from Atta-Mensah’s X (formerly Twitter) account. In one exchange from 2021, she responded to a meme about the HBO show Succession with the phrase “tax these people to the white meat.” In another instance from September 2024, she agreed with a user comparing white women in nonprofits to Amy Cooper, the woman who infamously called the police on a Black birdwatcher in Central Park.
“A lot of y’all are Amy Coopers to the Black women in your non-profits every day,” the original post read. Atta-Mensah replied: “THIS IS A WHOLE WORD!!!!”
Critics seized on the comments as divisive, arguing they contradict the mission of the Office of Equity & Racial Justice, which Atta-Mensah now leads. The role, created following a 2022 city charter revision, is tasked with dismantling structural racism within city government.
But Mamdani, who took office just weeks ago on a progressive platform, framed the criticism as a distraction from Atta-Mensah’s professional track record. He cited her tenure at the Urban Justice Center and Community Change as evidence of her commitment to marginalized communities.
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“Afua has built a career where she has been dedicated to New Yorkers who have often not been thought of within the corridors of power,” Mamdani told reporters. “I have the utmost confidence in her ability to fulfill the mission to make this a city that each and every New Yorker can afford.”
The defense signals Mamdani’s willingness to stick by his political allies early in his term, even as his administration faces its first wave of scrutiny during his “first 100 days” agenda. Atta-Mensah, who also served as an advisor to the Mamdani campaign, has not publicly commented on the resurfaced posts since her appointment was announced on January 15.
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